The Governor of the Chelyabinsk region received a prize in a special nomination “VIP-Gifts to Officials”

Press Release, 16.01.2021

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

The Anti-Corruption Policy Centre of the Yabloko party has summed up the results of the Golden Toilet Brush anti-award for officials’ most wasteful state procurement purchases. The first prize went to Alexander Bugayev, Director of Russian Youth (Rosmolodezh) for the state procurement for the development of “soft skills” of the Cossacks for 3 million roubles. The Golden Toilet Brush in the regional nomination was awarded to Gleb Nikitin, Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, for purchasing an elite tour for two Instagram bloggers in the state procurement purchase for 2.3 million roubles. The Governor of the Chelyabinsk region received a special prize  – The Golden Сaviar Dish – for his expensive elite gifts to other officials.

Despite the pandemic, the Russian Youth organisaiton held a five-day Cossack gathering for 3 million roubles, when the Cossacks [known today for their participation in violent suppression of the dissent] were taught the basics of SMM and “soft skills” and got trained on the development of emotional intelligence (according to the Open Media). Alexander Bugayev won the users’ voting.

A Silver Toilet Brush was awarded to Andrei Kalmykov, Director of the airline Pobeda (Victory). RIA Novosti reported that the company, which is owned by the state, purchased 3,000 simulators for training facial muscles. That is how the airline hoped to make the flight attendants smile at least a little.

A Bronze Toilet Brush in the federal nomination was awarded to Alexander Kolpakov, head of the Administrative Department of the President of the Russian Federation. He was nominated for TV tables worth 764,000 roubles and a flag stand from solid beechwood worth 142,000 roubles. The furniture was intended for the office of Dmitry Medvedev (housed in the former Zinaida Morozova mansion, a masterpiece of the Art Nuveau architecture in Moscow). Open Media was the first media to write about the purchase.

Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev (winner of the Golden Toilet Brush in 2017) and Deputy Public Prosecutor General Andrei Zakharov managed to avoid being awarded this time.

In the regional nomination, Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin won the majority of the votes. He allocated 2.3 million roubles from the budget for covering the expenses of an elite tour for two Instagram bloggers. According to the terms of the contract, the bloggers were provided with a business class car, rooms in a five-star hotel, an individual guide and three meals a day with a coffee break. According to the Reporter NN, the lucky tourists were two bloggers with over a millions followers Karina Nigai and Andrei Glazunov.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin ranks second in the regional nomination. He was awarded a Silver Golden Toilet Brush for the state procurement purchase of 100 new prisoner transport vehicles for Muscovites for 491 million roubles. Last year, Sobyanin already received a Golden Toilet Brush for the purchase of 941 km of road curb for 3 billion roubles.

The Bronze Toilet Brush was awarded to Igor Shutenkov, Mayor of Ulan-Ude, for the purchase of buses with quotes from Vladimir Putin. In total, the Mayor’s Office of the capital of Buryatia purchased 42 buses for a total amount of about 200 million roubles, the newspaper Baikal-Daily wrote. On the sides of the buses there will be such prominent quotes from Putin as “The people’s budget is the initiative of the people”.

Other nominees were Vasily Shushakov, head of the Novosibirsk department of the Russian Gueard, for his purchase of stickers “Towards Berlin” for official cars, as well as Alexander Burkov, Governor of the Omsk region, who bought luxury cars while donating old cars to the doctors for the fight against coronavirus.

Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre awarded a special prize – the Golden Caviar Dish – to Alexei Teksler, Governor of the Chelyabinsk region. For the second year the Governor has been purchasing gifts for officials for 10 million roubles from the budget. This procurement was detected by  Yaroslav Shcherbakov, head of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Anti-Corruption Policy Centre of theChelyabinsk branch of Yabloko. The list of gifts included caviar and vodka sets (from jade and jasper) with gilding, elite alcohol (Hennessy XO, Talisker, Lagavulin, and The Maccalan), entertainment equipment, sculptures and many other things.

«Золотой Ёршик» придумало молодёжное «Яблоко» Санкт-Петербурга в 2008 году. Первую награду получила губернатор Северной столицы (2003-2011) Валентина Матвиенко после закупки туалетных ёршиков для администрации ценой 12 794 рублей за штуку.

MORE ABOUT THE GOLDEN TOILET BRUSH ANTI-AWARD:

The Golden Toilet Brush anti-award was invented by the Youth branch of Yabloko in St. Petersburg in 2008. The first prize was awarded to Valentina Matvienko, then Governor of St.Petersburg (2003-2011), for her purchase of toilet brushes for the City Administration worth 12,794 roubles a piece (approximately USD 474 as of the rouble/dollar rate in 2008).

In 2018, Viktor Zolotov, head of the Russian Guard, won the vote of the Golden Toilet Brush. He received his anti-prize for overstating food prices for the Russian Guard by 1 billion roubles (according to the Anti-Corruption Foundation). The regional Golden Toilet Brush was awarded to Igor Ruden, Governor of the Tver region, for the state procurement purchase of a camera worth 1.83 million roubles.

In 2019, the Golden Toilet Brush was awarded to then Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky for showing the documentary “I owe my millions to their work …” in Switzerland. The film cost 9.7 million roubles. The regional prize was awarded to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin for the purchase of 941 km of curbs for 3 billion roubles.