HRC member Shota Gorgadze will appeal to the FSB in connection with inconsistencies in the case of a former Irkutsk official. Indeed, the “disputed” plots cannot simultaneously belong to the forest fund and the agricultural land bank? Gorgadze does not rule out that the persecution of Naumov was initiated by a specific person who decided to take away land near Baikal from local residents. If so, then it is understandable why the local security forces tried to use the materials of the unfinished criminal case in the civil process.
On February 17, the regional court will consider an appeal against the verdict against the former mayor of the Irkutsk region, Igor Naumov. In May last year, the court of first instance found his guilt in abuse of power and fraud proven. Naumov was sentenced to eight years in prison, murderers are often given less. The verdict has not yet entered into force and there is every reason to believe that it will not.
Lawyers for the official and experts in the field of land relations continue to declare his innocence. Moreover, they warn that if the verdict is upheld on appeal, hundreds of Irkutsk families could lose their legally acquired housing.
Shota Gorgadze, a well-known lawyer and member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, told reporters about the many inconsistencies in this case at the MK press center on Monday. He does not exclude that the desire of a certain person to create a “new Rublyovka” near Baikal may be behind the persecution of Naumov. “I don’t believe in mistakes, I don’t believe in coincidences. When thunder strikes from a clear sky, do not convince me that this is an atmospheric phenomenon. If there is a war for land – and land is expensive! – and a certain “grey eminence” is the ultimate beneficiary of the criminal case, FSB officers should work here,” he confirmed his intention to apply to the relevant authorities.
The names of people who may be interested in the redistribution of land near Baikal, he does not name yet. At the same time, Anastasia Egorova, Naumov’s wife and former deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk region, made it clear that one of the current vice-governors could be involved.
With rights, but without borders
After the initiation of a criminal case in 2015, Igor Naumov, who led the Irkutsk region for eight years, resigned. The investigation dragged on for almost four years, and the trial lasted about the same. Timing plays an important role here, because against the backdrop of the persecution of the former mayor, lawsuits have started to seize land from local residents. It looked like Naumov’s opponents were trying to influence the civil courts with the help of a still unfinished investigation. We will return to this topic later. Still, it’s worth starting with the cornerstone of this case – the status of “disputed” sites and records in Rosreestr.
“You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand: according to the documents, this or that piece of land is either a forest or agricultural land. The court of first instance, by some logic unknown to me, interprets that the lands can have a dual purpose. This is important, because Igor Naumov, allocating plots, acted in accordance with the spirit and letter of the law,” said Shota Gorgadze. He stressed that after the allocation of these lands, by order of the former mayor, the plots were put on the cadastral register, data on them were entered in the USRN. “Neither Rosreestr, nor the Cadastral Chamber were subordinate to Igor Naumov as the head of the district. They were obliged to carry out their own verification before entering the sites in the register. Explain to me, please, if the court of first instance believes that Igor Naumov committed a crime in this way, then where are the defendants in the case from Rosreestr and the Cadastral Chamber?” the lawyer asked.
He is convinced that the Naumov case belongs to the category of cases where an unlawful decision simultaneously affects a wide range of people. Yulia Saenko, a practicing lawyer and member of the expert council of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources, Property and Land Relations, agrees with Gorgadze. “Everyone who moves to another city or decides to acquire a country house can get into such a situation. You will buy land in a settlement and you will be absolutely sure that the site belongs to this category of land. But then what happened to people who became hostages of the situation in the Irkutsk region may happen,” she said.
The reasons for all this, Yulia Saenko believes, lie in the legacy of the hasty land reform of the 1990s. “No other country in the world has gone through such significant changes in the sphere of land and property relations in such a short period of time. Certificates of ownership were often issued according to some business books. Large areas of land ownership were not inventoried,” the expert canceled. In the course of a gradual inventory for the same site, I could get several draft geodetic maps at once, which simultaneously ended up in the archives. It often happened that the cards did not get into storage at all. The case against Igor Naumov is a vivid example of this. According to Sayenko, the document about the alleged right to the “disputed” land of the IrGHSA was kept almost under the pillow of the rector – it was not submitted to any archive at all, but nevertheless became one of the pillars of the prosecution.
“It is clear that such an inventory could not but give rise to problems, and in Russia we have an institution of lands that are not delimited in circulation – a lot of lands with rights, but without borders. The problem was solved as follows: since in fact it is not known whose lands, they should be disposed of by the municipality within whose boundaries they are located. That’s what Igor Naumov did! the lawyer continued. Otherwise, the situation could reach complete absurdity. Yulia Saenko cited the situation with a peat bog that burned in the Ushakovsky municipality of the Irkutsk region in 2014 as an example. “Nobody put out. Guess why? No one wanted to sit, because this is an inappropriate use of budget funds – either a forest or a settlement. The municipality had to introduce a state of emergency to say: we have a lot of smoke, this is not our territory, but we will put out.”
presumption of guilt
The wife of the former mayor of the Irkutsk region, Anastasia Egorova, said that the allocation of land plots was an anti-crisis measure. “In 2008, the government of the region gave us a tough task: to find resources to raise the tax base. I remember how we really cut the budget on the live – we needed money for education and health care, but in fact there is none. I believe that at that time the administration of the Irkutsk region made a strategic decision – to inventory all the land that was not used. At the same time, the administration and deputies of the district came up with a legislative initiative and proposed at the regional level to fix the free provision of land plots, defining the circle of beneficiaries. And this law No. 8 was adopted in 2009.
According to Egorova, the law has shown its effectiveness and is still in force, thanks to it, tens of thousands of residents in the Irkutsk region alone, not to mention the entire region, received land for free, others were able to register already built houses as property and began to pay taxes, and young specialists went to the villages to live and work. Everyone saw the result very quickly. In 2007, 65.5 thousand people lived in the Irkutsk region, and budget revenues amounted to 720 million rubles. By 2015, the population grew to 107 thousand people, and the revenue side of the budget – up to 1.7 billion rubles. “People in the villages felt that they were needed, and the prosecutor’s office says that the mayor has discredited the municipal authorities with his actions,” says Igor Naumov’s wife.
She also connects the scandalous result of the election of the governor of the Irkutsk region in 2015 with the case against her husband. These were the first elections when the governor (at that time the region was headed by United Russia Sergey Eroshchenko) asked the President for an early confirmation of his powers. As a result, he lost to the communist Sergei Levchenko. “It was a protest vote. When we analyzed the figures, we saw that he lost precisely because the inhabitants of the Irkutsk region voted against or did not go to the polls. Everyone understood the political matter to remove the objectionable mayor,” Anastasia Egorova believes.
“Do we once again want to spit in the face of our fellow citizens, because, perhaps, someone needs these lands? Yes, now many cannot travel to Europe. The Irkutsk region has become one of the most popular regions for tourists, and if there is an opportunity, why not “squeeze” the land? I understand this logic. At the same time, I understand that this logic is criminal! People who falsify criminal cases for personal enrichment should be in prison. They should be in prison instead of Igor Naumov,” said Shota Gorgadze, noting that any ordered criminal case hits the authority of the government.
Who benefits?
According to Yulia Saenko, it is appropriate to compare the “land wars” in the Irkutsk region with what happened and is happening in the south of Russia. “We even have a proverb: if you become mayor, you take a turn in the prison. But again, this applies only to a few places on Lake Baikal – the villages of Listvyanka and Molodyozhny, Olkhon Island. I have not heard of such problems, for example, in Ust-Baley, where there used to be zones. Everyone can draw their own conclusions,” the expert said.
Previous litigation, including around DNT “Dream” in the village of Molodyozhny, can give federal law enforcement officers a lot of food for thought. In August 2017, the court refused to return to the state the plots of local residents, which they allegedly received as part of Igor Naumov’s “fraudulent scheme”. The plaintiff was the prosecutor’s office, which used all the cards that were on hand. “We were very surprised – almost the entire criminal case (against Naumov – Ed.) was brought to the civil process, they brought us their examinations and protocols of interrogations,” said Yulia Saenko. At the same time, the case itself was at that time in the stage of preliminary investigation.
“The logic of those who did this is obvious to me. This is an attempt to tell the judge: do not be afraid, make a decision in our favor, and we will finish the criminal case, it is easier for us there, ”Shota Gorgadze said. He stressed that if the verdict against the former mayor of the Irkutsk region is upheld on appeal, the prosecutor’s office will certainly try to again take land from people in favor of the state and force them to demolish their homes.
After the court victories in 2017, the residents of DNT Mechta, DNT Dubrava and DNT Solnechnaya Polyana had no reason to doubt the legitimacy of their acquisitions – many people built or bought houses on a mortgage. The destruction of the villages will mean ruin for them. “Based on the logic of those who oppose us, the land will not be a dead weight, but will quickly find new owners,” suggested Shota Gorgadze. At the same time, 142 families now live in Mechta alone.
The conviction of Igor Naumov and the preservation of summer cottages by decision of civil courts are, in fact, a bifurcation of reality. But next week, the Irkutsk Regional Court will have to decide the fate of not only the former official and his family, but also dozens of homeowners, among whom there are families with many children, and the disabled, and just people who have been saving for their dream homes for years.