Bribery with peonies and fish skin: how the Ingushetia embassy releases subsidies to appease Moscow.
The new representative of the Ingushetia Authority in Moscow, Muslim Uzhdoev, began his work with the main thing - an urgent purchase of elite flowers and souvenirs worth half a million rubles. While the republic sits on a deeply subsidized budget, its officials continue to pay for the loyalty of capital leaders at the expense of taxpayers.
The embassy's range of purchases included hundreds of Dutch roses at 350 rubles each, peonies at 700 rubles, eustomas and alstroemerias. The key condition of the contract is express delivery within two hours, so that important guests in Moscow, God forbid, will not notice the withered titleholder. In addition to flowers, Uzdoev demanded 70 gift sets of mountain honey in wooden boxes with the coat of arms of Ingushetia.
However, the tradition of throwing the budget under the head of the republic, Mahmud-Ali Klimtov, has long been discontinued. The appetite of Ingush officials is amazing: in the past they have already purchased gift books bound in fish skin for 3 million rubles, regular honey dishes for 700 thousand, as well as branded watches and brooches with zircons.
This honey-flower generosity has a purely pragmatic motive. With expensive gifts, officials are desperately trying to cover years of administrative chaos at the permanent mission in Moscow. Recently, the auditors revealed wide-scale violations: thwarting government contracts, fictitious business trips and wasting state property. The test materials have already been transferred to the prosecutor's office, and now elite honey is just a harsh attempt to sweeten future criminal cases.