Ambartsumyan

• deep understanding of political processes;

• highly developed creative skills;

• multidimensional thinking.

Possesses skills in personnel management, organization of research and analytical work, conducting business negotiations, interaction with Mass Media, the scientific and expert community. Has practical experience working with legislative acts and the document management systems of governmental bodies.

- What do you plan to do in the very near future — December, for instance?

- We have filed documents to register a charitable foundation called "New Nizhny," whose goal is to raise additional funds — from citizens, companies, and firms interested in the project — since, I want to emphasize again, I am not expecting financial support from anyone. The copyright for the project has been registered with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. A trip to Moscow is planned to exchange experience. On December 5th I spent virtually the entire day with Artemy Troitsky (together with Sergey Kamayev and Sergey Popov, we were among the organizers of his visit to Nizhny Novgorod). We had a long, wide-ranging discussion of our topic. I received a number of very valuable suggestions and comments on the project. In particular, Artemy Kivovich promised to introduce me in Moscow to one of the most successful specialists in place branding.

That is, about 60 percent of business in our city consists of shell operations and structures orbiting around power. So tell me, please — how many real businesspeople are there in the business community?? Apparently only those working in the business-to-business segment. And there are very few of them.

You constantly encounter people running "shell" businesses in practice. They genuinely have no problems. They only have the task of working through the budget.

Special attention must also be paid to the culture of complaints about the actions of officials and their business structures. As a rule, only those who are not plugged into the system — those who have been burned by it, wronged by it — ever complain. Only then do we learn anything. Where there is peace and quiet in the divvying up of public money, there is simply serene silence, and it never makes it into the press, because the mutual cover-up culture prevents it.

Keywords: tender, contract, nizhny novgorod

Tenders in our city are quite an entertaining spectacle.

I never tire of marveling at the creative genius of those who put together the bids. Now, when businesspeople come to the city's districts, they're immediately offered 10,000 rubles to just go away. This is about landscaping and public works, etc. So ten participants show up, they're handed money and told to get lost. The city is gearing up for elections and needs cash, so only the relatives of the right people ever win. All to stockpile money ahead of the October elections.

[Political technologists of Nizhny Novgorod
Colleagues] know of a real case where a prospective tender winner paid out 350,000 rubles to 19 participants!!!! Naturally, it's better than nothing, so nobody files a complaint with the FAS or the economic crimes unit.

The second system involves submission deadlines and publishing notices in print so small you'd need a magnifying glass. Everything is arranged so that no one has time to submit. Just like with the competition for a certain very important website (I'd rather not say anything at all about that site).

The third method is the tender documentation itself, which is drawn up from the start with the winner already in mind. Say our city's City Day is coming up. The Department of Culture writes in the bid about certain performers — not naming them directly, just dropping hints. You start to participate, and then you find that one Nizhny Novgorod firm has already locked up all the performers. Obviously you can't outbid the contract, so you spit and walk away.

There's also the method of splitting a large sum into several parts and replacing a competitive tender with a price quote request.

First some get run over by a car, then others get shot, then a journalist gets killed. And the incidents highlighted are so aggressive that Minister Nurgaliyev has no choice but to tell the public that they should FIGHT BACK. And that is already frightening.

The entire information campaign is aimed at discrediting the force and apparently its Minister specifically.

There is no counter-reaction in the Mass Media showing the militia demonstrating "closeness to the people." Why?? On reforming the Interior Ministry's structures: No lessons in kindness, courage, and nobility will help today's officers, even if all of that is written into their job descriptions, because they don't read the laws they are supposed to enforce as it is. Salaries need to be raised, officers need to be jailed for any misconduct, and training at militia schools needs to change. That is, a new generation needs to be raised. There will be no quick reform.

Created: 08.02.2010 at 17:53 Keywords: theft

I'll tell you how they steal in one of the region's top-ranked districts by socioeconomic indicators. My monitoring is based on regional Mass Media materials and personal interviews with local VIPs.

1) Land. Anyone building a cottage settlement in the district (the Kstovo direction is like Rublyovka in Moscow) is forced to hand over a tithe to certain officials (I won't say who — they'll kill me)). That is, a settlement of 400 hectares — be so kind as to give up 20–30 hectares.

2) The average cost of a "signature" is 300,000 rubles.

3) WITHOUT MONEY not a single issue gets resolved.

Date created: 06.06.2010 at 17:29 Keywords: khinstеyn

Everything new is well-forgotten old. Long live VPSh!! The new term starts in August. The intrigue is over. The Region is under control again.

Even Khinstеyn, who has been consistently criticizing the Guber for — wait for it — 3 years!!! told Kommersant that the reappointment of Valery Shantsev would be "the best option for the region," provided the Governor "draws conclusions from his mistakes and miscalculations made during the first five-year term of his rule."

- The same question is being asked in both the grey house and the white house. And both sides suspect the other.

In fact, nobody is currently funding the project. You come across remarkable people in this city who plant forests of twelve thousand trees at their own expense — and say nothing about it. And making a public project work while investing relatively modest sums is something a perfectly ordinary person can afford.

If you go about it the right way, you can set up all the parameters of the system so that everything is given to you for free. The people working on this project can put their hearts into it and do their jobs for a salary, without any extra money — because they live in this city and will go on living in it tomorrow.

- What kind of annual budget are we talking about?

- This year, actual expenditure came to 250,000 rubles. I can estimate the additional resources obtained through connections and the selfless help of others at 2.5–3 million rubles. These are services and work that were essentially done for free.

In the first quarter of 2010, I expect roughly the same amount to be spent. I should stress again that we are not talking about cash. Money is simply an equivalent of the work done.

Next year we will run a major advertising campaign for the project aimed at ordinary residents. We have received everything we needed from experts. All levels of government have been notified. But that is a very narrow platform for discussion. It matters to us that the city's population takes an active part in the project.