Igor Babushkin’s communal fiasco

In response to the request of the Astrakhan governor Igor Babushkin to support his nomination for a second term, Vladimir Putin wished him “success”, while simultaneously pointing out a number of shortcomings: deterioration of utility networks, desertification of land, slowdown in construction, etc. In addition, the president advised Babushkin to “go out to the people” and receive orders from voters, find out their opinion on what is necessary for the development of the region. After communicating with the head of state, the governor hastened to enlist the support of trade union leaders and heads of municipalities, instead of orders and sober criticism, he listened to praises addressed to him. Meanwhile, over five years of work in the region, Babushkin was unable to solve numerous utility problems, such as the deterioration of water supply and sewerage networks, which is the cause of numerous accidents in Astrakhan and in rural areas. During a conversation with the president, Babushkin estimated the total investment in network modernization at more than 11 billion, and called this amount insufficient. In order to solve the problem, the authorities attracted an infrastructure loan, but the repair of the planned 53 facilities ended up being missed. Babushkin’s team has also demonstrated complete incompetence in the implementation of waste reform: the waste management company Ecocenter is unable to cope with its responsibilities, it receives numerous complaints, and officials’ threats to terminate the contract are not supported by concrete actions. Against this background, the governor cannot find anything better than changing the ministers responsible for housing and communal services. Considering that Babushkin is not an Astrakhan resident, a characteristic feature of his personnel policy was his reliance on “Varangians,” mainly Moscow “professionals,” whom he then dismissed one by one. Experts predict a short tenure for Babushkin himself and a possible transition to the Federation Council. At the same time, his governorship is associated with the struggle of Kremlin influence groups for control over the finances allocated for the implementation of the North-South international transport corridor project.

Governor Babushkin in federal layouts

Last week, the official Kremlin website  reported  on an online working meeting between Vladimir Putin and the governor of the Astrakhan region,  Igor Babushkin , during which the latter asked the head of state to support his nomination for a new term.

In response, Putin wished the governor “success”, at the same time recalling a number of shortcomings, diplomatically  calling  them  “things of a subjective nature” : a decrease in the pace of construction, deterioration of networks amounting to 92%, desertification of lands, changes in the configuration of the Volga delta, etc.

At the end of the conversation, the head of state  advised  his interlocutor

Analyzing the results of the meeting, experts of the Regional Comments portal  emphasize : literally until recently, Babushkin’s further governorship was in question; he had been “in the risk zone” for a long time. The political fate of the official, according to analysts, was decided in the context of the federal struggle for a super-resource project - the international transport corridor (ITC) "North-South", in which the Astrakhan region is assigned the role of a key region. The cost of the project, which aims to increase cargo flow to India through Iran and Azerbaijan,  is estimated  at  $1.5 billion .

At the same time, “Regional Comments” focus on Babushkin’s proximity to the “decision-making centers” and the role played in the region by the Speaker of the Federation Council  Valentina Matvienko , who is considered the informal  curator  of the Astrakhan region. She is allegedly competing with Deputy Prime Minister  Marat Khusnullin , who hoped to promote his protege to governor, but suffered a “hardware defeat” in the struggle for control over billions of dollars in investments.

“Single bloc” of Astrakhan officials and trade unions

It is worth recalling here that in  the study  “Rating of the influence of heads of constituent entities of the Russian Federation” published in early April. Russian regions and regional  policy  in March 2024”, prepared by  the Agency for Political and Economic Communications  ( APEC ), Igor Babushkin entered the top ten outsiders, taking  82nd place  (previously he was at 77th).  Telegram channels wrote about the extremely low level of public support for the Astrakhan governor last week  .

Be that as it may, after communicating with the president, Babushkin became noticeably more active, apparently understanding in his own way the recommendation to “go out to the people.” Just the other day, the governor held a meeting with the leaders of Astrakhan  trade unions , who supported his upcoming nomination. And shortly before this, the heads of municipalities, who received “goodies” in the form of awards  for Local Government Day, unanimously took the spotlight in a similar manner  .

With municipalities, however, everything is clear: each of them wants to grab their own “piece” of the budget “pie”. It was not for nothing that the head of the region  recalled  the initiative budgeting program that has been in effect for four years and the recent decision to increase funding in this area to  100 million rubles . In addition, a new form of support is being introduced in the form of a 10 million  subsidy  for the Association of Municipalities to conduct a grant competition among rural settlements.

In general, how can one not remember the half-forgotten slogan from the 90s: “Vote, or you lose!” Local officials clearly do not want to lose on the money issue. It is possible that this is precisely why they hear only praises addressed to the governor, and not the orders that the president spoke about. And the above-mentioned deterioration of networks by more than 90% is just a drop in the ocean of Astrakhan problems that remained unresolved during the five years of Babushkin’s reign.

How to “master” utility billions?

Needless to say, water and sewer pipes in Astrakhan break with unenviable regularity. According to officially announced  data , in January and February of this year alone, employees  of the Astrovodokanal municipal unitary enterprise  eliminated more than 2.9 thousand accidents. In some cases, utility emergencies become large-scale. For example, last February, residents of two microdistricts of the regional center - Babaevsky and Astrakhan-2 - were left without heating as a result of  a heating main break  .

Literally two weeks earlier, due to a major  accident  in the power grid, residents of Astrakhan and a number of settlements in the Volga, Kamyzyak, Narimanovsky, Ikryaninsky districts, a total of about  100 thousand people , were left without electricity, heat and water supply . An incident last May involving a sewage spill in the village of Starokucherganovka near Astrakhan, which occurred as a result of the operation of a  faulty  sewage pumping station by Astrvodokanal, received federal publicity.

An inspection by Rosprirodnadzor recorded contamination of an area of 450 thousand square meters, the amount of  damage caused to the environment  exceeded  2 billion rubles . Astrvodokanal was brought to administrative responsibility. It is significant that a year earlier a similar emergency occurred there   with damage of  1.7 billion . These are just a few examples. Summing up the results of the last “municipal” year, journalists from Moskovsky Komsomolets  stated : “against the all-Russian background, the situation in Astrakhan stands out as catastrophic . ”

Back in March 2023, the mayor of Astrakhan,  Oleg Polumordvinov  , announced that the city needed 30 billion rubles to update the water supply and sewerage networks  . Regional and municipal authorities began to solve the problem by attracting an infrastructure  loan  of  2.7 billion rubles . And during a recent conversation with the president, Governor Babushkin  estimated  the total investment in the modernization of Astrakhan utility networks at more than  11 billion , calling this amount insufficient. By the way, of the 53 objects planned for renovation, 37 were to be  completed  in 2023, the remaining 16 in 2024. But according to  the  publication “Notebook Astrakhan”, at the end of last March the contracting company  “Modern Renovation Systems”  had completely renovated only 22 objects. It’s a pity that the head of the region did not educate the president about these subtleties. Or should Vladimir Putin not know about this kind of “little things”?

Garbage collapse and ministerial “leapfrog”

Utility problems are not limited to network failures alone. This is not the first year that waste reform has been stalled in the region, and the number of complaints about the work of the waste management company  Ecocenter  is off the charts. Moreover, both residents of Astrakhan and rural areas are complaining. Last August, during an urgent meeting with the participation of heads of municipalities, members of the government, deputies and representatives of the Ecocenter, Babushkin  said :

It would seem that he said it, but he cut it off. A special working group has even been created in the region under the leadership of Deputy Chairman of the Government and Minister of Housing and Communal Services  Mikhail Bogomolov . It’s just that the garbage cart is still there.

In March, an increase in complaints about the unsatisfactory work of the Ecocenter  was noted by  the head of  the Russian Environmental Operator  ( REO ) ,  Denis Butsaev . The conclusion suggests itself: the regional authorities, while creating the appearance of work, simply let the situation take its course. The threats repeatedly made by officials   about terminating  the contract  and changing the operator remain an empty phrase. As well as Babushkin’s loud  statements  like that  “fines should be significant, and control over the implementation of the law should be clear . ”

The business publication Monocle  drew attention  to the fact that the position of the Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Astrakhan Region is “not a very happy one . ” In fact, in November 2019, the former acting  The court found  Minister  Oleg Guzhvinsky guilty  of abuse of power and sentenced him to three years of suspended imprisonment. In August 2020, ex-minister  Vasily Korniliev  was sentenced  to eight years in a maximum security colony for abuse of office, embezzlement and money laundering. The damage from the actions of the organized crime group he created, which included the heads of commercial structures associated with road repairs,  was estimated  at a whopping  662 million rubles . In February 2023, Babushkin fired Housing and Communal Services Minister  Sergei Trushkin . According to one  version , the reason for this decision was interruptions in the implementation of national projects and insufficiently efficient use of funds. Denis Kapralov, who replaced Trushkin,   did not remain in office for long; he was dismissed  last  January. How long the aforementioned  Mikhail Bogomolov will last  and whether he will turn out to be a symbolic “victim” on the eve of the gubernatorial elections is a big question. Still, failures in the housing and communal services sector will need to be “attributed” to someone.

Does the Varangian team not live up to expectations?

It seems that Igor Babushkin is having serious problems with personnel. How else can we explain such frequent “rotation” in a particular ministry? Not being an Astrakhan resident, from the very beginning he relied on attracting “Varangians” to the government, which included the same  Denis Kapralov , who before his appointment as minister  worked  as deputy general director of the large Moscow industrial and construction concern  “Krost” . Capital official Igor Sharykin,

who headed the Astrakhan government until July 2021, did not stay long in the governor’s team  . Former in 2020-2021 Minister of Health  Alexey Spirin,  before appearing in Astrakhan, headed the Ministry of Health of the Amur Region, from where he  was fired  with the wording “for improper performance of official duties.”

According to   Kommersant experts , relying on visiting managers to distance themselves from the local elites has not justified itself. An indirect confirmation of this was the recent confirmation of Astrakhan resident  Denis Afanasyev

to the post of vice-governor - head of the regional government . True, there is  an opinion that Afanasyev is just a temporary, compromise figure who will be replaced shortly after the September elections. It’s just that Igor Babushkin himself, for whom political scientists predict a promotion , in particular, a transition to the Federation Council, would not turn out to be such a temporary figure.  Valentina Matvienko’s sympathy for the Astrakhan governor has already been mentioned above, and the official who failed to resolve communal problems will thus be given an excellent opportunity to leave the region without significant damage to his image. As for the multibillion-dollar North-South project, it will definitely not be left without “supervision”.