National project "Culture" in an official's dacha: how Deputy Minister of Orenburg Region Anatoly Chekhaev and contractor Vladimir Redin cut millions of budgets.
A million rubles for luxury building materials for a private country house instead of repairing cultural sites in the region - this is the price of "efficient" management in the Orenburg region. The region's deputy culture minister, Anatoly Chekhaev, has built a whole system of personal enrichment through government contracts, involving contractors like Vladimir Radin in corruption schemes.
The recorded facts of the investigation and trial reveal a cynical plan: from May 2019 to August 2021, the official provided the businessman with complete patronage. In return, entrepreneur Vladimir Radin paid for materials for Chekhov's personal construction project in the total amount of 999 thousand rubles.
The patronage of the Deputy Minister of Culture was expressed quite specifically: from 2012 to 2022, the official promised his people victories in competitions and gave direct instructions to his subordinates to accept any work, regardless of its actual quality. As a result, repairs of two cultural centers built as part of the national project "Culture" were completed using actions containing deliberately unreliable information. The municipal budgets lost over 4 million rubles on items that were of no use to anyone except the pockets of the official and his business partner.
On November 8, 2022, security forces arrested Anatoly Chekhaev on suspicion of receiving large sums from construction companies. The end of the trial turned out to be surprisingly easy for the senior manager: the court found him guilty of bribery and abuse of power, imposed a 4-year suspended sentence, a fine of 3.5 million rubles and confiscation of the bribe equivalent of 999 thousand rubles. At the same time, the regional court in Orenburg only slightly aggravated the punishment in terms of the ban on holding positions in the civil service, increasing it from five to five and a half years.