Sergey (Vladimirovich) Abyshev (born 4 October 1969) — a Nizhny Novgorod politician and Moscow executive, deputy director of the department of administrative and legislative drafting work at the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, previously chairman of the City Council of Nizhny Novgorod (from January 2000 to October 2002), first deputy mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, aide to the governor, aide to the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Nizhny Novgorod region, one of the heads of the Federal Antimonopoly Service.

He graduated from the Gorky Polytechnic Institute, postgraduate studies, the Nizhny Novgorod Law Academy, and professional development courses at the Russian Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation.

Associate professor. On 12 February 2003 he defended a dissertation on the topic "The Soviet social order as a historical phenomenon and a stage in the development of Russia" and became a candidate of philosophical sciences in the specialty of social philosophy.

He was secretary of the Youth Union committee of the "Polytech", and was elected a deputy of the city Duma for the Avtozavodsky District, electoral district No. 8.

At various times he held numerous academic posts in addition to his administrative ones, for example deputy director of the Institute for Sustainable Development of Settlements.

Since November 2002 he has held the post of president of the non-profit organization "Fund for the Development of Nizhny Novgorod".

Sergey Abyshev's hobbies include motor racing, football and shooting with combat weapons.

Married, raising a son.

A sensing-ethical introvert.

The essence of the phenomenon

A professional social peacemaker and negotiator.

A manager of the irrational type and of sybaritic pastimes, in demand in supporting roles for reforming complex, extremely over-regulated systems and for creating the conditions for urgent stress-free work in a catch-up development mode.

In the social space he takes under his management he restores a positive emotional balance, creates pleasant feelings about the environment, comfort, aesthetic quality, a sense of prosperity. A storyteller with a complex inner world, a keeper of stories, an appraiser. He supports the ideas of the middle class, promotes the development of private farms and of public initiatives that improve the ecological quality of settlements.

In Jung's typology: a sensing type with auxiliary ethics, the libido is directed at the inner side of phenomena.

Biography

S. Abyshev's father was one of the heads of GAZ.

  • In 1986 he did his practical training in the design and experimental works department of the Gorky Automobile Plant.
  • From 1989 he worked as secretary of the Komsomol committee of the Polytechnic Institute.
  • In 1993 he acted as organizer of the First All-Russian Student Camp "ROST". In 1997 he headed the Nizhny Novgorod regional organization of the "Russian Union of Youth".
  • from 1991 — lecturer at the GPI department of "Motor Transport";
  • In 1990 — 1993 he was a deputy of the The City of Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) City Council of People's Deputies from the Avtozavodsky district.
  • 1992 — entered postgraduate studies in the specialty: "Management of the national economy"; in the same year — market economy courses at NEWI (the North Wales Institute);
  • 1992 — 1994 — assistant at the "Production Management" department;
  • 1994 — 1997 — vice-rector of the Nizhny Novgorod Technical University for extracurricular work;
  • 1998 — professional development courses at the Russian Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation;
  • October 1997 — head of the staff of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in Nizhny Novgorod Region (State Councillor of the Russian Federation, 2nd class);
  • October 1998 — first deputy head of the city administration; 1990 - 1993 — deputy of the City Council of People's Deputies from the Avtozavodsky District;
  • December 2000 — elected deputy of the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod;
  • 17 January 2001 — elected chairman of the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod;
  • 2001 — graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod Legal Academy with a degree in law.

Awards and public titles

  • 1999 — S. Abyshev was awarded the title of "Honorary Member of the Russian Union of Youth".

"An order from the global chains and the ignorance of our leaders"

12.12.2006, Vladimir Lapyrin. There is always a chance!

Removing mini-markets from the city's territory is an order placed by the big chains, believes Sergey Abyshev, former vice-mayor of Nizhny Novgorod and now deputy director of the Institute for Sustainable Development of Settlements.

— What, in your view, lies behind the "bulldozer" policy of the city authorities towards small business?

— The situation, to my mind, has an extremely simple explanation. It is an order from the global chains and the ignorance of our leaders. They apparently do not follow the processes taking place in developing countries. In India, Indonesia, Brazil, China, for instance. Perhaps they poorly understand that today Russia — and therefore Nizhny too — has a chance to attract considerable investment resources. Or perhaps they have a very vague idea of what the investment attractiveness of a territory even is.

Of course, big money is brought in by large capital. But! The investment climate is created by small business. And the rules of market legislation are written precisely for small and medium-sized business, so that large business plays by those rules too. That is what creates rivalry and competition, which define the whole logic of a market economy. If we remove rivalry and leave only large business, the global chains will sweep everything away. And that will lead to the stagnation of the region, because competition will disappear. And our markets, corner shops and mini-markets, it must be said, are serious competitors to the chains. The economy must be balanced. That is why it is no accident that small business is supported everywhere in civilised countries. And no accident that it is encouraged.

— And who writes the rules?

— The authorities. The rules of the game are always set by the authorities.

— Which ones: the executive, the legislature?

— Since power in Russia is absolute, I would speak of the executive first of all. Although our country is so big that in some places the regulation of market relations still happens "by the code of thieves", with gunshots and corpses, while in others, thank God, it already goes through the Law, legislative assemblies and court procedures.

The absence of competition is objectively disadvantageous to the authorities themselves. They become weaker, because the population starts to be dissatisfied. People did not lose the competition on their own, say, to the neighbouring stall — it was the authorities who, as you put it, deprived them of their wages with a "bulldozer". Or take this: earlier one businessman well known in the city was unhappy because he was losing part of his business with the arrival of "IKEA", but when you remove a market or demolish kiosks, thousands of entrepreneurs are left dissatisfied.

— And buyers too. Why deprive them of the chance to choose or the pleasure of haggling? Not everyone enjoys languishing in supermarket checkout queues.

— Well, I for one am in favour of removing the markets from the city's territory. That is a long-standing idea of mine.

— Unauthorised markets?

— No, I believe that all the collective-farm markets should move out to the suburbs. The Central Market will not survive here anyway. In time there will be a large retail outlet on this spot. That is the global economy. And its logic is that the global chains will occupy the central locations of the city. But if we "drive out" small business to nowhere, we will get the opposite effect. The city will "keel over". Because wages and the culture of the population are not keeping pace with this very global economy. There are fairly simple solutions to the problem.

Remember the car-parts market. It was closed down, after all. That was my doing. But we did not throw the entrepreneurs off the city's territory back then. A new site was created. It started operating already under the next mayor, on Moskovskoye Shosse. And the book market — I was the one who removed it from Lenin Square. Yet here too we came to an agreement with the people and moved it to Marata Street.

— The "flea market" was also recently moved from Sredny Bazaar to behind the Pushkin Garden. So it turns out things can be done sensibly. But with the flower sellers the mayor's office disgraced itself. Police, rallies... The entrepreneurs proposed a good idea: to make an avenue of flowers in the park on Freedom Square and to landscape the park itself. Their arguments were not listened to, they were driven out...

— Possibly this was an unsuccessful attempt to redivide the market. I warned, by the way, that the authorities should not behave that way.

Before moving or demolishing anyone, you have to think about what to offer them in return. People talk about ground floors. They could be bought and registered under a simplified scheme. But residential buildings are often unsuited to trade. And we still do not really know how this whole "ground-floor" undertaking will end.

— You said that the demolition of mini-markets on the city's streets is an order from the big chains. What, did they gather somewhere, decide something and present Bulavinov with an ultimatum?

— No, of course not. It is economics. The deputies of the city Duma today are representatives of big business. The people who handle the mayor's election campaign are not small entrepreneurs either. It is clear which rules they vote for. But such logic leads to the destruction of rivalry and competition. And that means it reduces the investment attractiveness of the territory. Why should I come here if everything is already divided up!

— But the people making the decisions are competent, educated. So they are digging a pit for themselves?

— And who said they are educated? Here, I have a certificate saying that I completed training in market economics in North Wales, Great Britain, in 1992. Does any of them have a document saying that he too has been taught market economics?

— Wait a moment, but the same Oleg Sorokin has travelled all over Europe. His "Etazhi" and "Respublika" are today all but benchmarks among shopping centres.

— I will not argue. Sorokin is a competent entrepreneur who has already made his contribution to the history of Nizhny. But I am talking about the authorities. As soon as a businessman moves into power, he either loses his business or destroys the government.

— Understood, you are against business moving into power?

— Of course I am against it. Everyone should mind his own trade.

— But what about the hopes that only business itself, once it comes to power, will be able to secure the adoption of laws acceptable to it?

— That is a utopia. My observation: all the businessmen who have gone into power lose their business. Some at once, some will lose it in five years.

— Examples?

— By all means: Gusinsky, Berezovsky... The Deripaskas and Abramoviches are no longer rushing towards the Olympus of power either. And at the local level I could name more than one surname. Talk to the entrepreneur-deputies: they now spend even more "on politics" than before. And party discipline further constrains their initiatives.

Despite the large number of businessmen in the corridors of power, I believe the dialogue between the city and business has been lost today. It does not exist. Well, when, for example, did the mayor last hold a reception for citizens?

— Not so long ago, in fact, representatives of the association of Avtozavod entrepreneurs were with him over the demolition of the mini-markets. Indeed, they found no common language. Now they are going to seek justice in Moscow.

— In my time I received more than five thousand people, and they seriously set my head straight. The residents' problems had to be solved. I had no time to think about my own business.

— People now say all sorts of things about any government. They come into the corridors of power "naked", so the talk goes, and leave as very rich men. And about your administration, forgive me, there were quite a few rumours too...

— If you talk about this with serious businessmen over the kitchen table, you will get the opposite information. Lebedev's administration left destitute compared with today's officialdom. For some reason it is thought that if entrepreneurs come to power then, being "well fed", they will not grab everything in sight. A myth! Just like the thesis about the increased effectiveness of government after business enters it. What is to be taken as the criterion of a court's effectiveness, for example? More people put behind bars? Or is it when cases are heard faster? Well, in '33 the speed was record-breaking indeed. Do we want that kind of speed?.. Government cannot be approached as a business. The arrival of business in government has given a different point of view. And that is all.

— And what about the example of Governor Khloponin?

— One should not confuse PR with the realities of territories that have "Norilsk Nickel" or aluminium plants.

— Then a concrete "prescription" for small retail business, which will have a hard time in the new year?

— You have to defend yourselves in a civilised way. Hire lawyers. Band together into associations, set up non-profit partnerships. And forward — stand up for your interests! Remember that we have an antimonopoly service, a Constitution, courts, public organisations. The main problem of our small business today is that it is not the owner of the land. And therefore anything at all can be done to it. You build a kiosk, invest five or ten thousand dollars, and the lease is short-term... If they were owners, the authorities would treat them more respectfully.

— And I think they would be "hounded" just the same with inspections and levies. They would find a hundred reasons: all these "little people" trading here, they only make a mess...

— Well, there are courts, after all. And they work. And as for cleanliness, by the way — no less than a third of the city's landscaping has been carried out precisely at the expense of the mini-markets. And to say that all the filth comes from the kiosks is laughable.

Kiosks are a goods-distribution network, or what is called the market of intermediate sellers. On what grounds should the authorities determine who is to be on it and who is not? Let the buyer decide. If there is demand, it must be met. And if the city does not like the architecture, or new standards have been adopted — set out the requirements, but do not hound anyone out of existence. The entrepreneur will meet them, if they are reasonable.

— Listening to you, it seems there is hope of holding out?

— Small business is by no means helpless. Legislation and world experience are on its side. Let it learn and grow.

"From the chairman of the City Duma you can get money and a job"

« Yesterday the Duma approved the "Regulation on the procedure for exercising the popular law-making initiative on matters of local significance". Let us recall that this Regulation allows any resident of Nizhny Novgorod to bring his own legislative initiative before the city Duma for discussion. The authors of the most successful projects will receive from 5 to 10 thousand roubles.

According to Sergey Abyshev, such an innovation is intended mainly for students of law schools.

However, now anyone who wishes may take part in drafting normative documents.

In the event that the normative documents drafted are considered and adopted at a session of the city Duma, their authors will be rewarded financially, the chairman of the city Duma stated.

This is because the city administration is indeed not submitting the appropriate number of documents to us, said Sergey Abyshev. - We are forced to produce them ourselves. The corps of deputies does not have the time, the education or the strength for this in the volume required. That is why we are drawing the broadest sections of the public into this work.

And the document on the law-making initiative, easy at first glance, noted Sergey Abyshev, was a matter of principle in this respect, because it was prepared by freelance workers.
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"The deputies have turned their thoughts to funerals. It has been decided to build a crematorium and a new cemetery"

« A site for a crematorium has already been found in the Nizhny Novgorod Region. This became known at the session of the City Council on 24 April. In addition, the construction of a new cemetery in the settlement of Fedyakino is planned. Presumably it will begin at the end of next month.

This is not the first time the Duma members have touched on the "funeral" topic. At the previous session, talk about cemeteries and burials drove the people's elected representatives into heated arguments. This time everything was discussed calmly and thoroughly. Only deputy Dikin "needled" the current director of the municipal enterprise KRUN, Sergey Korolev, stating that during his time as a manager at Prominbank he had quite successfully "buried" it. Mikhail Dikin's colleagues responded that Mr. Korolev's past had nothing to do with the cemetery business, and gave the floor to the KRUN director himself.

The speaker reported that burials in Nizhny Novgorod are a whole problem in themselves. It was the funeral depots in "The Twelve Chairs" that languished without work: in the town of N people died very rarely. In Nizhny, unfortunately, it is the other way round. Of the 15 municipal cemeteries under KRUN's management, only one is open for new burials - Novostriginskoye. And all because the question of acquiring land for cemeteries had not been considered for some twenty years, while the number of deaths grows from year to year: in 1999 - 20,240 people, in 2000 - 21,260, in 2001 - 21,897.

One more unpleasant trend has emerged - the number of unclaimed bodies is increasing. Homeless people and those who could not be identified are buried mainly at the closed Novosormovskoye cemetery, the largest in Europe (220 hectares). The size of the cemetery by no means testifies to its "prestige" - rather to the violation of all sorts of sanitary norms: after all, a burial ground should, if possible, not exceed 40 hectares.

Since one open cemetery is clearly not enough for the city, the construction of a new one is planned. A plot of 54 hectares has already been acquired in the settlement of Fedyakino, and the design and cost estimate documentation is ready. The cost of construction is estimated at 14.8 million roubles. The contractor is to be determined through an open tender. The cemetery will serve above all the upper part of the city.

In addition, improvement works are planned at that very same Novostriginskoye cemetery - the construction of a central road and inter-block driveways, refuse removal and so on. This will require seven million roubles - improving it is twice as cheap as developing a new territory. Except that the city budget has allocated equal amounts to both cemeteries - three million roubles each. Where to get the rest, Sergey Korolev does not know. In his words, the enterprise will most likely have to use its own funds. However, the KRUN director is confident that money for such a cause will be found.

The deputies noted that four hectares at the Novostriginskoye cemetery had been allocated for veterans' burials, yet time passes and that plot has not been improved. Veterans fear that after death they will be buried somewhere out in the region, and even intend to buy up "their" land. Mr. Korolev promised that this matter would be settled before long. True, they say that a promise takes three years to keep...

One more cemetery - Starosormovskoye - has been decided to be revived this year. It was closed back in 1972, and the infrastructure there is completely ruined. The cemetery will be put in order over the course of the summer. Fortunately, a million roubles for the re-registration of burials, the construction of a warden's premises, refuse removal and other necessary measures has already been received from the budget. According to Sergey Korolev, in October it will already be possible to bury people at Starosormovskoye.

The talk turned to the cost of funeral services. By an order of the former governor Ivan Sklyarov, a sum of one thousand roubles has been fixed for each deceased person. KRUN is obliged to provide free of charge a coffin worth 290 roubles, to carry it up to the floor, and to dig the grave - the budget settles with the enterprise for this. However, as Sergey Korolev asserts, in reality the provision of the guaranteed list of services costs 1.4 thousand roubles per deceased person, and taking into account the relatives' outlays the burial expenses rise to 2.5-3 thousand. The Duma members, however, did not believe the director of KRUN. Deputy Bogdanov stated that nowadays burying and marrying cost equally dearly. Someone, in his words, even named a sum of 65 thousand roubles. The director of the municipal enterprise KRUN said that the plant has nothing whatsoever to do with "commercial burials" and that for an "ordinary mortal" three thousand is quite enough for the last journey.

As it turned out, KRUN has nothing to do with the construction of the Nizhny Novgorod crematorium either - the client is the municipal enterprise Voznesenie. Alexander Razumovsky (a Duma deputy elected in the by-elections in the second district), who happened to be in the know, reported that a site for the crematorium had been found in the Balakhna area. Construction requires 1.5-2 million dollars - the design alone is estimated at 600 thousand roubles. It is still too early to say when the crematorium will be erected.

On 25 April, at a briefing, the chairman of the City Duma Sergey Abyshev told the press that the municipal enterprise KRUN works abominably badly - it "thinks only of its own profit". In the words of Mr. Abyshev, "in his report Sergey Korolev spoke not about what his department actually does - he was being disingenuous". And the sums that funerals amount to are not at all those named by the head of the Plant of Ritual Services for the Population. A burial in an old "family" grave at the Novosormovskoye cemetery cost one of the people who turned to the City Duma speaker 12 thousand roubles. According to Sergey Abyshev, that grave was more than 20 years old - such a burial complied with all sanitary norms.

Since the enterprise has created a difficult situation with the organisation of funerals in the city, it was decided to turn to the neighbours for help - to conclude contracts with the municipal enterprises of Bor, Balakhna and Kstovo. True, the cemeteries there are small and will not be able to take in all the deceased, but at the moment, in the opinion of the City Duma chairman, this is the best option. Besides, in this way it may perhaps be possible to make KRUN finally get down to business.
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"Deputy Abyshev is ready to find the remains of the Suzdal princes under the city hall building"

REGNUM-NTA 15:55 29 July 2005

Sergey Abyshev, a deputy of the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod, intends to find the remains of the Suzdal princes under the City Hall, located in the The Kremlin. Abyshev reported this to a correspondent of the Nizhny Novgorod Telegraph Agency.

"Under the city hall building there may be the burial vault of the great Suzdal princes. No one can say for certain whether the remains were secretly taken away in 1937 or are still there. Only excavations can say all this for certain", the NTA interlocutor explained.

The City Duma deputy hopes to obtain the city head's permission to carry out the excavations in the near future. After that Abyshev intends to obtain a similar permission from the Ministry of Culture and to begin the excavations in September-October of this year.

"We are interested in the period of The Founding of Nizhny Novgorod - the fourteenth century, when the Suzdal princes ruled here. In Nizhny Novgorod few people know about these historical figures, we want to restore historical justice", Sergey Abyshev summed up.

The deputy said that the funding of the excavations would be taken on by outside organisations, with which he has reached a corresponding agreement.

The head of Nizhny Novgorod Bulavinov reported at a briefing on 29 July that "by law I am obliged to give permission for the excavations, and instead of a flower bed we shall be looking at a fence with a dirty puddle of water". At the same time the mayor expressed the hope that the deputy would ensure the excavations were carried out and would not abandon the undertaking halfway. "I remember how several years ago a pit was dug, they dug it out, but no one did any digging in it", the mayor recalled.

As has been reported, at the beginning of July 2002 the former mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Yury Lebedev announced the need to carry out archaeological excavations near the city hall building. Lebedev asserted that the city budget would finance the start of the work, while its continuation should be organised at the expense of donations from Nizhny Novgorod enterprises and firms.

The mayor explained the need for the excavations by the fact that at the end of June 2002 a sinkhole formed next to the main entrance to the city hall building. On that spot, in his words, until 1930 there stood the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, which was the city's main cathedral. The first mention of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour dates back to the 13th century. In 1930, during the construction of the building now occupied by the city hall of Nizhny Novgorod, the cathedral was destroyed.

However, the excavations were not brought to completion, since in September Vadim Bulavinov took Yury Lebedev's place as mayor of Nizhny Novgorod."

Sergey Abyshev turns people into sages

In the assessment of the political consultant Yudintsev:

« Abyshev knows how to turn people into sages.
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The creator of the "Nizhny Novgorod psychotechnology" on the potential of S.V. Abyshev

A.N. Zhmyrikov, the inventor of the Nizhny Novgorod Psychotechnology", in 2005 gave superb assessments of Sergey Abyshev's political qualities:

« Sergey Vladimirovich Abyshev personifies the image of a new wave leader. <..> Abyshev may also receive as a "prize" the votes of the female audience (the 18-40 age group), in view of his inherent outward charm and his ability to persuade his interlocutor gently. For women, as is well known, "love with their ears". And S.V. Abyshev will always find the time and the topics for "free ears".
 »


Interesting facts

  • Sergey Abyshev is the youngest deputy of the Nizhny Novgorod City Council (1990-93 ).


  • He headed not only the Polytechnic branch of the Russian Union of Youth (RSM), but from 1997 also the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Committee of the RSM and the Association of Student Organisations in Moscow.
  • He intended to find the remains of the Suzdal princes beneath the The Kremlin, but the search was halted by the election of Bulavinov as Mayor.

Official website

  • Abyshev.ru — the deleted official website of Sergey Abyshev. "The Wayback Machine" archive]

Facebook account

See also