Sergey Abychev

Sergey Vladimirovich Abyshev (born October 4, 1969, Gorky) — a Nizhny Novgorod politician and civil servant, chairman of the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod from January 2001 to October 2002, and before that first deputy head of the city administration, chief of staff of the Presidential Envoy of Russia in Nizhny Novgorod Region, and press secretary to the Governor; from November 2002, president of the non-profit organization "Nizhny Novgorod Development Fund," after which he worked in Moscow — at the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the Ministry of Energy of Russia ^{[1][2][3][4][27]}.

Avtozavod, school, polytech

Born October 4, 1969, in Gorky ^[1]. An Avtozavod man in the third generation: he attended Secondary School No. 136 in Avtozavodsky District, and lived for more than twenty years in the Northern Settlement of Avtozavod — as the factory newspaper Novy Avtozavodets introduced him in the autumn of 2002 ^[18].

A scholarship holder of the Gorky Automobile Plant: in 1986 he completed an internship at the plant's design and experimental works department, and his diploma thesis in the automotive faculty was devoted to the reliability of the GAZ-2417 automobile ^[1][18]. From 1986 to 1991 he studied at the Gorky Polytechnic Institute, majoring in "Automobiles and Automotive Engineering" ^[1].

Abyshev's father was one of the senior managers at GAZ; no documentary confirmation of this exists.

After graduating, he stayed at the Polytech: from 1989 he served as secretary of the institute's Komsomol committee, from 1991 as a lecturer in the Department of Automotive Transport, and from 1992 to 1994 as an assistant in the Department of Production Management. In 1992 he enrolled in postgraduate study in the specialization of National Economy Management and that same year attended a course in market economics at the North East Wales Institute NEWI (United Kingdom); in 1998 he completed advanced training courses at the Russian Academy of State Service under the President of Russia, and in 2001 earned a second degree from Nizhny Novgorod Law Academy in the specialization of legal scholar ^[1][2].

On 12 February 2003 he defended his dissertation "The Soviet Social Order as a Historical Phenomenon and a Stage in Russia's Development" and was awarded the degree of Candidate of Philosophical Sciences in the specialization of social philosophy; he holds the academic rank of associate professor ^[1].

Student Organizations and "ROST"

In 1993 he organized the first all-Russian student camp "ROST," and in 1994 became Vice-Rector of Nizhny Novgorod Technical University for extracurricular affairs — at that time the youngest vice-rector in Russia. In 1997 he headed the Nizhny Novgorod regional organization of the Russian Union of Youth, and in 1999 was awarded the title of Honorary Member of the Russian Union of Youth ^[1]. It is also known that he headed the Association of Student Organizations in Moscow, though no documentary confirmation of this exists. Political scientist Alexander Zhmyrikov called him the first secretary of the regional committee of the RSM and believed that this period gave Abyshev recognition among voters aged 22–35 ^[22].

The youth agenda followed him into City Hall. In April 2000, First Deputy Mayor Abyshev took part in a meeting between Governor Ivan Sklyarov and the organizing committee of the all-Russian festival "Russian Student Spring 2000," which the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the RSM had won over other cities; the discussion concerned accommodating participants, riverboats, and communications — the Governor and the Deputy Mayor promised, among other things, to provide walkie-talkies ^[11]. In July of the same year, Nizhny Novgorod student leader Mikhail Mirny publicly stated that following a visit by Mayor Yury Lebedev and Abyshev to the Pechyory Student Palace, the administration had raised complaints against the center, and he linked this to student protests in favor of cheaper transit passes ^[13].

From Governor's Press Secretary to First Deputy Mayor

In 1990, at the age of 20, he was elected a deputy of the City Council of People's Deputies representing Avtozavodsky District and remained so until 1993 ^[1]. Abyshev was called the youngest deputy of the city council of that convocation, though no documentary confirmation of this exists.

In April 1997, he was appointed press secretary of the Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Region, and in October of the same year, chief of staff of the Authorized Representative of the President of Russia in Nizhny Novgorod Region, with the civil service rank of State Counselor of the Russian Federation, 2nd class. In October 1998, with the approval of the City Duma, he was confirmed as First Deputy Head of the Administration of Nizhny Novgorod ^[1][2].

First Deputy Mayor: the Metro Bridge, the underpass, transport

Talk of a Metro Bridge and a Metro station in the Upper Town had been going on since 1989, under Boris Nemtsov; in 1992, under the chairman of the city executive committee Omari Sharadze, construction began to receive funding and a site on Marat Street was prepared, but owing to a shortage of money and an uncertain political climate the project never got off the ground ^[15].

In 1999, now serving as First Deputy Mayor, Abyshev was appointed overseer of metro construction with the task of launching work on the Metro Bridge and then the station, so that both facilities would be ready by 2004–2005. At the same time the design was revised: it was decided to build a combined bridge — with the metro on one level and a roadway on the other — on the basis of forecasts that by 2006 the city's existing interchanges would be insufficient. To back the approved design, permission was sought from the federal authorities to use tax arrears; actual construction began in 2000, and in September 2001 Vice-Mayor Olga Sulima became the project's overseer ^[15].

Also attributed to his tenure at City Hall is the pedestrian underpass on Gagarin Avenue near the Palace of Sport: from 1995 the traffic police had been requesting an underpass at this accident-prone stretch, but there was no money, and in early 1999 Mayor Lebedev, Deputy Mayor Abyshev, the city departments, and the metro builders agreed to construct it using private investors' funds in exchange for underground retail space. The first phase was built in two months; the underpass opened in full on 10 October 1999. Rows of commercial kiosks had to be relocated, and it was Abyshev who conducted the negotiations with the traders ^[16].

His website also linked the renewal of the city bus fleet to this same period. In spring 2000, although buses fell under the regional authority's jurisdiction, City Hall went to Germany to choose between MAN and Mercedes-Benz and purchased 24 second-hand MAN buses from 1986–1988, from the firm "Yakoub GmbH" — including delivery, for 1,252,000 Deutsche Marks; one bus was fitted out for passengers with disabilities. Mayor Lebedev rejected PAZ buses as less spacious, and large PAZ buses on Volvo chassis as too expensive. On 17 December 2000 the buses, lettered "NA" — for "Nizhegorodsky Avtobus" (Nizhny Novgorod Bus) — entered service on routes NA-20A (Mineyeva Street – Kuznechikha-2) and NA-70A (ZKPd-4 – Verkhniye Pechyory) at 2 rubles 50 kopecks, or 1 ruble for pensioners; on the first day alone they were used by 500 elderly passengers ^[31].

In autumn 2000, Nikita Medyantsev, political commentator for the newspaper Monitor, described the candidacy of the First Deputy Mayor for a seat in the city legislature as the most intriguing story of the campaign: the May prediction by political analyst Ivan Yudintsev, which had been laughed off, was coming true, and City Hall officials were going to the polls one after another ^[12].

Chairman of the City Duma (2001–2002)

In December 2000 he was elected a deputy of the Nizhny Novgorod City Duma from electoral district No. 8 in Avtozavodsky District, and served on the commissions for municipal economy and property and for public health ^[1][2].

On January 17, 2001, the third-convocation duma elected its speaker from the sole remaining candidate: 22 deputies voted for Abyshev, four voted against ^[3]. The City Duma's website dates his speakership "from January 2000 to October 2002" ^[2]; according to the Nizhny Novgorod Telegraph Agency and his own biography, the duma was elected in December 2000 and he became speaker on January 17, 2001 ^[1][3].

A notable decision passed by the duma under his leadership was the "Regulation on the Procedure for Exercising Popular Legislative Initiative on Matters of Local Significance": any Nizhny Novgorod resident could submit a draft regulatory act addressed to the speaker, and the authors of adopted documents would receive between 5,000 and 10,000 rubles. Abyshev said he was counting primarily on law students, and that the regulation itself had been drafted by freelance workers ^[6][7].

Municipal affairs provided coarser material. At the session of April 24, 2002, the duma took up the matter of burials: deputy Mikhail Dikin brought up the record of Sergey Korolyov, director of the municipal unitary enterprise KRUN, who had previously worked as a manager at Prominbank; his colleagues noted that this had no bearing on cemetery affairs, and the floor was given to the presenter himself. A reporter noted the contrast with *The Twelve Chairs*, in which funeral parlors languished for lack of business: in Nizhny Novgorod, things were quite the opposite ^[5].

Deputy Bogdanov stated that a funeral and a wedding cost about the same, and that someone had cited a figure of 65,000 rubles; the director of KRUN replied that the enterprise had nothing to do with commercial burials and that 3,000 rubles was enough for an ordinary mortal's final journey. The crematorium was commissioned by the municipal unitary enterprise Vozneseniye, and a site for it was found near Balakhna ^[5].

At a briefing on April 25, 2002, Abyshev stated that KRUN was doing an appallingly poor job and thinking only of its own profit: a Nizhny Novgorod resident who had approached the speaker had paid 12,000 rubles to inter a body in an existing family grave at Novo-Sormovskoe Cemetery, even though the grave was more than twenty years old and such a burial met sanitary standards. The duma resolved to conclude contracts with the municipal enterprises of Bor, Balakhna, and Kstovo — and, in the speaker's thinking, to force the enterprise to get on with its work ^[5].

On October 16, 2002, the deputies terminated the speaker's powers ahead of schedule: 23 deputies supported the resolution, one voted against, and one abstained. Two deputies were nominated as candidates for the new speakership; one withdrew, and the duma was once again headed by its former speaker ^[4]. In the autumn of 2002, contrary to the predictions of local political analysts, Abyshev did not take part in the mayoral election campaign — he collected press coverage from that period on his website under the headings "I Have Time" and "If Only We Could Have Putin as Mayor" ^[18].

No other city in Russia has such a provision. Any Nizhny Novgorod resident can draft a regulatory act, submit it to the chairman of the city duma, and the matter will be reviewed at a session of the standing commissions and the duma, where it will receive either a positive or a negative answer

We are compelled to produce them ourselves. The deputies as a body do not have the time, the education, or the capacity needed for this work. That is why we engage the broadest possible segments of the public

In his report, Sergey Korolev was not talking about what his agency actually does — he was being disingenuous

A deputy, a foundation, and city affairs (2002–2005)

From November 2002, he served as president of the non-profit organization "Fond razvitiya Nizhnego Novgoroda" (Nizhny Novgorod Development Fund), while remaining a deputy of the City Duma ^[1]. In his district he led the campaign "Let's Clean Up the District!" — organizing community clean-up days and tree-planting — secured street lighting on ten streets in the Parizhskoy Kommuny settlement, donated radios and a television set to Hospital No. 24, and presented plastic brooms to the best janitors of Housing Maintenance Office No. 23 ^[19].

In the autumn of 2003, Izvestiya reported that it was Deputy Abyshev who suggested to Mayor Bulavinov the idea of charging tuition fees for the children of foreign nationals attending city schools ^[18].

His deputy inquiries addressed the same quality-of-life concerns: the absence of hot water in homes in District No. 8, funding for a prosthetic limb for a GAZ worker, and the schooling of foreign nationals in city schools. Abyshev chaired the board of the Nizhny Novgorod environmental fund and commented on the conflict between Hospital No. 13 and GAZ with the formula "if you want to pick a fight — do the math first" ^[20].

In the autumn of 2003, Izvestiya reported that the prosecutor's office was contesting the legality of bonuses paid by the mayor to the chairman of the city duma; Abyshev included the same article in his personal press clippings ^[18].

In March 2004, commenting on the region's last-place finish in the district for voter turnout at the presidential elections, he said that door-to-door canvassing by district administration employees had only irritated people, and that the protest electorate in Nizhny Novgorod had coalesced around Irina Khakamada ^[10].

In March 2005, the deputy filed a suit in the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court demanding that provisions of the regional law introducing party lists for elections to the Nizhny Novgorod City Duma be declared invalid; the court had dismissed a similar lawsuit by Mayor Vadim Bulavinov, ruling that he was not a proper plaintiff ^[25].

In April 2005, Zhmyrikov assessed Abyshev's chances in the city head elections and considered him the best-prepared of the likely candidates — the only one with both experience managing the duma and experience in municipal administration. He also noted the politician's personal charm, his "ability to persuade people gently," and the fact that, unlike Andrey Klimentyev, Abyshev had "a clean track record" ^[22].

In the 2005 Duma elections, the district electoral commission refused to register him as a candidate on 20 September: out of 913 submitted signatures, approximately 130 were deemed invalid following a check conducted by the district police department. On 6 October, the Avtozavodsky District Court refused to overturn this decision ^[9].

In December 2006, the magazine Newsmaker was already presenting him as deputy chairman of the board of the National Association of Natural Gas Consumers ^[14].

The events that took place here cannot be erased from the memory of the population. People have grown accustomed to certain methods of running an election campaign, to authorities who behave as they see fit, to the traditional disregard for the interests of the population

Excavations beneath the City Hall building

In the summer of 2005, the deputy announced his intention to search for the remains of the Suzdal princes beneath the building of the city administration in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. He planned to obtain permission from the head of the city, then from the Ministry of Culture, and to begin excavations in September–October; funding, he said, would be provided by outside organizations ^[8].

The backstory was an old one: at the end of June 2002, a sinkhole had appeared near the main entrance to City Hall, and the then-Mayor Yuri Lebedev had announced the need for excavations — on that site until 1930 had stood the Transfiguration Cathedral, the city's main cathedral, destroyed during the construction of the current building. The work was never completed: in September 2002, Vadim Bulavinov replaced Lebedev as mayor ^[8].

Bulavinov, at a briefing on July 29, 2005, stated that he was legally required to grant permission and noted that a pit had already been dug several years earlier but no one had ever excavated it. In the end, the search never began ^[8]. The subject of the Nizhny Novgorod princes remained in his public statements: "We are interested in the period of Nizhny Novgorod's flowering — the fourteenth century, when the Suzdal princes ruled here" ^[8].

Beneath the City Hall building may lie the burial vault of the great Suzdal princes. No one can say with certainty whether the remains were secretly removed in 1937 or whether they are still there. Only excavations can give a definitive answer

he is legally required to grant permission for excavations, and instead of a flower bed we will find ourselves watching a fence around a muddy puddle

Moscow: the Antimonopoly Service and the Ministry of Energy

According to public officials' asset declarations, in 2009–2010 Abyshev held the post of deputy head of a department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, and from 2011 to 2015 — deputy director of a department of the Ministry of Energy of Russia ^[27]. In the minutes of a meeting of the FAS Expert Council under the deputy head of the service on December 22, 2010, Sergey Vladimirovich Abyshev is listed as deputy head of the FAS Russia department for control of government authorities and as the presenter on the results of the department's work for 2010 — on violations of antimonopoly legislation by government bodies ^[21].

At the Ministry of Energy he served as deputy director of the department for administrative and legislative affairs, and in that capacity was included in the top tier of the federal reserve of managerial personnel: on November 21, 2013, participants in the federal program "Training and Retraining of the Managerial Personnel Reserve (2010–2015)" met at the House of the Government with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and Abyshev appears on the list of attendees ^[29]. In October 2012 he completed a short-term professional development course at the Russian State Social University — 40 hours under the program "Information-Analytical Technologies and Tools for Supporting Managerial Decision-Making" (the certificate is reproduced below).

Views: small business, markets, and government

In December 2006, serving as deputy director of the Institute for Sustainable Development of Settlements, Abyshev gave journalist Vladimir Lapyrin an interview about the demolition of mini-markets. He described the demolitions as contracts placed by large retail chains and as a consequence of the incompetence of city officials, and argued that competition from small businesses was a precondition for the investment attractiveness of the territory ^[23].

He took credit for the closure of an auto parts market and the relocation of a book market from Lenin Square to Marata Street: in his words, entrepreneurs were not being driven out but transferred to prepared sites. He proposed moving collective-farm markets, including the Central Market, out to the suburbs, and regarded the flower-trading situation on Freedom Square as a failed attempt at a redistribution of interests. On the subject of businesspeople moving into government, he said that everyone who made the transition lost their business, citing federal entrepreneurs as examples; regarding Oleg Sorokin, he noted that he would not argue the point, since it concerned government, not entrepreneurship ^[23].

He countered rumors that officials enter government poor and leave rich by noting that the Lebedev administration had "left penniless" compared to today's officialdom; he called Governor Alexander Khloponin's example a PR exercise against the backdrop of Norilsk Nickel and aluminum plants; he recalled that he himself had received more than five thousand people and that they had "seriously set my head straight." The main problem for small retail businesses, in his view, was short-term leases: a kiosk costing five to ten thousand dollars stands on someone else's land, and the owner can be treated "any way you like" ^[23].

He also offered characteristic arguments of the era: a 1992 certificate in market economics from North Wales as evidence in a dispute about officials' education; a reminder that no less than a third of the city's improvements had been paid for by mini-market owners; and advice to entrepreneurs to hire lawyers and band together into associations ^[23].

In September 2019, commenting on Governor Gleb Nikitin's proposal to move officials and deputies out of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, the former deputy mayor called it "an idea from the year 2000" that had never been realized because of a dispute over whether the authorities ought to be housed in the kremlin at all ^[26].

Small business creates the investment climate

The moment a businessman moves into government, he either loses his business or destroys the government

I am in favour of placing all civil services and administrations outside the historical boundaries, with modern communications and workplace organisation

Assessments by contemporaries

In December 2000, political technologist Ivan Yudintsev, writing in Vestnik Nizhnego Novgoroda, described the future speaker of the Duma in a single phrase ^[24]. Five years later, the creator of Nizhny Novgorod Psychotechnology Aleksandr Zhmyrikov wrote of him as the "image of a new-wave leader": a young man with several higher-education degrees, a candidate of sciences and associate professor who had already worked in both the executive and legislative branches of power ^[22].

Abyshev has a gift for turning people into sages

Sergey Vladimirovich Abyshev embodies the image of a new-wave leader

Personal life

He is married and raising a son ^[1]. His interests include motor racing, football, and shooting with combat firearms; in the early 2000s his website made a point of noting that the speaker of the Duma "enjoys communicating via the internet" and uses online resources to search for information ^[17]. His personal website abyshev.ru — featuring a forum, biography, press digest, and reports on his constituency work — was active from 2001 to 2004 and survives only in a web archive ^[28]. He later maintained a page on Facebook ^[30].

Sergey Abyshev's wedding was photographed by Nikolay Nesterenko; there is no documentary confirmation of this.

• The youngest vice-rector in Russia at the time of his appointment in 1994 ^[1]
• Honorary Member of the Russian Union of Youth (1999) ^[1]
• State Counselor of the Russian Federation, 2nd class (1997) ^[1]
• Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, Associate Professor (2003) ^[1]

Sources

1. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — biography — Biography. Abyshev Sergey Vladimirovich (archive)
2. gordumannov.ru — City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod — deputy profile, 3rd convocation — Abyshev Sergey Vladimirovich (archive)
3. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — (NTA archive), January 17, 2001 — Former First Deputy Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Sergey Abyshev became chairman of the City Duma
4. Kommersant (Volga Region) — Kommersant, October 16, 2002 — Speaker of the Nizhny Novgorod City Duma removed ahead of schedule
5. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — report on the Duma session of April 24, 2002 — Deputies contemplate funerals. Decision made to build a crematorium and a new cemetery (archive)
6. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — on the citizens' legislative initiative — Money and a job can be obtained from the chairman of the City Duma (archive)
7. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — on the adoption of the regulation on legislative initiative (archive)
8. regnum.ru — IA REGNUM citing NTA, July 29, 2005 — A Nizhny Novgorod City Duma deputy is prepared to search for the remains of Suzdal princes beneath the City Hall building
9. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — (NTA archive), October 6, 2005 — The Avtozavodsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod refused Sergey Abyshev's request to invalidate the decision of the district electoral commission
10. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — (NTA archive), March 15, 2004 — "Regional authorities still live out of touch with the population," — Sergey Abyshev (archive)
11. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — (NTA archive), April 17, 2000 — Governor Ivan Sklyarov wants the final of the "Russian Student Spring 2000" festival to be held at a high level
12. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — (NTA archive), November 21, 2000 — review of the pre-election landscape — Political commentator of the newspaper Monitor, Nikita Medyantsev: "Lebedev doesn't have enough people"
13. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — (NTA archive), July 14, 2000 — Leader of Nizhny Novgorod students Mikhail Mirny declared that city head Yuri Lebedev "is taking revenge on the student organization"
14. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — December 28, 2006 — about the authors of Newsmaker magazine — The third issue of Newsmaker magazine has been published (archive)
15. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — on the construction of the Metro Bridge — Start of Metro Bridge construction (archive)
16. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — on the pedestrian underpass on Gagarin Avenue — The underpass the city so badly needs (archive)
17. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — hobbies — Hobbies (archive)
18. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — "Press about Abyshev" selection (archive)
19. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — work in electoral district No. 8 — Work in the district (archive)
20. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — current activities of the deputy (archive)
21. fas.gov.ru — Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (web archive) — minutes No. 4 of the Expert Council meeting, December 22, 2010
22. polit.nnov.ru — "Polit-NN.ru" (web archive), April 25, 2005, Alexander Zhmyrikov — Why Abyshev?
23. r52.ru — December 12, 2006, interviewed by Vladimir Lapyrin — There is always a chance!
24. nnovobzor.ru — Vestnik Nizhnego Novgoroda, December 18, 2000, Ivan Yudintsev — Assessment of a political technologist
25. Kommersant (Volga Region) — Kommersant (N. Novgorod) No. 54, March 29, 2005 — City Duma deputy asks court to annul party lists
26. KP — Nizhny Novgorod — Komsomolskaya Pravda — Nizhny Novgorod, September 5, 2019 (archive)
27. declarator.org — information on positions from civil servants' declarations — Abyshev S. V.
28. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — main page with forum — Sergey Abyshev. Past, present, future… (archive)
29. static.government.ru — Government of Russia — list of participants in Dmitry Medvedev's meeting with the management personnel reserve, November 21, 2013 (archive)
30. web.archive.org — Official website of Sergey Abyshev (web archive) — selection of NTA reports on the purchase of MAN buses, 2000 — Purchase of MAN buses (archive)
31. facebook.com — personal page of Sergey Abyshev — Sergey Abyshev