Igor Pushkarev, Mayor of Vladivostok: biography, personal life, criminal prosecution

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:53

For more than a year, residents of Primorsky Krai have been watching how their elected mayors find themselves at the center of criminal scandals. The mayors of Vladivostok are by no means squeamish about exceeding their official powers and creating “bureaucratic lawlessness” for the sake of their own selfish interests. This also applies to Viktor Cherepkov, and Yuri Kopylov, and Vladimir Nikolaev. The last mayor of Primorye, Igor Pushkarev, was no exception. Why do all the mayors of the above region ultimately choose the path of crime? Political scientists explain this as a conflict of interest between the mayor and the governor. The most pressing issues were and remain the division of land and budgetary relations. Nevertheless, from a material point of view, the heads of the city of Vladivostok have always been all right. Still, in 2009, Pushkarev's financial profit was estimated by independent experts at 5.1 billion rubles. But after 6 years, the official's official income amounted to only 1,158,340.57 rubles.

How come Igor Pushkarevcame to power and became the head of a large region rich in minerals and fish? Let's take a closer look at this issue.

Biography

Igor Pushkarev is a native of the village of Novy Olov, which is located in the Chernyshevsky district of the Chita region. He was born on November 17, 1974. Having received a certificate of maturity, the young man went to storm the university in Vladivostok. There he became a student at the local Institute of International Relations. Despite the fact that already from the first year Igor Pushkarev began to work actively in various commercial structures, this did not prevent him from obtaining a diploma in international economics. He even received a PhD in Law.

Work activity

But material interest was still more important for a young man than scientific research. In the first half of the 90s, Igor Pushkarev got a job as a sales manager in a large company "Busan", which was engaged in the supply of instant noodles and cakes to Russia.

After some time there was a "mysterious" murder of the founder of the above structure. After working there a little more, the future mayor of Vladivostok creates his own structure.

Start a business

In 1997, Igor Pushkarev, whose biography is not without interest for many, opens his own business. The young man creates the Park Group company and becomes its immediate supervisor. His offspring a few years later became a monopoly onregional building materials market. Enterprises producing cement, crushed stone and other materials for the construction of buildings and structures became under the control of Park Group.

In 1998, Igor Sergeevich Pushkarev "became at the helm" of the Pervomaisky ship repair plant, and at the beginning of the 2000s he headed the largest enterprise Spasskcement.

Political career

Success in entrepreneurship inspired the “international economist”, he decided to try his hand at politics.

First he became a parliamentarian in the Spassk City Duma. Then, in 2001, Pushkarev was elected to the deputies and vice-speakers of the regional parliament. And then he was entrusted with another high and responsible post.

Mayor

In the spring of 2008, as a result of an active election campaign, Igor Sergeevich Pushkarev became the head of the city of Vladivostok. The businessman secured 57% of the vote, which meant that a second round would not be needed: despite the low voter turnout (23%), victory was assured.

After Pushkarev took over as mayor, he announced that he had no plans to make personnel changes in the bureaucracy.

“Four years later, Vladivostok will turn into a garden city, the APEC summit will contribute to this,” the mayor proudly declared. In turn, the local electoral committee officially announced that the elections were held: their winner should soon resign from his deputy powers and officially appear before the townspeople in a new status. And so it happened.

"Successes" onnew post

What good did Igor Pushkarev, whose family consists of his wife and three sons, do for Vladivostok? To be fair, the businessman was generous with his promises.

He did not hesitate to say that he would "give" the city fifty new kindergartens, which the residents of Vladivostok never saw. The mayor also assured the citizens that modern hotels "Hayat" would appear in the capital of Primorye by the APEC summit, which have not yet been completed. But Igor Pushkarev began to actively reform the urban transport system. In Vladivostok, the number of trams was immediately reduced, and in the center of the capital of Primorye a bizarre one-way aorta was formed, which made it even more difficult to move along the streets. The new roadbed is another project of the mayor. And although it was nevertheless laid (with violation of the deadlines), the quality left much to be desired. What Igor Sergeevich really cared about was his selfish interests. The cement plants under his control made huge profits during the period of preparation for the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation. No wonder Pushkarev takes one of the places of honor in the Forbes lists. The wife of the mayor, by the way, is also quite a we althy woman. She owns expensive real estate and a car.

Arrest

The Russian public was shocked when they learned that the mayor of Vladivostok, Igor Pushkarev, is accused of abuse of power and commercial bribery. Journalists began to savor this topic at the beginning of summer.

However, the sharks did not have one hundred percent certainty that the mayor of Vladivostok Igor Pushkarev was involved in something illegal. Therefore, only a few newspapermen dared to give any comments about the businessman's involvement in the crimes. Only by the evening of June 1 did the federal media authoritatively report that the investigators had arrested Igor Pushkarev. After the detectives searched his office and house and analyzed the state of affairs in commercial companies owned by the relatives of the mayor, it was decided to choose a measure of restraint in the form of detention against him. The culprit was immediately transferred to Moscow.

Reason for detention

Why did Pushkarev find himself at the center of a criminal scandal? The investigators managed to establish that, being in a responsible position, Igor Sergeevich, through tenders, created ideal conditions for commercial structures under his control, namely: they became the only suppliers of building materials for the Vladivostok Roads MUPV.

Moreover, they sold concrete and asph alt at a higher price than their competitors.

Besides this, Pushkarev used the "administrative resource" to be able to influence other organizations involved in road works. In particular, Vodokanal and Primvodokanal were unable to start repair work involving the opening of the roadway untilas long as their contractors have not signed documents on cooperation with the MUPV "Roads of Vladivostok". The latter was supposed to asph alt the track after the completion of the repair work. Employees of the antimonopoly department caught the official in fraud with state orders, and the arrest of Igor Pushkarev became a "technical matter".