Resignation of the governor of Turchak. For which the Turkish man is being demanded to resign. Where did I start?
A petition has appeared online for the resignation of Pskov Governor Andrei Turchak. Local residents who held a rally in the region also demand a change in power. Turchak is reminded of the case of the attack on journalist Oleg Kashin and suspects him of opaque schemes for distributing state contracts. Until recently, however, experts refused to believe that the governor would soon be dismissed.
On Friday evening, a message was posted on the Change.org website demanding that the head of the Pskov region resign. The petition blames him primarily for socio-economic problems. “It is from the moment of Turchak’s appointment as governor that the administration of the Pskov region regularly attracts commercial loans; in just 5 years, under Turchak’s leadership, the credit burden of the Pskov region has increased 75 times,” the electronic document says. The region spends more than a billion rubles on interest on servicing the state debt, and the tax burden on residents of the region is growing all this time. “Consequently, there are not enough funds even to maintain social infrastructure,” explains the author of the petition, leader of the Pskov Socialist Revolutionaries Oleg Bryachak, and points out that because of this, “the population of the Pskov region is rapidly declining.”
Shortly before the petition appeared, a rally was held in the region, where spoke out similar claims and demands. And speaking at a session of the regional meeting of deputies, Bryachak announced that he was starting to collect signatures for Turchak’s resignation and intended to carry it out until February next year.
Export priorities
The region's welfare has already been the subject of controversy this year. Thus, at the beginning of May, RIA Rating published another study on the well-being of families, according to which the Pskov region was in the very last 74th place. Things in the Pskov region, according to the authors of the rating, are even worse than in the traditionally disadvantaged Dagestan, Ivanovo region and Yamalo-Nenets district.
About 20 percent of the region's population (almost 127 thousand people) have incomes below the subsistence level. At the same time, the region is in last place in the Northwestern Federal District in terms of per capita spending.
Turchak did not agree with the results and told reporters that the region ranks in the middle in terms of gross regional product. Opponents clarify: it was at an average level before. Speaking about the well-being of citizens, he pointed to statistics on the number of cars in the region per resident. According to him, there are so many cars in the region that there is not enough parking or parking.
However, control agencies also have complaints. Thus, the regional Accounts Chamber harshly criticized the changes made by the regional authorities to the state program to promote economic development and investment activity.
Local officials justified themselves by saying that the amendments introduce new tasks into the document, including supporting export activities. The Accounts Chamber, however, was perplexed about how the authorities were going to monitor the implementation of new ambitious (and, moreover, budget-financed) tasks. “The document provides for a significant introduction of new target indicators, which for the most part do not have numerical indicators; many say “No data.” How can you monitor with such indicators? Today our budget is formed on the basis of government programs. How can we achieve targets with such indicators?” - the media quoted a representative of the chamber.
A month and a half before information about the opinion of the joint venture appeared, complaints were received from journalists. The publication Znak.com published a large-scale investigation that concerned Turchak’s initiative to increase customs duties on imported electronics. The governor proposed raising their maximum level from the current 14 to 60 percent, protecting the market and domestic producers. As arguments in favor, the authorities cited an additional 600 billion rubles in budget revenues and 20 thousand new jobs.
However, according to the author of the investigation, the Turchak family’s business “is closely connected with the production of electronics, and some companies affiliated with his wife Kira, father Anatoly and brother Boris have recently become quite problematic.”
A year old case
In addition to economic problems in the region and dubious contracts, Turchak’s opponents are making more serious accusations against him. The governor was mentioned more than once in connection with the case of beating journalist Oleg Kashin. In 2010, the Investigative Committee looked into a possible connection between the attack and the journalist’s conflict with the head of the Pskov region. Kashin spoke critically about Turchak on his blog, and he responded by giving the journalist 24 hours to delete the post and make a personal apology to him. Soon the journalist was severely beaten. However, at the same time, the investigation was working on the version that Kashin could have been attacked because of the story with the defenders of the Khimki forest.
The version about Turchak was discussed more widely and more often, but until recently, none of the politicians in public speeches directly blamed the attack on Kashin on the governor. According to the BBC Russian Service, Bryachak, the author of the petition for resignation, first associated Turchak’s name with the attack on Kashin. “How else can you express the fact that a journalist was beaten in Moscow? They killed him. They hired the executors, the executors named the customer: Andrei Turchak, who now heads the Pskov region,” the Socialist Revolutionary said at a meeting of the regional assembly last Wednesday. Kashin, in a commentary to the BBC, thanked Deputy Bryachak in absentia for raising this topic at the level of the Legislative Assembly. According to him, “Turchak’s role in my case has already moved from the category of rumors and conjectures to concrete accusations against the perpetrators, pointing specifically to Turchak as the mastermind of the crime.”
The regional administration, the portal writes, did not respond to a request for comments at the time of publication of the note. Before this, the authorities emphasized that they had nothing to do with what happened to Kashin.
About a year ago, experts cautiously assessed the impact of the Kashin case on the political fate of the governor of the Pskov region. Yabloko member Sergei Mitrokhin, traditionally critical of the authorities, believed that history could cost the head of the region his job. Political scientist Vladimir Belous predicted that the situation “will be transferred to the non-public sphere,” and later, perhaps, the official will be given another post in Moscow.
But it seems that accumulated discontent has brought the situation back into the public sphere.
Childhood, family and education
Andrey Turchak was born on December 20, 1975 in Leningrad. The politician’s father is Anatoly Aleksandrovich Turchak (born 1945). In 1985, he headed the Leninets Holding Company, specializing in the development of navigation equipment for aviation. In the 90s, Andrei Turchak’s father was Vladimir Putin’s deputy on the regional council of the “Our Home is Russia” association. Now he is the president of the St. Petersburg Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and heads the St. Petersburg Football Federation. 
After graduating from school, Andrei Turchak entered the St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation. Subsequently, he received a second higher education at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Career
Turchak began working at the age of 16 - he got a job as a judo coach at the municipal Olympic reserve school "Cosmonaut", where he worked for 4 years. 
At the age of 20, Andrei Anatolyevich became the general director of TPK LenNort, a subsidiary of the Leninets holding company, and in 1997 he took the post of director of OJSC Electric Household Equipment Plant.
Three years later, Andrei Anatolyevich joined the board of directors of Energomashbank, and then for two years served as director of corporate governance at Leninets. In 2002, Turchak became the general director of the North-West Commonwealth, and a year later he became the vice president of Leninets. At the end of May 2005, Turchak was again elected to the board of directors of Leninets.
In August 2005, Turchak joined the United Russia party. He began his political career as a youth policy coordinator; a few months later he joined the coordination council of the Young Guard of United Russia.
In 2007, Turchak became a deputy of the Pskov Regional Deputy Assembly of the IV convocation from the regional branch of United Russia. Soon Turchak became the chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Young Guard of United Russia and a member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation from the Pskov region.
In February 2009, by decree of President Dmitry Medvedev, the politician took the post of acting. governor of the Pskov region, and his candidacy was immediately approved by the regional assembly of deputies. Thus, 33-year-old Turchak became one of the youngest Russian governors. In 2014, Turchak’s term of office expired, but he was appointed acting. governor by decree of Vladimir Putin, and in the elections in September 2014 he was elected by the people - more than 78% of voters voted for Andrei Anatolyevich’s candidacy.
The result of Turchak's eight-year governorship was an increase in the welfare of the Pskov region. For example, the average salary of teachers increased to 14 thousand rubles. Investors began to show interest in the region: in 2012, the creation of a special economic zone “Moglino” was announced in the region. As part of the implementation of the Pskovsky tourism cluster project, new hotels were built. One can also note the agricultural development of the region, including the construction of the Velikoluksky pig-breeding complex.
Controversial aspects of the activities of the former governor of the Pskov region include the suspension in 2013 of procedures for the adoption of orphans from local orphanages after the death of a native of the Pskov region, adopted by a couple from the States. The restrictions applied not only to foreign adoptive parents, but also to Russians.
Scandals
In August 2010, Andrei Anatolyevich had a “cyber skirmish” with opposition blogger Oleg Kashin. During a discussion on LiveJournal regarding the governor of the Kaliningrad region, Georgy Boos, he insulted Turchak (“Compare him [Boos] with any governor, with any f***ing Turchak”). Turchak demanded an immediate apology, as a result of which the “Streisand effect” worked, and the conflict received wide publicity in the media space. 
In September of the same year, Kashin was beaten by unknown persons using a reinforcing rod. In 2015, the blogger published the results of the investigation - the attack was carried out by security guards of a subsidiary of Leninets. According to Andrei Anatolyevich, Kashin was misled by attackers who, in the struggle for control over Leninets, tried to smear the name of Turchak.
Personal life of Andrey Turchak
The politician’s wife is Kira Evgenievna Turchak (born 1976), head of the board of directors of the Leninets Management Company, general director of Labyrinth OJSC. They met as children, at sports training, were friends for a long time, and later friendship was replaced by romantic feelings. On February 3, 1995 they got married. The couple has two sons, Anatoly and Philip, and two daughters, Olga and Sofia. 
The Turchak family owns several apartments and 76.6 acres of land. In 2013, it became known that Andrei Anatolyevich owns an undeclared part of a house in Nice worth about € 1.3 million. The politician promised to get rid of real estate in France by May 1 of the same year. Turchak's wife was one of the ten richest governor's wives. In 2015, her earnings amounted to 38 million rubles. Andrey Turchak appointed vice speaker of the Federation Council
On November 2, Turchak was elected senator of the Federation Council from the Pskov region, for which the majority of deputies of the regional Legislative Assembly voted. His sphere of activity included the supervision of constitutional legislation. On November 8, at the suggestion of Valentina Matvienko, he was elected deputy chairman of the Federation Council.
The planned resignations of regional heads have ended today, and new ones are possible only in the event of some force majeure. A source in the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation reported this to TASS on Wednesday.
Related materials
“The planned gubernatorial resignations have ended, unless something force majeure happens,” the agency’s interlocutor said. As an example of such force majeure, he recalled that the previous rotation of governors was considered completed, but then “two arrests occurred.”
RBC sources also confirm the end of the rotation of governors. The last head of the region who will leave his post of his own free will in the near future will be Andrei Turchak, who heads the Pskov region, a source in the Kremlin told RBC and was confirmed by an interlocutor close to the presidential administration.
After leaving the post of governor, Turchak will head the General Council of United Russia instead of Sergei Neverov, who became the head of the party faction in the State Duma.
Answering a question about the possibility of the resignation of the Governor of the Pskov Region Andrei Turchak in connection with his appointment to the post of Secretary of the General Council of United Russia, a TASS source noted: “If tomorrow the party chairman (Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev) introduces him to the post of Acting Secretary of the General Council “United Russia”, then it will be along a different line.” “This is also a kind of force majeure, only positive,” he explained.
Andrey Turchak is 42 years old. He has held the governor's post since 2009. There are no complaints against Turchak as the head of the region, but he “himself was burdened by this work and would like to leave,” a federal official previously said in an interview with RBC.
Before his appointment as governor, Turchak was a member of the Federation Council from the Pskov region, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Pskov region, and chairman of the coordination council of the Young Guard of United Russia.
His father, Anatoly Turchak, is a senior leader of the association, then the Leninets holding company. He is the President of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of St. Petersburg, is on the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the executive committee of the Russian Football Union. In the 1990s, he was Vladimir Putin’s deputy on the St. Petersburg regional council of the “Our Home is Russia” movement. Ogonyok magazine wrote that Turchak Sr. was Putin’s sparring partner in judo. Turchak Jr. is a member of the board of trustees of the St. Petersburg judo club “Turbostroitel,” where Putin trained in the 1980s.
Journalist Oleg Kashin considers Turchak to be the mastermind behind the assassination attempt, which occurred in November 2010. Then Kashin was severely beaten; in the fall of 2015, he stated that the perpetrators of the crime were security officers of the Mechanical Plant in St. Petersburg (Leninets Holding).
The investigation into the Kashin case was taken under personal control by the country's president at that time, Dmitry Medvedev, who has been the leader of United Russia since 2011. He instructed Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika and Internal Affairs Minister Rashid Nurgaliev to take special control of the investigation of the crime.
Turchak called Kashin’s accusations of involvement in the beating a provocation. In December 2015, at a large press conference, Vladimir Putin said that he was aware that “information is appearing in the media and on the Internet that Turchak is involved in the beating of journalists.” Commenting on this information, Putin told an anecdote about a personnel specialist who refuses to hire a person because “he had something wrong with his fur coat.” “But it turns out that five years ago this man’s wife’s fur coat was stolen. And because of this “something with a fur coat” they didn’t hire him,” the head of state joked.
Over the previous two weeks, regional heads were replaced in ten subjects of the Federation. The head of the Samara region Nikolai Merkushkin left their posts (Senator Dmitry Azarov was appointed instead), the Nizhny Novgorod governor Valery Shantsev (replaced by the deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Gleb Nikitin), the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Viktor Tolokonsky (his place was taken by the speaker of the regional Legislative Assembly Alexander Uss). The head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, was replaced by the leader of the Duma faction of United Russia, Vladimir Vasiliev, and Igor Koshin from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug was replaced by Deputy Minister of Economic Development Alexander Tsybulsky. Another deputy head of the Ministry of Energy, Stanislav Voskresensky, became the governor of the Ivanovo region instead of Pavel Konkov. Rosmorport General Director Andrei Tarasenko became the governor of Primorye instead of Vladimir Miklushevsky; the Novosibirsk region was headed by the mayor of Vologda Andrei Travnikov, who replaced Vladimir Gorodetsky. Vadim Potomsky in the Oryol region was replaced by a communist from the Moscow City Duma, Andrei Klychkov, and Viktor Nazarov in the Omsk region was replaced by State Duma deputy from A Just Russia, Alexander Burkov.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree releasing Andrei Turchak from the post of governor of the Pskov region. He was appointed acting head of the region, having previously held the post of deputy head of state in the Northwestern Federal District.
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov told reporters about this on Thursday, October 12, Interfax reports. According to him, Turchak “was relieved from the post of governor at his own request.”
Subsequently, the resignation was commented on by journalist Oleg Kashin in his Telegram channel, who considers Turchak to be the mastermind of the attack on him in 2010. “Oleg Vladimirovich, congratulations on the fact that the guy who ordered the assassination attempt on you, seven years after it and two years after the exposure, was sent into retirement with the prospect of promotion!” - Kashin wrote in a third person (quote from Radio Liberty).
Meanwhile, Putin met with the acting head of the region. “President Putin had a meeting with Mikhail Yuryevich Vedernikov, deputy plenipotentiary representative of the head of state in the Northwestern Federal District. By presidential decree, he was appointed acting governor of the Pskov region,” Peskov said.
The Kremlin website posted a report on the meeting between Putin and Vedernikov, which took place on Thursday in Sochi. It reports that the president informed the official of his decision to appoint him as acting governor of the Pskov region.
Shortly after the announcement of Turchak’s resignation, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who heads the United Russia party, appointed the ex-governor of the Pskov region as acting secretary of the General Council of the party in power. “In accordance with the charter, I am now appointing you as acting secretary of the General Council, and subsequently your candidacy will be considered by the party congress,” the head of government said at a meeting with Turchak (quoted by TASS).
Moreover, even before Medvedev’s statement, Kommersant wrote that Turchak is a candidate for the post of secretary of the general council of the United Russia party. The publication noted that the official arrived in Moscow the day before and on Thursday will begin informal communication with members of the General Council, primarily Medvedev.
Earlier on Wednesday, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko said that Medvedev would soon make a decision on the candidacy of acting secretary of the party’s General Council instead of Sergei Neverov, who terminated his powers ahead of schedule.
Back on October 5, the RBC agency learned that after his resignation, Turchak would most likely become the new secretary of the general council of United Russia. This position was previously held by Neverov, however, as the media expected, he was elected on October 9 as the head of the United Russia Duma faction after the appointment of Vladimir Vasilyev, who held this post, as the acting head of Dagestan.
Thus, over the past six months, regional heads have changed in 11 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The head of the Samara region Nikolai Merkushkin, the Nizhny Novgorod governor Valery Shantsev, the governor of the Krasnoyarsk region Viktor Tolokonsky, the head of Dagestan Ramazan Abdulatipov, the head of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug Igor Koshin, the governor of Primorye Vladimir Miklushevsky, the governor of the Oryol region Vadim Potomsky, the governor of the Novosibirsk region Vladimir Gorodetsky, the governor left their posts Omsk region Viktor Nazarov, governor of the Ivanovo region Pavel Konkov, as well as the head of the Pskov region Andrey Turchak.
Turchak has served as governor of the Pskov region since 2009. At the end of last year, Oleg Bryachak, a deputy of the Pskov regional assembly from the A Just Russia party, in a public speech linked the name of the official with the attack on journalist Oleg Kashin. As journalists noted, none of the current politicians in the region have yet mentioned the name of the governor in the context of the attack on Kashin at a meeting of the Legislative Assembly, although this version was voiced in various interviews by ex-deputy Lev Shlosberg (Yabloko).
Later, Kashin thanked deputy Bryachak in absentia for raising this topic at the Legislative Assembly level. According to him, “Turchak’s role in my case has already moved from the category of rumors and conjectures to concrete accusations against the perpetrators, pointing specifically to Turchak as the mastermind of the crime.”
The alleged perpetrator of the crime, Danila Veselov, said during interrogation back in 2015 that the orderer of the attack on Kashin was Turchak, who was offended by the journalist’s statements on the Internet. Kashin himself also adheres to this version. According to Veselov’s testimony, the Pskov governor, during the preparation of the attack on the journalist, personally gave instructions to the perpetrators.
The attack on Kashin took place on November 6, 2010 in Moscow near the house on Pyatnitskaya Street, where he rented an apartment. Unknown persons struck him 56 times with an iron rod, breaking his shin, upper and lower jaws, hands, causing a traumatic brain injury and other injuries. The alleged perpetrators were detained: they turned out to be employees of an enterprise owned by Anatoly Turchak, the father of the governor of the Pskov region.
In the summer of 2010, Kashin, mentioning Turchak in comments on his LiveJournal, used the adjective “s***.” Turchak responded to this: “Young man, you have 24 hours to apologize. Time has passed” (this message was subsequently deleted).
As follows from the biography on the website of the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Northwestern Federal District, Mikhail Vedernikov born on March 7, 1975 in the Leningrad region (42 years old). In 1998 he graduated from the North-West Academy of Public Service of the Russian Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation.
Since 2000, he was appointed first deputy chairman of the RO LLC "Youth Unity" of the Leningrad region. He was elected as a deputy to the municipal assembly of the Vyborg district, as well as to the Council of Deputies of the Vyborg urban settlement.
In 2006-2010, he was chairman of the Public Youth Chamber at the Legislative Assembly of the Leningrad Region. From 2007 to 2010 - deputy, first deputy head of the regional executive committee of the Leningrad regional branch of the United Russia Party.
From March 2010 to December 2012, he was an adviser to the regional policy department, head of the department for work with regions of the Southern and North Caucasus federal districts of the Russian Presidential Administration for Domestic Policy.
From December 2012 to February 2017, he served as Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus Federal District. From February to October 2017, he was Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Northwestern Federal District.
Policy
19:46 11.10.2017Yulia Plekhanova, photo: pictureloop.ru
Rotations of governors in Russia are over. The last head of the region who will leave his post of his own free will will be Andrei Turchak, who heads the Pskov region. RBC writes about this with reference to its own sources in the Kremlin. The decision on his appointment will be announced soon.
According to the publication, Turchak will head the General Council of United Russia instead of Sergei Neverov, who moved to the post of head of the party faction in the State Duma. Meanwhile, today it became known that the meeting of the General Council and its presidium on personnel issues scheduled for Thursday, at which the announcement of the decision on the appointment of Turchak was expected, has been postponed. The publication’s sources clarify that “the meeting may be postponed to Friday.”
Let us remind you that over the past two weeks, regional heads have changed in ten regions of Russia. The head of the Samara region Nikolai Merkushkin left his posts (Senator Dmitry Azarov was appointed instead), the Nizhny Novgorod governor Valery Shantsev was replaced by the deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Gleb Nikitin, and the speaker of the regional Legislative Assembly Alexander Uss was appointed to the place of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk region Viktor Tolokonsky. The head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, was replaced by the leader of the Duma faction of United Russia, Vladimir Vasiliev, and Igor Koshin from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug was replaced by Deputy Minister of Economic Development Alexander Tsybulsky. Deputy head of the Ministry of Economic Development Stanislav Voskresensky took the place of governor of the Ivanovo region, displacing Pavel Konkov. Andrei Tarasenko, general director of Rosmorport, became the governor of Primorye; he replaced Vladimir Miklushevsky in the post. The Novosibirsk region was headed by the mayor of Vologda, Andrei Travnikov, who replaced Vladimir Gorodetsky. Vadim Potomsky was replaced in the Oryol region by a communist from the Moscow City Duma, Andrei Klychkov, and Viktor Nazarov in the Omsk region was replaced by State Duma deputy from A Just Russia, Alexander Burkov.
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