MOSCOW, November 13 (RIA Novosti)
Izvestia
Cossacks to Patrol Moscow’s Tverskaya Street
Cossacks will police one of Moscow’s main streets for unsanctioned vending and, in the future, illegal parking.
Cossack Police detachments will soon appear in all Moscow districts, Nikolai Komarovsky told Izvestia. The adviser to Moscow’s Committee for Cossack Affairs said the detachments total 600 men. Very soon Cossacks will start patrolling Tverskaya Street, the square in front of Belorussky Railway Terminal and the area around Mayakovskaya Metro Station.
Their main objective, said Andrei Kuleshov, Deputy Head of the central Tverskoy District, is to control unauthorized trade. Their beats were not chosen at random.
Peddlers sell flowers, SIM cards, eyeglasses, and clothing on Tverskaya Street. As the New Year’s celebrations approach, toys and fire-crackers will be added, Kuleshov said. The Central Administrative Area will try to emulate the Southeastern Area, where Cossacks have been assisting the Interior Ministry, rescue workers, drug police and even the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Gennady Kolesnikov, Central Cossack Society deputy head, believes Cossacks, along with the traffic police, can also deal with illegal parking and counsel offending drivers.
Nikolai Komarovsky added that the Committee for Cossack Affairs and the Department for Regional Security have drawn up regulations for a specialized Cossack public order squad, which will join Moscow’s public order group. Cossacks will wear armbands and have identity cards like other squad members. They will also be permitted to patrol the streets in their traditional uniforms with red trouser stripes. The basic mission of the Cossacks will be assisting police officers.
But they will not be able to detain suspects or apply any sanctions by themselves. Cossack units, Komarovsky said, will patrol parks, recreation sites, churches and other areas with public gatherings.
“A police officer goes where his superiors tell him, while the Cossacks protect law and order in their precinct,” Komarovsky explained. “The Cossacks’ only remuneration will be a free pass for city transport. This is the only perk provided to public order squad members.”
Currently, about 9,000 city residents are members of the Moscow Cossack Society. Plans are for the Cossack detachments to include no fewer than 50 members in each area. Recruitment, Komarovsky said, has already begun. Just like the police, the Cossacks must meet physical fitness requirements and have no criminal record. The Interior Ministry will approve all applicants.
As Sergei Shishkin, head of the Yugo-Vostok Russian Cossack Society, explained, the Cossacks will also monitor children’s playgrounds for public disorder after 11:00 p.m. Cossacks can also help emergency services check entryways, basements and attics and watch for fire safety. Soon the Cossacks will be taking part in firefighting under a recent agreement with the Emergencies Ministry, Shishkin said.
However, Natalia Taubina, head of the Public Verdict Foundation, believes the public should trust the police more than the Cossacks.
This is only helpful to make the police more efficient and to promote public respect for its members, she said.
Kommersant
Corruption to Be Put on a Par with Treason
Sergei Mironov of A Just Russia went on record yesterday to say that crimes of corruption should be put on a par with treason and punished by prison terms ranging from 25 years to life. He also called for the confiscation of property acquired by criminal means, both for the offenders themselves and their family members, and called for Article 20 of the UN Convention against Corruption to be ratified by Russia.
Deputy head of A Just Russia parliamentary group in the State Duma, Mikhail Yemelyanov, said that the party leader’s proposal had been in his election program. “We have drafted amendments to the Criminal Code, which may be introduced to the State Duma,” he added. But he did not specify when this could happen.
Currently, corrupt activities are included under several different articles of the Criminal Code: money laundering (Art. 74); abuse of office (285); bribe-taking (290); bribery (291); and forgery by an official (292). All these offenses carry punishments ranging from a fine to up to 12 years in prison. Treason (Art. 275) carries a prison term of between 12 and 20 years.
Mironov’s statement comes in the wake of a series of high-profile corruption scandals. On November 9, the Interior Ministry reported the disappearance of 6.5 billion rubles allocated to the Russian Space Systems Company for implementing the GLONASS program. On November 10, Deputy Minister of Regional Development Roman Panov was arrested on suspicion of stealing 93.3 million rubles earmarked for the APEC Leaders’ Week in Vladivostok in 2012. An investigation is currently underway into a large-scale property fraud within the Defense Ministry, with former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov likely to be summoned for questioning as a witness.
Sergei Mironov declared he was optimistic about the outcome of the investigations. “I hope that this is the beginning of a serious fight against corruption. We need a Singapore model, where everyone is equal before the law,” he said.
The Director of the International Institute for Political Expertise Yevgeny Minchenko remarked that Mironov’s comments were nothing but “hot air.”
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel: there is the UN Convention against Corruption and precedents of this kind elsewhere in the world. Sergei Mironov’s proposal won’t change anything,” he said.
Vedomosti
Budget Money Embezzlement Holding Back Improvements in Rural Living Standards
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev hopes to create decent living conditions in Russian villages and small rural towns by allocating 90 billion rubles ($2.85 billion) through a sustainable development program for 2014-2017.
Ninety billion rubles is a lot of money. The project also involves co-financing, with regional governments providing another 134.5 billion rubles and 74 billion rubles coming from other sources. Can we be certain that the resulting 300 billion rubles ($9.5 billion) will not go into dubious mega-projects, and that the money will actually help improve the living standards of people in rural locations? Will it be used to build roads, utilities and schools?
The government program is aimed at stopping the outflow of the rural population to the cities. Russia has over 100,000 small rural towns and villages with populations of more than 10 people. The government cannot help everyone of course; it is important to focus on the tasks that are feasible.
Natalya Zubarevich from the Independent Institute for Social Policy said the government should concentrate on providing the rural population with all the modern conveniences and utilities that are generally available in urban areas and on developing public services such as schools and hospitals in larger towns which have become local centers. Keeping all villages alive is more difficult. However, if people can be certain that their children will have transportation to school and that their elderly parents will be picked up by an ambulance fast enough in case of need, they will probably decide to stay. Another significant challenge is providing jobs for young people.
Russia has many programs to support rural residents. However, they do not seem to be having much effect. Under a program for 2008-2009 there were plans to build 1.2 million square meters of housing for young professionals, and another 1.8 million sq m was due to be built in 2011. In addition to that, there was a plan to connect 61 percent of rural households to drinking water mains. However, according to Agriculture Ministry statistics, less than 700,000 sq m of housing was built in 2009 and only 609,000 sq m in 2011. Drinking water was provided to only 54 percent of homes.
It often happens that the money allocated for rural development is funneled into different projects. For example, the Agriculture National Project money meant for young professionals in 2006-2007 provided housing for other people. “Children of local bosses were first on the lists,” wrote Svetlana Barsukova from the Higher School of Economics, quoting interviews with rural residents in her study Informal implementation of formal intentions, or how the Agriculture Priority National Project is being implemented.
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