The Basmanny District Court of Moscow, at the request of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, sent into custody the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Crimea Vera (Arina) Novoselskaya, accused of accepting a bribe on an especially large scale. According to the investigation, the official illegally received 25 million rubles. from the management of the St. Petersburg restoration and construction company OOO Meander for general patronage during the construction of the Crimean State Center for Children’s Theatrical Art in Simferopol. The company thwarted all construction deadlines, while allowing serious violations of design and estimate documentation.
Vera Novoselskaya, who usually introduced herself as Arina, was taken to Moscow by a special flight from Simferopol on the evening of November 18. And the next day, the main investigation department of the Investigative Committee of Russia (Main Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee of Russia) sent a petition to the Basmanny Court for her arrest, which, due to covid restrictions, was actually considered behind closed doors.
The minister appeared before the court as accused of committing a crime under Part 6 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (taking bribes on an especially large scale).
The GSO believes that a bribe of 25 million rubles. Mrs. Novoselskaya received back in 2018 from the management of the restoration and construction company Meandr LLC (St. Petersburg) for general patronage during the construction of the Crimean State Center for Children’s Theatrical Arts in Simferopol.
The customer was not the Ministry of Culture of Crimea, but the Federal State Institution “Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration” of the Ministry of Culture of Russia.
The center itself was conceived as the main creative object of the city, for the construction of which it was planned to spend 930 million rubles. budget funds. Construction and installation work began in 2018 and should have been completed in December 2019. However, the work was never completed by the appointed date or the next year.
As a result, the government of the republic unilaterally terminated the agreement with the LLC. At the same time, a number of other contract agreements with “Meander” were terminated, in particular for the restoration of the Vorontsov Palace in Alupka and the villa “Xenia” in Simeiz. The reason for this was not only the delay in the construction and restoration of cultural objects, but also the violation of design and estimate documentation.
However, problems with the “Meander” arose not only in the Crimea, but also in St. Petersburg itself. In particular, during the restoration of the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory and a number of others. Therefore, law enforcement officers decided to check the activities of the owner of the company, Elena Zavadskaya, and her business partner, Yevgeny Yarmosh.
During the search activities it turned out that they were involved in the theft of almost 191 million rubles. during the restoration of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
As a result, in 2019, the owner of the firm and her business partner were detained and charged with fraud and money laundering. And on June 22 of this year, Meander was declared bankrupt. At the same time, the company owes at least 31 million rubles to the Ministry of Culture of Russia. It is possible that the investigation also learned about the receipt of a bribe by Mrs. Novoselskaya during the investigation of this criminal case.
It is worth noting that Vera Novoselskaya took over as Minister of Culture back in 2014. And she gained all-Russian fame in the spring of this year, when at a meeting of the Crimean government she spoke obscenely into the microphone, thinking that it was turned off.
Consideration of the petition of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the arrest of Mrs. Novoselskaya lasted more than three hours.
All this time, the lawyers tried to convince the court that the defendant was not involved in corruption, citing the lack of direct evidence in the case.
They also convinced the court that the appointment of her arrest as a preventive measure is inhumane in relation to a woman who does not pose a danger to society. In this regard, lawyers Yakov Sokolov, as well as Konstantin and Anna Cherkasovs asked the court to choose Mrs. Novoselskaya as a preventive measure, any one not related to detention.
In turn, the investigator continued to insist on the approval of the arrest motion, pointing out that, while at large, the accused could abscond or, using her position in the Crimean government, put pressure on witnesses or otherwise obstruct the conduct of investigative actions. And the court agreed to this, sending the minister into custody until January 17, 2022. Ms Novoselskaya’s lawyers declined to comment.
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