Maxim Sladky`s News Agency
1998 A.D.
1998 -1999-2000-2001-2002-
2003-2004-2005-2006
FOOD PRICES SKYROCKET IN KURSK, ADMINISTRATION HELPLESS
(22 December 1998)
MOSCOW REPRESENTATION DRAINS KURSK BUDGET
(16 December 1998)
ICN'S KURSK SUBSIDIARY SUFFERS FROM CRISIS
(8 December 1998)
POPULAR JOURNALIST PICKETED BY KURSK COMMUNISTS, ANTISEMITES
(3 December 1998)
NEWSPAPERS ARRIVE A DAY LATE IN KURSK
(3 December 1998)
PROCURATOR UNCOVERS MISUSE OF FEDERAL FUNDS IN KURSK
(3 December 1998)
FOOD PRICES SKYROCKET IN KURSK, ADMINISTRATION HELPLESS
Residents of the city of Kursk are wondering why their food prices rising so rapidly. In a matter of one week the price for ten eggs went up twofold. Five days ago they cost 9 rubles, but today the price tag says 20. Commenting on the causes of price inflation, the head of the oblast's trade committee blamed the August crisis and the subsequent plunge of the ruble's exchange rate in relation to the U.S. dollar. Imports became more expensive, and thus disappeared from the domestic market. The infamous "Bush legs" (imported American chicken legs) are two and a half times more expensive than they were before. The oblast officials also claimed that the collapse of the ruble had caused prices to go up for domestically-produced goods as well.
The administration is trying to influence the market by urging leading retailers to buy their produce directly from producers, bypassing middlemen. Administration officials have already approached directors of egg factories and asked them to supply 200,000 eggs daily, enough to meet the oblast's needs. The administration's price control department has already worked out a deal with the egg factories whereby they agreed to sell their product virtually at cost (12 rubles per ten eggs), with only a 1 ruble markup. Most consumers could pay this price.
However, the same scheme did not work for butter, because of the generally higher prices for milk. This means that even if factories sell butter at cost, the wholesale price per kilogram would still be 46-48 rubles, and with a reasonable minimum markup the price would reach 52 rubles, well beyond the means of most Kursk residents. Even the price control department is helpless here, paralyzed by market conditions. Governor Aleksandr Rutskoi told the public in his TV appearance that the only way to control food prices is to close down the oblast's borders and declare independence from Russia. However, he acknowledged, this is not a realist option today.
22 December 2003
MOSCOW REPRESENTATION DRAINS KURSK BUDGET
A year and a half ago Kursk Governor Aleksandr Rutskoi asked the oblast Duma to approve a $4.6 million bank credit for the administration to buy a $1.9 million residence near the Kremlin. The legislators unquestioningly approved the transaction and Rutskoi refurbished the building as an oblast representation in the capital. Journalists then discovered that the residence was bought for an exorbitant price from a high-level official in the oblast administration. The seller was the prominent Chechen businessman Musa Idigov, who was serving as first deputy governor for economics at the time of the transaction. It was then revealed that the building had been used as collateral with Moscow’s Inkombank in order to obtain the credit. Although the oblast owes a huge amount of money to Inkombank, it turns out that it does not even own the building in question. The building housing the governor’s employees, journalists discovered, was at a different address, although still near the Kremlin. Every month the oblast was paying a considerable amount of money for maintaining apartments for 46 of the governor’s employees.
For a long time neither journalists nor taxpayers heard anything close to an intelligible explanation of what was going on with the oblast building in Moscow. Finally, at the oblast Duma meeting on 28 November, Rutskoi asked the deputies not to be upset. He then announced that the number of Moscow-based oblast employees would be cut from 46 to 3 and that the debts owed to Inkombank, which went bankrupt and lost its license following the financial crisis that began in August, would be addressed. Rutskoi claimed that, “There is nothing out of the ordinary going on here.” Idigov received his money, though. One wonders ifhe is the only one.
17 December 1998
ICN'S KURSK SUBSIDIARY SUFFERS FROM CRISIS
ICN Leksredstvo, a Kurskbased subsidiary of ICN Pharmaceuticals, sent nearly 30 percent of its employees on unpaid leave from 16 November to 18 January. This move is likely related to the difficulties encountered by all Russian enterprises during the financial crisis. Unlike other industrial enterprises, ICN Leksredstvo had intensified production for a while, but its production costs have increased 65 percent during 1997 and the first half of this year. The company's workers are considered among the best-compensated in Kursk Oblast. However, the crisis has caused the enterprise lose this distinction.
In these conditions, ICN's owners and managers are trying to find a way out of the situation through more aggressive marketing. Kursk pharmacies are now flooded with drugs from ICN (this was not the case before November). Additionally, on 29 November the firm opened its own pharmacy in one of Kursk's districts, and the company began producing a new children's medicine, Prokhodol. The unusual name for the medicine comes from the last name of ICN Leksredstvo's President Yevgenii Prokhoda. According to him, the medicine is different from all other similar drugs because of its cherry flavor and an unusual measuring spoon.
8 December 1998
POPULAR JOURNALIST PICKETED BY KURSK COMMUNISTS, ANTISEMITES
On 26 November the popular TV personality and talk-show host Vladimir Pozner gave a performance in a Kursk theater. Posner, raised in the United States by Russian parents, returned to the Soviet Union in the 1980s and rose to prominence with the ground-breaking talk-shows he conducted jointly with U.S. journalist Phil Donahue. The auditorium was packed and among local dignitaries attending were Kursk Mayor Sergei Maltsev and oblast Governor Aleksandr Rutskoi. Pozner met with the governor in person later in the day, local TV station Takt reported. However, some were not happy about Pozner's visit, as testified by a number of Communists and vehement anti-Semites demonstrating outside the theater. They were carrying placards proclaiming that "Posner is a traitor and an agent of American imperialism" and "Posner is the enemy of the Russian people." One of the demonstrators told reporters: "Watching TV, it seems you are not in Russia, but in Israel."
3 December 1998
NEWSPAPERS ARRIVE A DAY LATE IN KURSK
In the past Russians used oneday old newspapers for household needs. However, these days they must treasure them if they want to stay abreast of the printed news. According to the Federal Postal Service, several Moscow newspapers will be delivered to Kursk one day late. Among them are dailies Sovetskaya Rossiya, Pravda, Izvestiya, Rossiiskie vesti, Ekonomika i zhizn, and Sovetskii sport, along with virtually all weekly papers. Some villages and small towns in the oblast will not receive their issues for two or three days. The delays will cause the central press to lose its timeliness and demand among readers.
The delays are the result of the financial crisis and the subsequent debts the postal service owes to the railroads ministry. For months now, railroad cars belonging to Belgorod Oblast had brought the mail. Under the new arrangements Kursk-owned cars will bring newspapers and magazines from Moscow. The change is certain to have a deleterious effect on the country that believes its citizens read more than any other.
3 December 1998
PROCURATOR UNCOVERS MISUSE OF FEDERAL FUNDS IN KURSK
At the initiative of President Boris Yeltsin, a new commission of federal executive agencies was created in each region to better coordinate federal policies and provide more control over regional authorities. Typically, such commission include the heads of local branches of the Procuracy, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Federal Treasury, the Tax Police, the
Tax Service, the Federal Postal Service and others.
On 25 November, the Kursk commission of federal executive agencies held an open meeting. The commission's creation in the oblast coincided with the appointment of the new presidential representative in Kursk, Leonid Bashkeev, previously a KGB and FSB officer, who most recently headed the security department of Sberbank. At the meeting, the commission reported that it had found that some federal subsidies have been misused in Kursk. For instance, the 12 million rubles transferred in October 1998 toward paying teachers' salaries were used to pay the oblast administration’s debts. Nikolay Tkachev, the oblast procurator, said that for a whole month he could not obtain any information about where this money went, and eventually was forced to launch a special investigation.
Moreover, the commission found that local businesses owe over 1 billion rubles to the Pension Fund, which is enough to pay all Kursk Oblast pensioners for seven months (and for two more years, if the delinquents were forced to pay the fines for their tax arrears).
Among the largest debtors to the budget are the Kursk Atomic Power Station and the ikhailovsk Ore Enrichment Plant. It was also brought to light that the Kursk Oblast administration has misused half of the money from a special fund attached to the power station to purchase houses and personal cars for oblast officials, many of whom are still in public service.
Kursk Oblast Governor Aleksandr Rutskoi quickly went on the offensive against these findings at a press conference he held the following day. He accused the federal Center of failing to provide 30 percent of the subsidies it owes to the region. This is especially abhorrent, he said, given that the region had collected 103 percent of its projected taxes. Thus, the federal and regional authorities continue to engage in an information war.
3 December 1998