Igor Ivannikov
Social activist
Dear Analysts, please don't consider this to be intrusive, but you must admit that it's not every year that a president, even one like Poroshenko, summons his representative to the capital and forces him to resign voluntarily as head of the regional state (?) administration. And this head, before being appointed to his post after the brief tenures of Gennady Nikolenko and Mykola Romanchuk, was the first to participate in the local and capital's Euromaidan. And now, a sad ending. Perhaps it's worth summing up his political career. He is our local politician, not some imported parachutist.
But in the weeks since his cooling chair has been unparalleled, no one has heard a word of remorse from this loyal vassal of Senya the Rabbit. Instead, the internet has been littered with confused, if not habitually inarticulate, statements about his surprise at the arrest of Mykola Romanchuk, or his dubious culpability in accepting part of a 100-ruble bribe for "vapno," or the supposed extraction of limestone.
Vadim is confused, but his conscience doesn't bother him. It hasn't bothered him for a long time! It so happened that, before the author of these notes, in April 1999, coach Nikolai Hadzhioglo led the promising kickboxer Vadik Merikov by the hand to Vladimir Zaplatinsky, who briefly headed the regional organization of the SDPU(O), my classmate from School No. 25. Nikolai Yeropunov then supported his studies at the law faculty of the local branch of Odessa Ilya Mechnikov University. And I personally was introduced to Merikov, the recently elected nominal chairman of the board of JSC Sigma-Sport, by Yuriy Kushch, then secretary of the Leninsky District Committee of the SDPU(O). He introduced me out of necessity. Not mine, but Merikov's.
Let me remind blog visitors that, at that time, in order to support a football team and, incidentally, numerous boxers of various kinds, a group of sports enthusiasts founded by Oleg Bogomaz, chairman of the regional boxing federation, officially acquired land (behind the plane and before the circus) between Mira and Zhovtnevyi (Bogoyavlensky) Avenues for the company "Sigma..." to develop the already existing informal shopping arcades. The clothing market, ZAO "Sigma-Sport," was supposed to hand over all profits to Merikov's fellow athletes. Originally, another boxer, Boyko, was supposedly intended to serve as the figurehead. But he was blown up by two incompetent hitmen hired by Mishchenko. Because of their carelessness, shards of glass from the windows of the children's clinic on Centralny (Lenina, also known as Khersonska) Avenue rained down on doctors and children in the waiting rooms.
Merikov was given a narrow section of the job by Bogomaz. Communication with the tent and shell rental companies was delegated to the market director, retired Colonel Fedorishchev. General issues were handled by Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Dergunov, also retired from the Organized Crime Control Department. Vadim was left to handle PR, for example, the creation of the Association of Market Entrepreneurs, headed by Lisyanskaya. And then my human rights work came in handy. Later, I had to help extricate a section of the city stadium designated for disabled sports from under Governor Alexei Garkusha. They did. Now the tin shops there stand closed. They're of no use to either athletes or disabled people. The founders quietly sold the clothing market near Kolos to Odessans.
Nikolai Petrovich Kruglov greatly exaggerated the extent of Vadim's influence over the Okean plant under Nikolai Romanchuk, where Merikov was repeatedly sent by Bogomaz. The division of the plant between Grigoryev and Romanchuk under Anatoly Kinakh was not Vadim's doing. It wasn't his doing. But his long-standing acquaintance with Romanchuk greatly facilitated Merikov's appointment to his post, named after Rabbit Senya, under the quota principle. However, all day-to-day matters, both before and after, were handled by Nikolai Narayevsky, who occupied a narrow office next to the reception room of the regional administration's head (with breaks for stints at Sandor and Vtortsvetmet) since 1992.
Vadim Ivanovich has very good parents—respected rural teachers from the Meshkovsky farmsteads—and a capable brother. He has experience working in parties in their dubious Ukrainian sense, leading the Zmin Front, where Tanya Konovalova handled all the dirty work. And where Oksana Yanishevskaya, now accused of manipulating insulin procurement and, before that, of conniving with the director of Boarding School No. 5, learned to lead. But these skills and connections were clearly insufficient for regional leadership. When I had the opportunity to arrange a meeting between Merikov and Vladimir Naumovich Serebryany, chairman of the ChSZ strike committee, Vadik couldn't understand what the Shipyard was or how he could help him save it from the Churkin brothers.
Even now, he can't understand why his former frequent interlocutors and comrades from the Euromaidan, where he conscientiously froze alongside everyone else, including Olga Verbitskaya and her comrades, were so persistent in seeking his resignation. He doesn't understand that he needs to refute the persistent belief of his former comrades in misfortune that he was waiting in his office for a share of the money for Vita Moskalenko after Romanchuk fulfilled his mediation mission, which led to the ignominious end of his meteoric career as a recent plant director.
Gossips in the regional council are spreading a rumor that Romanchuk's aide, Ovchar, who was detained and interrogated, called his boss after an unsuccessful attempt to detain him near the Appeals Court building on Sadovaya Street. Romanchuk then demanded, despite the SBU officers hot on his tail, that he come to him with the money.
Any reader of vulgar detective stories would have realized that they should have thrown the backpack with the money out of sight and run as fast as they could into the wilds of Temvod. If this wasn't done, then the money wasn't going so much to Vadim and Vita as it was to the top, that is, to the capital's roof of hapless currency collectors. And their roof was leaking! It proved powerless!
This signal episode, which occurred due to the inexperience of the capital's SBU operatives, demonstrates that Romanchuk, with his experience working for Herman Quast in the Netherlands and Merikov and Bogomaz, is equal in intelligence to this messenger, Ovchar. It's based on a habitual belief in the power of the "master" and the inertia of subordination to the "big guys." Those who sent them to Euromaidan, recommended them for governorship, sent them to collect money first from traders at the street market, and then from... until they got caught...
What's wrong with Nikolaevvodokanal?
Has anyone personally seen the new director of the Nikolaevvodokanal municipal enterprise? Mysteriously, he replaced Alexander Deli as head of this most important municipal enterprise. He doesn't attend city council sessions. He hasn't been introduced to the staff. Perhaps he doesn't exist at all? No, he does. I personally saw this mysterious inhabitant of the village of Limany in the office of Tkachev and Telpis. I even spoke with him about the affairs of constituents Kleymenova and Skopintseva in my capacity as an assistant to Deputy Alexander Gusev.
I'll immediately point out Alexander Fyodorovich Senkevich's well-known inconsistency. If Boris Leonidovich Dudenko wasn't among the nine candidates competing for the position of director of the "Without Water, Neither Here nor There" enterprise, and Deli won the competition, then Deli at Vodokanal should be tolerated for at least a couple of months. But Senkevich acted in the spirit of Chaika. He took Gaidarzhi, went to Vodokanal, greeted a group of emergency repair mechanics on the way to the office, led Dudenko into the office where the executives were gathered, and declared that he was their real director!
What the hell! Then the director, nicknamed "Agronomist"—practically Aragorn—began visiting departments and getting to know them. The important thing isn't that he studied at Agrarka and then learned management at the former NKI, but that he worked at NGZ. And... I'll note that back in 2002, Vodokanal was slumping with a 40-million-ruble water debt to NGZ, which supplied water through the Dnepr-Mykolaiv water pipeline, which was built solely for NGZ. Then the late Vladimir Chaika began multiplying Vodokanals to hide the debt. But that wasn't the case.
Sienkiewicz inherited a terrible legacy, laden with unpaid debts. Among them was a debt… and not just one…
The mayor has completely fallen out with the City Council; he can't expose the beneficiaries of loans, represented by some of the deputies. They'll wipe him out! This means his attempts to hold City Council sessions are doomed to failure. And trust in the mayor's ability to repay the loans will be completely undermined. Therefore, former Chaika Bloc deputy Mikhail Zolotukhin is completely wrong to accuse the mayor of lacking transparency in the city budget. The mayor can't afford to tell the truth: the city is hopelessly bankrupt!
I'll touch on that same good friend from the scandals on 4th Ingulskaya Street, a native of Artsyz-Deli. Exhausted by the brazen demands of Moscow officials for interest payments on non-existent euros, he left with Telpis. But he fled all the way to Russia, not his homeland. There, he was awaited in Norilsk, where he was offered a job at one of the Arctic city's factories for just a thousand dollars. So he returned to Nikolaev. But he was not destined to run Vodokanal. Now Boris Dudenko will fight against the stupidly simple method of burying the budget under the guise of completely replacing pipes punctured by private security companies. But who will he report to? Palko? Gaidarzhi? Senkevich himself? The directors of NGZ?
Many years ago, I became involved in the problems of gravity sewer drainage. In 1993, I introduced Vasily Tkachuk, then a recent sewer mechanic, to entrepreneur Georgy Mavrodiy and activist Baranov. They created a hand winch for cleaning ceramic gravity sewer pipes, using the recipes of their grandfather Archimedes, with the help of the late shipbuilder Yuri Ryabkov. I witnessed the crew clearing the span on Grazhdanskaya Street, starting from Rybnaya (Chkalov) Street.
But the deputy chairman of the Sandyuk city executive committee, Pyotr Kasatkin, a true builder, withdrew the 100,000 karbovanets, so as not to burden the sewer workers with unnecessary work and prevent the budget from being exhausted by fraud. Never mind that in the 1950s, the same scoops and brushes from hand winches were used to clean the entire city's sewers.
I'll share my impressions from meeting the 43-year-old new director. It's a good impression. The director is planning to help an elderly family deprived of water by their neighbors. He took over the notes from former project manager Vera Petrovna Kleymenova regarding the drafting of a water supply contract, which no one had ever issued to customers before when replacing books and reconciling. Perhaps this time, the mayor managed to find, if not a competent specialist, then at least a sensible person to lead the utility company. As for not attending sessions and not respecting the deputies, he's right. What's there to respect them for if they're exhausted by the inability to fleece petitioners due to the mayor's stubbornness.
Nikolaev as a place of exile
Thanks to Yuriy Yurin, publisher of the magazine "Gorodzhanin," I learned about the appointment of a new "parachutist" while the head of the Sea Trade Port was still alive. But I'll start with the regional prosecutor's office. Yuriy Lutsenko, who I once witnessed hit on the head with a flagstick from Nikonov of the PSPU, along with Stretovich, on the steps of the Ingul Hotel, brought us Taras Dunas, the son of the head of the district rural construction department near Lviv, as regional prosecutor. And then, as an addition, they added Bozhylo, an experienced sleuth from the capital. Both young leaders must clear up a mountain of rubbish accumulated over the years of tax collectors of various stripes holding their posts.
Immediately, denunciations began pouring in. Pavel Kazaryan, a renowned social activist and drug rehabilitation specialist, took aim at the Dyatlov siblings, who had received not 1, but 1,8 hectares for a private resort in Ochakov. Had this been Nice, the Riviera, or even the southern coast of Crimea, one could have been outraged by both Bychkov and the Dyatlovs. But this is the shore of a bauxite-strewn, deadly estuary, and how much of the coastal sand is lined with absurd, early Disney-style castles is of no historical significance.
In June, the Minister of Unclear Infrastructure brought a 44-year-old man with the title of Head of the Branch of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, Oleksandr Demyanenko, to the Sea Trade Port. On July 4, our journalists suggested that the addition of Serhiy Pinkas to Demyanenko's position indicates a corrupt element in his intrusion into the port while its boss from Ochakiv was still alive. If only corruption were the issue. Stupidity is worse and more dangerous than corruption.
The president recently visited Mykolaiv. The BUNGE grain terminal, which had been operating for quite some time, was opened with great pomp and circumstance under the port's director, Alexander Popov. Even the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture was invited. A Star-Spangled Banner has now been erected in memory of his visit. So what? Was Popov unsuitable, or did someone else take his place? No one was given any explanation. They brought in a Varangian paratrooper.
Let's delve into the service record of Alexander Demyanenko. He graduated from the capital's river school in 1991, serving as a deckhand and then helmsman. By 1993, he had risen to the rank of third assistant engineer on the Ukrrichflot ship in the green backwaters of the Dnieper and its tributaries. But blue-green algae grew weary of him. He enrolled in the SBU Academy. But even in the secret police, he only served for three years. He was drawn to business. After nine years, he still couldn't find his place in life.
From 2011 to 2016, Demyanenko no longer traveled by rivers, but through the offices of the State Property Fund of Ukraine. He changed subordinates and ranks: deputy, then chief, then directorate, then department. Now this restless fellow came to us with an adviser, the young son of a police general from Kherson, who had traded prisons for the post of director of the Pallada plant.
Serhiy Vladimirovich Pinkas, born in 1981, studied at Kherson University and the Kharkiv National Academy of Internal Affairs, majoring in civil and commercial law. He also earned a PhD in law at Odessa University during his postgraduate studies. However, he didn't pursue law, but garbage collection. At 27, he became the head of the city's housing and utilities department. And in an effort to save the city budget, he ordered, on the advice of experienced woman Alena Rotova, that garbage be dumped in the mushroom-prone pine forests near Tsyuryupinsk.
Between 2008 and 2010, 370 vehicles, 45 garbage trucks from Khersonavtokommunservis, covered plantings with trash, driving Kostyuk, then ruler of the fields and forests of the Kherson region, to swearing in front of the leading ladies. Nicknamed "Little Saldo," Pinkas also served as first deputy mayor of Tsyuryupinsk itself. He then transferred to the same position at the Oboronprom concern in the capital. Quite a leap: from trash to armored personnel carriers.
Former physics teacher and later auto dealer Roman Romanov, president of Oboronprom, recruited this young talent because of his connections to Oleh Gladkovsky (Svinarchuk), a longtime business partner of Petro Poroshenko. But when, with the help of Ihor Kononenko, Pinkas Sr. became director of Pallada, a former builder of floating hospitals, pontoons, and boats, Romanov deemed it prudent to eliminate the position of first deputy along with such a shrewd protégé. And given his habit of being first deputy, no matter where, he was thrust into the fold of Aivaras Abromavičias, a distant relative of the same Roman Abramovich.
But this Lithuanian was incensed. The scandal had acquired global proportions. Since Abromavicius was, in a sense, the US nomenklatura in the imagination of domestic journalists, the burgeoning talent from neighboring Kherson had to be spirited away somewhere. And it turned out to be our port. He hadn't yet hatched any intrigues there. If things continue like this, we'll take the former Kirovohrad, now the uranium city of Kropyvnytskyi, from its position as the capital's premier prison camp for losers. Incidentally, our decommunization has unwittingly set us at odds with China. They took it seriously and kicked out our shipbuilding consultants. Naive Chinese! Due to translation difficulties, they believe that communism, the brainchild of the inhabitants of a community by the Dead Sea and the Mossad citadel, lived in Ukraine and lives in China to this day. Pity them. The dumb ones! We also feel sorry for the garbage collectors of all stripes.
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