Andrey Nikitin has been appointed acting governor of the Novgorod region. Journalist: Nikitin disappointed residents of the Novgorod region Acting Governor of the Novgorod

How the Novgorod region, under the new head of the region Andrei Nikitin, is being rebuilt on new tracks

We continue the series of reports from the regions where gubernatorial elections will be held on September 10. The Novgorod region was headed six months ago by the ex-head of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) Andrei Nikitin. The previous governor, Sergei Mitin, also a Moscow appointee, had publicly clashed with local elites over the past two years. The new head distances himself from them.

“He is a man from the young metropolitan crowd”

Regional entrepreneurs gathered in the assembly hall of the house of culture in the city of Chudovo. An energy investment conference is taking place here - officials tell how the connection to networks is progressing in the region. “We recently had a flood and several businesses were left without power. This problem will be solved by “smart grid” technology - the so-called smart networks. “Smart Grid” is already being implemented in Sevastopol and Kaliningrad, and now it will be in the Novgorod region,” announces Acting Governor Andrei Nikitin.

“What kind of “smart grid” is this?” - one entrepreneur asks another in a whisper in the hall. “Who knows, it’s probably a good thing,” answers the second. “But you can’t get to our factory in Borovichi in the rain, what a smart grid.”

Andrei Nikitin moved from the post of general director of ASI to the post of acting head of the Novgorod region - a region that, according to the same agency, was an outsider in terms of investment attractiveness. The first initiatives of the 37-year-old appointee caused misunderstanding on the part of the local elites: regional deputies, for example, wondered why allocate budget money for the project to create the Quantorium, a children's education center, when roads in the region were falling apart, and in the winter Novgorod was left behind due to debts no public transport.

Andrei Nikitin himself does not consider the problem of misunderstanding of his style to be a serious problem. “The point is not in Quantorium, but in the fact that children’s additional education should be not only music and sports, but in those specialties that the economy needs. These are very practical things and easy to explain. Entrepreneurs of the Novgorod region are advanced people, they understand everything. Rather, it is difficult for officials to perceive certain things; there is a problem here. Not everyone can change quickly, so there is a rotation,” explains the acting head.

In six months of ruling the region, Mr. Nikitin almost completely changed the composition of the regional government. Finding replacements for municipal officials is more difficult: there are few people willing to lead a depressed area under the constant supervision of the prosecutor's office. “When Andrei Sergeevich arrived, he immediately sent me to study in Skolkovo,” says the head of the Chudovsky district, Larisa Payuk, who has been working in the territory for more than 30 years. “I am a person of the old formation, I carry out all orders clearly, they told me I went, although maybe , and didn’t want to at first. I grew up in a village, my father gave me a suitcase, 30 rubles, put me on a train and said: you must go and study. It’s the same here.” Andrei Nikitin is “of a completely different generation and education” than most officials in the region, admits the head of the district: “He is a man from the young metropolitan crowd, and here he is once again - in the patriarchal Novgorod region.”

Alexander Rutskoy is participating in the Novgorod elections as a candidate for the Federation Council from the LDPR nominee

“When we have nothing else to do, let’s think about politics”

Mr. Nikitin’s opponents are building their campaign against the image of the interim as a Varangian, a temporary worker. “There are worthy people among you. Why not appoint one of you to lead the region? This is your homeland, your land.

We need to support a local candidate, and not just another experimenter sent from Moscow,” says ex-Vice President of the Russian Federation, General Alexander Rutskoy, at a meeting with Novgorod businessmen, who, every now and then, getting confused, calls the Novgorod region Nizhny Novgorod. The figure of Mr. Rutsky strengthened his campaign with the LDPR nominee, State Duma deputy Anton Morozov, naming him among his candidates for the Federation Council.

In response to the competitors’ argument that Andrei Nikitin is a Varangian, the acting head’s team demonstrates his lobbying capabilities at the federal level. The Novgorod region was the first of the regions where gubernatorial elections will be held in September, where Vladimir Putin came on a visit. Several federal officials have visited the area over the past few months.

In the summer, the region received 1.2 billion rubles. from the federal budget for road repairs, many regional politicians note that under the previous governor the region did not participate so actively in federal programs. Mr. Nikitin himself says that he does not set himself the task of demonstrating federal support to the Novgorodians and does not even think in such categories: “Rather, I want to show big federal officials that we will be responsible for our joint work, and help them fall in love with the region a little, so that they would like to help us.”

The municipal filter in the gubernatorial elections (in the region it is the maximum - 10%) was overcome by candidates from all parliamentary parties and “Patriots of Russia”. Yabloko representative Anna Cherepanova (who collected 25 signatures out of the required 131) was not allowed to participate in the elections; the Rodina nominee withdrew his candidacy himself. The campaign is going boringly, the only thing that brings life into it is the demand to return the elections for the mayor of Veliky Novgorod, which were canceled in 2013, which is being advocated by the competitors of the acting governor.

At the last meeting of the regional Duma, the bill returning popular elections was rejected, despite the support of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia. The current procedure for appointing a mayor by a competition commission (which also includes representatives of the regional administration) actually means that the head of the regional capital will be subordinate to the head of the region.

Andrei Nikitin supports this method of appointing a mayor, but “not for political, but for pragmatic reasons”: “Neither the city nor the region can exist separately.” The acting governor does not consider the issue of the election of the mayor of Veliky Novgorod important in principle: “Our task now is not to think about how to elect someone better, but to correct the situation in the region. If you ask people, there are one hundred and fifty million things to do in Veliky Novgorod, ranging from trolleybuses and buses to storm drainage. And when we’ve done them all and we have nothing else to do, we’ll think about how to elect a mayor and about politics in general.”

Yuri Bobryshev had a conflict with ex-governor Sergei Mitin, and immediately found a common language with the acting head

“The entire regional budget is like two streets in Moscow for renovation”

The absence of an elective mayor of Veliky Novgorod insures Andrei Nikitin against repeating the scenario according to which relations with the regional capital developed with his predecessor. For the last two years, the region has been in a state of permanent public conflict between former governor Sergei Mitin and the mayor of Veliky Novgorod Yuri Bobryshev.

Mr. Bobryshev is often called the “red director”: he has worked all his life in the alcohol industry, his family owns the Novgorod Alkon distillery. Sergei Mitin himself invited him to head Veliky Novgorod ten years ago. “It seemed to me then that we would easily find a common language: he is the director, I am the director. At first we worked harmoniously.

But then the region began to take money from the city. I couldn’t agree with this, we started arguing, it came to a conflict,” says Yuri Bobryshev. The Investigative Committee opened three criminal cases against him. The city duma, controlled by the governor, managed to dismiss him after several attempts, but he regained the mayor's chair through the courts. “The protracted war occupied the resources of both the mayor and the governor: neither the region nor the city developed,” says political consultant Alexander Antoshin.

One of the reasons for the conflict was inter-budgetary relations: the regional capital received only 10% of the taxes collected, the rest was taken by the regional budget. Yuri Bobryshev says that with the arrival of Andrei Nikitin, this issue was immediately resolved - the acting governor agreed to change interbudgetary relations in favor of the regional capital.

“During Mitin, no one wanted to work with us - like children in a sandbox. Here the situation changed radically: we sat down and sorted it out. We agreed that Veliky Novgorod should be a priority in the development of the region - from here the region receives 70% of all income,” says Yuri Bobryshev. The mayor also supports Andrei Nikitin’s initiative to leave more taxes in district budgets: “This creates an initiative for local development. Why am I the only one fighting here, why am I the only donor for the entire region? They drew up estimates for the districts - they live on subsidies. But we need to take them out of subsidies.”

True, during the years of Sergei Mitin’s governorship, municipal officials are not accustomed to taking the initiative, admits the mayor of Veliky Novgorod. A misunderstanding of the management style of the new governor was evident when Andrei Nikitin, in order to find out the situation in the region and determine a plan of action, began holding “strategic sessions” in each district. “The public, officials, entrepreneurs gather. Specially trained guys come from Moscow.

The task is to identify the most painful places in each, excuse me, swamp,” Yuri Bobryshev describes “strategic sessions.” “At first, few people understood what it was. They said: they have nothing to do, they came to earn money, we ourselves know our problems.” Although Yuri Bobryshev supports the management decisions of the acting governor, he admits that some of them cause resonance. For example, Andrei Nikitin’s decision to extend the time for the legal sale of alcohol, taken for pragmatic reasons to increase budget revenues, runs counter to the policy of combating alcoholism pursued by the regional authorities in the past.

“The budget of the Novgorod region is cheap. It’s the same volume as two streets in Moscow for renovation,” explains Andrei Nikitin to residents of a new building in Chudovo, who demand that he solve the problem of landscaping the yard. And he adds: when his house had the same problem, the residents chipped in and tidied up the yard themselves. “Andrey Nikitin has a business approach to everything. But a governor cannot live without politics. You need to understand what political resonance this or that decision will have,” says the head of the district, Larisa Payuk. “I used to think that the region could be managed like a big factory. But life persistently leads to the fact that you also need to be a politician,” says Yuri Bobryshev.

The difference in the management style of the previous and new governor is striking to many in the region. “Mitin had the classic style of an enterprise director who holds large meetings and arranges public floggings - an authoritarian leader. Nikitin is completely different: he does not gather large halls for managerial decisions and does not organize scoldings, and if he does, it is through force. Now they expect him to be clear. It’s not very clear yet,” says Anatoly Fedotov, a regional Duma deputy from United Russia and general director of the Panacea-N chain of Novgorod pharmacies. “Although local entrepreneurs had conflicts with Mitin, he was a man of their circle, their position, their destiny. He was understandable and spoke the same language with them,” notes Alexander Antoshin. Yuri Bobryshev states that local elites will always have a wary attitude towards any new governor: “For now Nikitin keeps an equidistant distance from everyone. I don’t know how long this will last or how right it is.”

“I came here to work, not to control”

“I did not have a personal meeting with Nikitin. I believe that the person who came to the region and became the acting governor should himself be the initiator of meetings. I don’t really understand who communicates with him at all; among my acquaintances - I mean serious people, the locomotive of economic development in the region - no one has “access to the body.” I, of course, can make an appointment with his assistant, but, probably, my level is still not the same,” says regional Duma deputy Mikhail Karaulov. He is the general director of a large city construction company "Business Partner" - one of the representatives of the Novgorod business elite, which consolidated around Yuri Bobryshev during their conflict with the former governor.

Mikhail Karaulov intended to run in the gubernatorial elections from A Just Russia (in 2016, he ran from A Just Russia to the regional parliament, ran an expensive campaign and won a single-mandate constituency against a United Russia candidate), but the party leadership abandoned his candidacy at the last moment , putting him in competition with the acting head of the City Duma deputy Mikhail Panov. “Everyone was afraid of the bright and active campaign that I could carry out; I think the acting governor was also against my nomination,” says Mr. Karaulov. According to him, nine and a half years of power by Sergei Mitin “tired everyone, everyone was nostalgic for the local governor, so I, a local, had a unique chance.”

Mikhail Karaulov calls elections with the current set of candidates “profanation.” According to him, Andrei Nikitin’s competitors are working for the party brand, while he was ready to conduct a personal campaign. In fact, he continues to lead it, despite the fact that he does not participate in the elections: there are almost as many billboards with his photographs in Veliky Novgorod as there are posters of the acting governor. Starting from the “strategic sessions” of Andrei Nikitin, which, according to Mr. Karaulov, were decorative, “did not produce results and did not inspire confidence among people,” he launched his own project “People’s Governor”, ​​with which he travels to districts and collects residents’ opinions about problems and ways to solve them.

In his rhetoric, Mikhail Karaulov builds on the image mistakes of the acting head: he talks about an “honest, frank and heartfelt” conversation with residents, questioning the value of dialogue stated by Andrei Nikitin in the election program. The main slogan of the acting governor is “Dialogue. Development. Well-being." In the PR campaign, Spravoross uses the slogan “Mikhail Karaulov. Not temporarily - forever,” playing on the fears of the Novgorod elites that Andrei Nikitin will not work in the region for long. “Maybe we really will have an economic miracle here with the new governor, a second Singapore. But the worst thing is if he dreams of leaving the region as quickly as possible,” says an interlocutor in the deputy corps.

In a year, elections of city Duma deputies will be held in Veliky Novgorod. Mikhail Karaulov does not deny that he can “in one way or another” take part in them. However, he emphasizes that he is not interested in either the post of speaker of the City Duma or the position of city manager. Political consultant Alexander Antoshin suggests that city entrepreneurs, remembering their experience with the previous Varangian governor, will want to limit Andrei Nikitin’s control over Veliky Novgorod, and speaks of a potential conflict between Novgorod business elites and the head of the region during the formation of lists of candidates for the city duma. Among regional politicians, however, not everyone is inclined to consider Mikhail Karaulov’s position as evidence of a brewing conflict.

One of the regional Duma deputies compares Mr. Karaulov with “a young fighter who has just learned to fight, but the war is already over,” and claims that the owners of Business Partner do not support his ambitions. No one from “real business” is going to take control of Veliky Novgorod and conflict with the governor, says Yuri Bobryshev. “There is a group of people who, for example, would like to promote someone to the post of city manager. So why? It is stupid to ignore the governor: you will get the result of the last two years, when it came to a fight between the city and the region. It has now become clear to business that if you work honestly and don’t try to grab everything, they will help you. Looking for good from good - what's the point? - he reasons.

Andrei Nikitin, according to him, does not set the task of forming a controlled city duma: “I came here to work, not to control.” “When local entrepreneurs came to me and asked how they could help in the elections, I had a simple answer: I don’t need anything from you except taxes and jobs. If these two conditions are met, my office is open,” the acting governor explained his position in relation to business. And when asked whether the local elites treated him as a Varangian or not, he answered: “This question has never been important - honestly.” “I work primarily for the residents of the region and for the president. And the point of my work is to make Novgorodians live better on their land. And where the person who can do this came from doesn’t matter to people,” concluded the acting head of the region.

Conversation between Acting Governor of the Novgorod Region Andrei Nikitin and publicist and blogger Nikolai Podosokorsky.

Andrey Nikitin has been the acting governor of the Novgorod region since February 2017. Born in 1979 in Moscow. Candidate of Economic Sciences. In 2011-2017 - General Director of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects. The conversation with Andrei Nikitin took place on July 28.

— Some political scientists criticize you for being too closed towards local opinion leaders. I decided to check it out for myself, and you agreed to the conversation. Who are you ready to communicate and cooperate with today as the head of the region? How important is the feedback from local residents regarding your work to you? Do you listen to criticism addressed to you?

— I don’t believe at all in a model in which there is one person who knows everything for everyone and will show everyone everything. Therefore, I am ready to communicate and work with absolutely everyone. And this must be done. In the Novgorod region, something can change only when a sufficient number of people are formed here who will live and build their politics a little further than at the current moment. This applies to managers of large enterprises, who must understand that in addition to short-term time, there is also long-term time. This applies to officials, especially mid-level officials, who often do something simply because it is regulated by a state program or something else, and do not answer their own questions: why are they doing this in the long term, and what does it give? And I am absolutely open to communication with those people who care what happens to Novgorod and the Novgorod region, who want the best for them

— Are there people with whom you would definitely not talk and work together?

- With those who are not ready - with those who view their work here (if we talk about business elites) in the format of “grab a piece and run away”, earn money - give it all up and invest it somewhere outside the region. I am not ready to communicate with people who build bad roads. With people who build bad houses. With people who directly combine their parliamentary powers with business interests...

— Are you talking about any specific deputies now?

— I don’t want to name anyone, but we have different such deputies. They are in both the regional duma and the city duma. I am not ready to communicate with those who do not criticize, but get personal. Criticism is normal. I am certainly far from the consciousness that I know everything better than anyone. In fact, a strong team is only strong when it has different people, and you need to be able to find a common language with everyone. Including not being afraid that someone will tell you: “You know, this is where you are wrong!” I wouldn't say every day, but often I meet 5-10 different people and it takes a lot of time. Another thing is that there are completely real people who do real things, but do not actively write on blogs and Facebook - for example, today I was at the Amkor plant - this is an Australian company that makes packaging here. There are a lot of ideas there. It is possible to compare the quality of life and the quality of the business environment here and at other enterprises.

— Did they have any layoffs there?

- No, on the contrary, they invested a lot of money, and now they have set up virtually a new production facility, they are finishing it now, their new center is now being tested.

— You are often called a “young technocrat,” although you are already 37 years old, and, as you know, one of your predecessors, Mikhail Prusak, headed the Novgorod region when he was 31 years old. The current head of the Kaliningrad region, Anton Alikhanov, is 30 years old. Therefore, let’s leave the definition of “young” aside, but what does the term “technocrat” mean? Sometimes they say that this is an official without clear political convictions and values, who is not a politician, a faceless apparatchik who works mainly with papers and various technologies, and not with people and living reality. Do you consider yourself a technocrat?

- If such a definition is given, then, of course, no. I grew up in Russia, I live here. I don't have any alternate airfields. My family also lives in Novgorod. I love my country and wish it well. This is the first value I have. Although I am far from any hysteria in terms of patriotism, since patriotism is a personal feeling, and everyone should have it in their hearts. As for the second value, I am not a technocrat - I like to do my job well, I like to do my job well, I enjoy it. That is, I am proud of what I have done in business, I am proud of what I have done at the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, and this is important to me.

It is also important for me to understand that what I am doing in the Novgorod region will be good. And my internal self-esteem is that I always compare whether I did the maximum possible or not. Therefore, in this regard, I am not a technocrat. There are two points regarding working with papers. On the one hand, you only need to work with people, because it is people who write papers, it is people who make decisions, it is people who support certain decisions. And if we are talking, for example, about such a topic as the business climate, then we can count some rules, standards, etc. as much as we like, but everything is always determined by the person who looks at the situation and either takes out money and invests them, or says: “No, I don’t like your faces, sorry... I’m out of here. I’ll earn money here, but spend it elsewhere.” People always make emotional decisions. And it’s impossible not to work with this.

On the other hand, it is very important that those decisions that are spoken by the team and society turn into real actions. And you also need to do paperwork. Secondly, in our country you need to understand very clearly, before formulating it, what you want, when you ask for something, when you come to any decisions with the federal authorities. Today, for example, a document was published on the portal of the Russian Government that says: “To recommend that the project office of the National Technology Initiative consider the Novgorod region as a territory for the pilot implementation of projects of the National Technology Initiative.”

What does it mean? The fact is that when interesting technological developments appear in the country, they are included in the NTI program, and the federation helps the first one or two regions in their implementation. That is, now, for example, they have a project of bracelets for elderly people, which monitor their health status and send data to the hospital through SIM cards. And they begin to treat a person not when he himself has already realized that everything is bad, but when his data is crappy. Without the support of the federal center, it will be difficult to implement this program in the region.

— And at the federal level, who is in charge of this?

— RVC supervises this, the NTI project office is located there, and all this is financed with federal money. That is, this is such a complex order, it sounds completely bureaucratic, but if we can implement it, then there is a completely understandable story behind it. In addition, you probably know that the Digital Economy program has been adopted. There is an interesting thing there - the state plans to invest one hundred billion a year in digitalization. This is mainly money that will be spent on building networks and broadband Internet access.

Not bad, right? Will this change the environment a little for the better? Will change. That is, from this point of view, in this part I can be a technocrat. Because this is more correct than just chatting about something without turning statements into actions, which is what many politicians like to do, constructing their vocabulary in the format of expressions with which it is impossible to disagree: “it is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” , “We will increase the pensions for children, we will increase pensions for the elderly, we will reduce tariffs, etc.” And then nothing happens from this... I believe that if you say something, then you need to do it, you need to find the appropriate mechanism, in our bureaucratic and complex country I like to untangle the knots, I like to make sure that everything turns from an idea into some reality, into some money, into some opportunities. This is where I am a scrupulous person.

- That is, you understand how this system works now, and you can effectively interact with it, which not everyone can do...

— At the ASI level, we worked in this system, and I understand how it functions today. I try to make sure that the most opportunities are directed here in this job.

- The next question - probably it should have been the first. It arose naturally. Why did you, being a successful businessman and metropolitan functionary, even agree to lead a small depressed region with a dying population and increasing debts? In the nineties, governors had serious political weight, and, unlike mayors, they were practically not imprisoned. Now the heads of the regions are between a rock and a hard place - they are criticized from below for everything that happens in their regions, all responsibility is shifted onto them from above, sometimes making them “scapegoats”. Just this year, the heads of Udmurtia and Mari El were arrested, and the former governor of the Chelyabinsk region was put on the wanted list. Before this, the governors of the Kirov and Sakhalin regions, as well as the head of the Komi Republic, etc. were arrested. I ask about this, among other things, because many have refused such proposals to lead our region. You most likely did not gain much in salary, but there are probably many more problems and risks in this job. Do you really expect to accomplish some kind of socio-economic miracle in the Novgorod region in the current difficult conditions, when you need to ask the federal center for money every year?

- Well, look, I’ve been losing money on my salary for the last seven years. She fell a lot when I came to ASI, and she fell even more now. I’m not talking about business - there’s still no salary there, it’s different there. How to answer this question? Firstly, maybe this is trite, but the answer is this: I really love my country; and if I can do something for her, then I now have such an opportunity. I have some money so that I can live for a certain time on the reserves that were made earlier. Therefore, one cannot refuse this opportunity to work for the sake of the country. Secondly, it is a great honor for me to work with our president. And in principle, I could never and cannot refuse his proposals. That is, he suggested - I agreed.

— And if he offered you to become the head of Kamchatka, would you go there too?

- Well, probably yes. But I’m glad that Vladimir Vladimirovich offered me Veliky Novgorod... I love history, and I understand that we don’t have such cities in Russia anymore. What do we have that was there at the very beginning and has survived to this day? Apart from Novgorod, perhaps, nothing. Everything was destroyed by someone. And I believe that this, of course, is such an important region for our internal self-awareness. You know, when, for example, on your Facebook you read historical materials, memories about Novgorod of the 19th century, it was described as such a run-of-the-mill town where there was nothing...

- Is it the same now?!

- It’s not the same, believe me. In fact, the Novgorod region is now somewhere in the middle, well, maybe a little below the middle. But this is definitely not the poorest and most unhappy region in the country. Of course, this place is completely inconsistent with its historical status. Therefore, the appointment to the Novgorod region is not just an honor for me, but also a great challenge. I want the Novgorod region today to be perceived as an advanced, metropolitan, successful region, where people want to live, where people are interested in coming.

As for the governor’s authority and status, the proverb definitely applies here: “It’s not the place that makes the man, but the man the place.” The President supported me on some points. For example, he left me on the ASI Supervisory Board, along with two other governors - the Ulyanovsk region and Tatarstan. It is clear that this is an advance, but thanks to this I have the opportunity to promote some initiatives, including ours, at the federal level. Therefore, there is no such thing as “governor status” - there are different people who are treated differently. And it will depend only on me and my team how the center will respond to my wishes and requests.

“I’ll explain what I meant when I asked a question about a depressed region.” There were such fears that either Mitin or you would be the last Novgorod governor - purely due to objective demographic indicators. Of course, there are different regions, but ours is a dying region, that is, our population is declining by 3-4 thousand people every year. How can this trend be reversed? After all, at some point, the federal authorities may decide that there is no point in maintaining such a federal subject with a population of half a million, that is, less than that of many cities. But conversations about the consolidation of regions have been going on for a long time and in recent months they have become relevant again.

- Well, let's join someone! (laughs)

- Will we join or will we be joined? Because if the latter happens, then it will be a real disaster for Veliky Novgorod. It will turn into such a small tourist town - for visitors, not for local residents.

— This is not my level of competence, of course, although the issue of consolidating regions in different configurations is being discussed at the federal level. You see, there are several different points, and one of them is that the next five years will be decisive for Novgorod. And there are several questions that need to be answered. The most important question is the quality of education provided in Novgorod. If we have a strong university, if we have a strong secondary education, then this will attract young people here. In the long term, this is the number one issue.

You know, every year the Foreign Investment Advisory Council surveys foreign investors across the country what they consider to be the main barrier. And over the past five years, the problem of corruption has moved up to tenth place. This, of course, does not mean that it does not exist. Corruption has now become a big problem for small businesses. They are afraid to touch large foreigners.

— There are probably not many of them left?

- They are afraid that there will be a scandal. The problem of some administrative barriers is also gradually decreasing... So, the main problem that everyone is talking about is education. The state spends approximately the same amount of money per year on secondary and higher education as business then spends on pre- and retraining of these people. And you, as a person immersed in the media, know that Novgorod University has problems today. It’s worth reading the same comments from teachers on Facebook...

— Reductions at the university continue; in my native Institute of Humanities, NovSU, faculties were liquidated - now instead of them there are some departments...

- And you see, sometimes you can even endure for the sake of some goal, but there is no goal! Therefore, question No. 1 is university and secondary education. Question No. 2 is the quality of the urban environment. It should be convenient to walk in the city, it should be convenient to ride a bicycle in the city, there should be more cafes, shops, and some places in the city where you can spend time.

— Are there not enough cafes today?

- I think not, absolutely. Take a trip to St. Petersburg, to the main street, or to Moscow, or to some other city, for example, to Rostov. You can count...

— But doesn’t the market itself regulate these things? After all, if there is great demand, then additional establishments are opened, and if even the existing cafes are not filled with visitors, then what is the point of opening new ones?

- Okay, let's do it this way. Visit Verona in Italy. This is also a small city, like Novgorod, but how many cafes are there?

— Yes, but how many tourists are there, unlike Novgorod?

- This is the next question - about tourists! In fact, education and the urban environment, normal, comfortable housing are the most important. There are a lot of countries where between large cities there are small towns, but very interesting and comfortable for living. In the West, even large companies often open offices not in capitals, but in cities where it is simply convenient to live. Therefore, here, of course, we will need to work on a lot with the head of the city administration, and we will help him. In 1-1.5 years, when the M11 highway to St. Petersburg is built, it will be a completely different story. I think that Novgorod has a great future in this regard.

Thanks, of course, to those people who restored Novgorod after the war, to those architects who created such a convenient, interesting layout of the center. It is clear that later it was spoiled by these quarters of the 70s and 80s. It is clear that those neighborhoods that were built in the 90s are absolutely identical to those that were built throughout the country. But, nevertheless, the city has not yet been completely killed. And we need to deal with the urban environment, we need to invest in it. Then there will be prospects.

— I have read your “Five Step Strategy”, and in it you, in particular, talk about the need to improve the quality of life of the region’s residents. How can this be done? You were just talking about Veliky Novgorod, and now I’m talking about districts and regional centers like the village of Parfino. I know that you were in Parfin. Do you have an understanding of how life can be improved there in order to stop the extinction and flight of the population to the regional center?

— Firstly, we need to develop education and healthcare. There was a certain passion in the region for various construction projects. There are many unfinished scandalous objects. The so-called Okulovsky sports and recreation center, the hospital in Lyubytino, which is constantly flooded, the same house in Pankovka, which burned down and which the devil built. And, of course, now we need to focus less on new construction projects and more on the quality of school and healthcare facilities. Of course, we need to develop remote topics. Schoolchildren in Parfin should have the opportunity to listen to a lecture by a professor from the university, that is, there should not be such a gap in the quality of education that exists now between Novgorod and the regions (this also applies to healthcare). All this can be done there, and all this can be solved.

Well, the second thing is, of course, landscaping. Moreover, improvement is exclusively in the format of supporting local initiatives. That is, not to install a monster that someone ordered, but to give people the opportunity to decide for themselves what and how they want to improve it. Somewhere, including through co-financing. You know, just now I was in the Chudovsky district - the district spent a million rubles on playgrounds, and they were all immediately broken.

— Couldn’t there be a corruption component there?

- Well, I'm not an investigator. Maybe it can, but it's unlikely. There is successful practice, for example, Bashkiria spends half a billion rubles per year to support local initiatives, using a co-financing system. That is, if residents collect 5-10% themselves, then the region contributes the remaining 90%. Why is this being done? So that people have a strong feeling that it is theirs, that someone did not put it there, and then they will indifferently decide that we will break it, burn it, and then look at it. In this regard, local self-government is very important. The institution of village elders is very important. Of course, today these people are not given enough attention - in the decision-making system, heads of settlements generally occupy tenth place. And we need to make sure that they have the opportunity to make some decisions and consult with residents.

— A clarifying question about healthcare, since we started talking about it. In the same village of Parfino there was a hospital, then it was turned into a branch - accordingly its rank dropped, many specialist doctors are not there, and people are forced to travel to Staraya Russa and Veliky Novgorod. That is, in reality, the quality of medical care, and therefore life, is deteriorating. Can anything be changed here?

— Unfortunately, this process is quite objective. And there is no such “free healthcare” system as we have in our country anywhere else in the world. What can be done? It is possible to make good diagnostics in Parfin, so that people from there come to the same cancer center not with the last stage of cancer, but at a very early stage. You can get treatment in Staraya Russa, but there must be a good road there, there must be a normal bus connection, and this is one of the issues that needs to be resolved - transport connections between our settlements. But on site, a person should have the opportunity to undergo all possible types of medical examination. That is, people should begin to be treated not when they already become disabled, but at the very beginning. I believe that this is one of the biggest problems in our country - that people do not undergo medical examination in a timely manner.

— You have just touched upon an extremely painful road issue for the region. In July, at the invitation of the state company Avtodor, I participated in a personal blog tour, inspecting sections of the M11 highway in the Moscow, Tver and Novgorod regions. This route will be toll, but what can we say about the state of free roads? Both President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev raised this issue during their visits to Veliky Novgorod. In your strategy, you also identified as a first step the need to improve road and transport infrastructure. A few years ago, if you know, the so-called “Road case” - the first deputy governor of the region, Arnold Shalmuev, was arrested on charges of corruption, but this did not make the roads any better. Do you expect any major changes in this direction in 2-3 years if you are elected governor in September?

- Well, the fact of someone’s arrest cannot make the roads any better. In general, these are two such communicating vessels - theft and mismanagement. We now have 76% of roads in substandard condition, and I want their number to decrease by 10% per year under my leadership.

- Every year by 10%? How will this be ensured?

— This will be ensured by very strict control, very stringent quality requirements for contractors. Next year we will launch an independent quality audit. Now you know what’s going on? There is a quality control specialist at Novgorodavtodor in a certain area. For example, in the Parfinsky district. He lives there. And when we started checking this system, it turned out that this person did not even go to the road site - the contractors brought these cores to him themselves. Well, this is understandable - he lives there, he has long been motivated in various ways. That is, he doesn’t even look at where this core was brought to him from, where they drilled it - maybe they drilled it on the federal highway, where everything is fine. And so he signed the quality control certificates.

Plus centralization of procurement. While we are buying it all like this - remember the picture “The Sower” from Ilf and Petrov, who throws money away without looking? I asked for information here - we subsidize municipalities for roads - and that means I asked for statistics on what municipalities built over the previous five years? It turned out that such statistics were not kept in the Novgorod region, no one knows anything.

Of course, with such a budget we will not be able to do everything instantly, but we must return the support network, first of all, that is, restore the road “circulatory system” along which the maximum number of people travel. Therefore, this 10% must be done every year by any means, by any means. I understand that this is less than we would like, and I understand those people who are in the last 10%, but what else do we want to do? The money that goes to municipalities and interdistrict roads is not much, but most likely we will ask people what roads they would like to fix first. We will definitely develop such direct democracy, including in the “Veche Bell” format.

— In a recent interview with the editor-in-chief of Book Review, you, in my opinion, demonstrated good taste when speaking about your reading preferences. Your holiday reading list includes books by Homer, Eunapius and Sextus Aurelius Victor. Probably, in order to please the voter, you had to name something more popular, understandable to everyone, with a clear patriotic sound?! After all, today it is both fashionable and politically advantageous to loudly declare one’s patriotism, Orthodoxy, and spirituality on every corner. I am talking about this, bearing in mind the reproaches addressed to you from some federal experts who say that “Andrei Nikitin looks out of touch with the realities of the Novgorod region.” Does reading the book “Technological Singularity” or the works of the ancient authors listed above somehow help you in understanding the realities of the Novgorod region and how people live here?

“I would answer these federal experts that there is no need to humiliate the people who live in the Novgorod region. In the Novgorod region, thanks to the university and museum, there are probably, on average, more people with a good level of education than in similar areas. Therefore, one should not consider the Novgorod region a place where normal books are not read. There are people here who read much more than me and read much more complex things. Reading ancient Russian literature is much more difficult, especially if you read it without translation into a modern language. Read the chronicles, read the birch bark letters - try translating them!

Therefore, I don’t think at all that this is a problem. I read this literature for myself, and it interests me. But things like books about modern technologies are also important. Remember that before a person went on a business trip, sent a telegram, and then there was no contact with him for a week. What does a modern cell phone provide? You need to know books about modern technologies in order to understand where this is all going. And it will get there relatively soon. And perhaps now we need to think about what specialties are needed at Novgorod University? What kind of people will be needed in seven years, for example?

I'll give you a simple example. There is medicine and there is information technology, and now all startups in the field of medicine are built on digital. That is, we are always talking about the connection between treatment and the processing of big data. Everything that could be invented in terms of classical operations was invented by Pirogov and his followers. All modern healthcare solutions are data solutions. And if we are talking about the success of the university, then it is necessary to train people in related specialties, that is, a physician cannot but know information technology. There is a very good example of Tomsk. The Tomsk region gives grants for student startups, but only where students from different faculties cooperate: IT specialists with doctors or physicists, etc. The same builders today cannot build a modern home without modern 3D design technologies. And if we are talking about a “smart home,” then various sensors, etc., must be built into the walls.

Naturally, my knowledge in these areas is absolutely superficial, and I am not an expert either in the singularity or, unfortunately, in history. But as a leader, it is important for me to generally understand where the world is going, and to understand that it will come here too.

— The last question in today’s conversation is related to the list of senatorial candidates that you submitted to the regional election commission (Mitin, Minina, Bobryshev). What was the reason for this choice? In particular, I am more interested in the figure of former governor Sergei Mitin. Do we need to understand that the other two candidates were included in this list simply to formally comply with the procedure, and the fact that Mitin will become a senator is a foregone conclusion?

— Firstly, when compiling this list, I had one criterion - it included people who actively worked or are working in the Novgorod region. This was the basic criterion. All candidates have behind them a list of successes, and, probably, some list of complaints against them - this is normal. All are living people, and if there are no complaints against you, then you are not working. But I will make a decision only when and if people support me, that is, after the elections. I treat everyone on the list with equal respect.

— But do Minina or Bobryshev have any chances of becoming senators?

— Everyone on the list has a chance. Then, you know the rule that according to modern laws, if something happens, the senator can change within five years, and you can choose another senator only from this list. Therefore, anything is possible.

Original interview on Nikolai Podosokorsky's blog. You can also subscribe to my pages:

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Previously, he served as head of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives

General Director of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives Andrey Nikitin

Moscow. February 13. website - Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the early termination of the powers of the governor of the Novgorod region Sergei Mitin and appointed Andrei Nikitin, head of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, as acting head of the region. The Kremlin press service reports this.

“Accept the resignation of the governor of the Novgorod region, S.G. Mitin, at his own request. Appoint Andrei Sergeevich Nikitin as acting governor of the Novgorod region until the person elected as governor of the Novgorod region takes office. This decree comes into force from the date of its signing,” it says text of the document.

On Monday, the president met with Nikitin in Novo-Ogarevo. Putin said that he “consulted with the current governor” on the issue of appointing the acting governor. head of the Novgorod region.

The President highly appreciated Nikitin's work as head of the ASI, noting that "during this time, the agency has done a lot to give new impetus to the development of the entire economy."

“You have done a lot on specific projects, in the most important areas of development, you have worked very closely and continue to work with business,” Putin said, addressing Nikitin.

He also drew attention to the fact that recently ASI at the regional level “has been actively promoting work in the field of blue-collar professions: organizing the participation of our young people in international competitions, helping regions organize relevant events at their level, including in Central Russia, in Novgorod region".

Speaking about the region in which the president appointed Nikitin as acting governor, Putin emphasized “the importance of the Novgorod region in the history of our country, in today’s life, in the economy,” and the potential of this region.

Earlier on Monday, Mitin, who led the Novgorod region for more than nine years, told reporters about his early resignation. He noted that he decided not to participate in the 2017 gubernatorial election campaign. According to him, he is leaving his position of his own free will. In addition, Mitin said that he had already asked the head of state for a new job.

Vector of regional development

The priority areas for the development of the Novgorod region are the tourism industry and the processing sector, Nikitin believes.

“Of course, the Novgorod region is very interesting both from a historical point of view and from a logistics point of view. In essence, this is a corridor between two capitals. Probably, the priorities that could be (in the development of the region) are, firstly, tourism industry; secondly, the industry associated with processing, which works for this main cluster of our population, which is located between Moscow and St. Petersburg. These can be Russian and foreign investors," Nikitin said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to him, in the social sphere it is necessary to rely on the opinion of citizens. “If we use the experience that we at ASI saw in the regions, then we need to rely on the opinion of residents when doing landscaping, doing things related to improving the quality (of life), that is, based on the opinion of the citizens themselves,” he said.

Niktin noted that “only business can correctly show what administrative barriers really hinder it.”

“The tasks that you have set to reduce administrative barriers for business can only be worked out in contact with entrepreneurs. Moreover, entrepreneurs themselves should evaluate the work that we are doing, that colleagues from the regions are doing. Lately we have been very actively engaged in this , including in the Northwestern District, with colleagues from the Novgorod region,” he said.

According to him, a series of meetings were recently held at which issues of the business community were discussed, then a plan was developed and an expert group was created, which began work in the Novgorod region.

“There are very serious tasks for tourism in the Novgorod region. Tourism tasks require, among other things, professions related to tourism - these are people who work in this industry. Today, colleges are gradually starting to train such young people in the tourism business, in service , services, in some kind of production that is related to tourism,” Nikitin said.

Nikitin's career

Nikitin was born in Moscow in 1979. He graduated from the State University of Management in 2001 and received an EMBA degree from the Stockholm School of Economics in 2007. Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Theory and Systems of Industry Management, Institute of Industry Management, RANEPA.

From 2002 to 2011, he worked in the Ruskompozit group of companies, which unites enterprises in the markets of fiberglass, composites and geosynthetic materials, and since 2009 - General Director of the Ruskompozit management company.

In July 2011, Nikitin was appointed general director of the autonomous non-profit organization "Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects."

Nikitin is a member of the presidium of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for economic modernization and innovative development, a member of the presidium of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for strategic development and priority projects, a member of the Economic Council under the President of the Russian Federation, as well as a number of other advisory bodies.

He was awarded the medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree, and received a Letter of Gratitude from the President of the Russian Federation.

Early years and education

After graduating from one of the Miass secondary schools, Nikitin went for higher education to the capital’s University of Public Administration (GUM), where he subsequently defended his diploma (2001) and transferred to graduate school.

Five years later, 27-year-old Nikitin successfully defended his scientific dissertation and became a candidate of economic sciences. The topic of his work was “Organizational change strategy as a tool for effective management.”

Interview with Andrei Nikitin in the program “Star on Star”

However, Andrey did not stop there and in 2007 was awarded the prestigious MBA degree from the Stockholm School in the world of economics. These successes were noted by the leadership of the State University of Management, and in 2008 he received the academic title of associate professor in the department of organization and management.

Business and political career

Andrey did not stay there for long and a year later he became responsible for business development at Neftegazinvest CJSC. This investment group was developing rapidly at that time, as evidenced by the acquisition of the Steklonit OJSC plant in 2002. In the newly formed structure, Nikitin received the position of general director of TD Steklonit LLC. Andrey Sergeevich worked at this place for about five years, simultaneously collaborating with the furniture company KSI LLC and Uralneftegazstroy LLC.

Head of ASI Andrey Nikitin: how to start your own business

In addition, since 2002, Nikitin was listed in the structure of the Ruskompozit business group, where from 2009 to 2011 he held his usual position of general director. It should be noted that no matter what company Andrei appeared in, its profitability increased sharply.

All this time, Andrei Nikitin was a member of the non-profit state organization “Business Russia”. He was responsible for issues of youth entrepreneurship and small business. He was also the curator of the promising initiative “Quality of Roads in the Russian Federation,” where they developed a plan to cover roads with innovative materials.

Andrey’s career took another turn upward when he won an open competition and, with the approval of the President of the Russian Federation, headed the Agency for Strategic Initiatives in 2011. This company was engaged in improving the national investment climate and other important initiatives, ranging from out-of-school children's education to the creation of investment elevators for non-resource enterprises with great export potential.

Over the years of work in this government organization, he was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor” and received gratitude from President Vladimir Putin more than once.

Against this background, the president’s decision to appoint Andrei Sergeevich as acting governor of Novgorod in 2017 seemed quite logical. During the years of the reign of the previous governor, Sergei Mitin, the region reached a pre-default state. Thus, the young specialist had the opportunity to try his hand at political activity.

Andrey Nikitin: personal life, hobbies

Nikitin says about himself that he doesn’t really know how to rest, but loves delicious food. When he has free time, he reads historical materials about Ancient Rome and writes scientific papers. By the end of 2016, six publications under his authorship were published.

In his youth, Andrei Nikitin dreamed of a motorcycle. He fulfilled his long-standing desire when he was already the head of ASI. True, due to constant work, it’s rare to get out somewhere on your favorite iron horse.

He considers himself a technocrat - a person convinced that management personnel should be highly qualified scientific and technical specialists.

Andrey Nikitin now

At one of his first speeches, the newly appointed head of the region said that the region needed a new, clear and understandable image, as well as attracting creative entrepreneurs.

On February 13, 2017, the head of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, Andrei Nikitin, took office as acting governor of the Novgorod region. The Moscow appointee was positioned as one of the president’s favorites, which allowed him – albeit with an extremely low turnout – to win in the first round of the gubernatorial elections. FederalPress recalls what Nikitin’s “Varangian” team succeeded and failed to do in the region during the first year of work.

9 years old Mitina

Nikitin’s predecessor, Sergei Mitin, worked as governor for 9.5 long years; before the elections to the Novgorod Regional Duma in 2016, he seemed like an unsinkable politician. The protracted conflict between the regional authorities and the mayor's office of Veliky Novgorod, criminal cases against his deputies Andrei Nechaev and Arnold Shalmuev, corruption scandals and irritation of citizens from the arrogant communication style of the head of the region did not convince Moscow of the need to replace him. Moreover, six months after his resignation, the ex-governor was returned to the region.

In the fall of 2016, Mitin headed the list of candidates for the regional Duma from United Russia. The only critics of the governor at that time were the Yabloko party and independent deputy Leonid Doroshev. The internal political bloc made every effort to prevent the opposition from entering the regional parliament, and achieved its goal; the party lacked 0.17% to enter the Duma.

After the elections, people began to talk about the governor’s resignation much more often, but there were few real candidates to replace him, and they represented pressure groups within the regional elite. A week before Mitin’s resignation, Novgorodians still knew nothing about the future governor, but unofficial information about the change of power in the region made it to the media. Of course, after 9 years of the last reign, Nikitin was doomed to comparisons with the former head.

First steps

Nikitin was introduced to the region the day after his official appointment. Mitin made a report to the audience, who was greeted with stormy and prolonged applause.

Nikitin had not worked in public politics for a single day before his appointment. In Veliky Novgorod, he made the impression of an intelligent and reasonable person, in many qualities the opposite of Mitin. But a successful start did not mean a new independent policy for the governor. He replaced his predecessor’s team reluctantly and initially retained key government positions for the old managers.

The joy of society gradually turned into bewilderment: promises to work with everyone, regardless of political views, gave way to visits from members of the Russian government. In the spring, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin visited Veliky Novgorod, and Dmitry Rogozin visited Staraya Russa.

At the same time, the ASI team helped the former boss in forming the agenda. The trainers launched a series of strategic sessions at which invited deputies, officials, representatives of management companies and active citizens developed an image of the future. These meetings were not publicly announced, so people attended them mainly by invitation or “for company.” ASI's style seemed unfamiliar and irritating to those around him; critics repeatedly reminded the acting governor that he was not in the capital. Here Nikitin partially repeats the first steps of the governors, who are usually called “young technocrats” and part of the process of renewal of Russia’s political elite.

Communication with deputies

Nikitin appears at sessions, but avoids visiting meetings in the regional Duma. Gradually, the functions of actual management are transferred to Sergei Sorokin, appointed in March, who before the move worked as his deputy at ASI.

“Governor Nikitin, from the moment of his appointment as acting, adheres to the tactic of being closed from the local community, preferring to use intermediaries in the form of his deputies for communication purposes. Basically, the first vice-governor Sergei Sorokin, who is called upon to determine who is inside and who is not, on the basis of subjective ideas “like it or not,” says Novgorod political strategist Mikhail Shimanovsky.

The only possible place for dialogue between the acting governor and the deputies was the hall of the Novgorod Philharmonic. During a meeting of the presidential envoy with citizens, Andrei Nikitin besieged the deputies, saying that they should ask questions at meetings of the regional Duma. In response, a group of deputies, including the leaders of the United Russia and LDPR factions, left the hall.

“The usual way of communication between the regional government and deputies no longer works. In the last convocation, Sergei Mitin, perhaps, had the only headache - Doroshev. There were much more troublemakers in the new convocation, and I think the new team will have to come to an agreement with each one,” wrote Dmitry Vertkov, the former head of the regional media holding Agency of Information Communications, following the meeting.

First Deputy Sergei Sorokin, apparently, remains “in charge” while the governor is absent, says political observer Alexander Vlasov. “Andrei Nikitin has not yet gotten rid of the habit of going on business trips, acquired during the leadership of ASI. I recently went to Seoul. For what? As I see it, Sorokin will continue to “steer” the region, while Nikitin will spend a lot of time in Moscow,” Vlasov said.

Ending the conflict with the mayor

Unlike regional deputies, the mayor of Veliky Novgorod, Yuri Bobryshev, quickly found a common language with the new head of the region. During his conflict with Mitin, which lasted since 2015, the mayor regularly spoke about the need to preserve the majority of the personal income tax for the city (now 15% remains in the city treasury - the minimum established by the Budget Code) and the return of direct elections of the mayor.

Bobryshev spoke out especially harshly about the elections when Sergei Mitin, in an attempt to establish direct control over the city, tried to remove Yuri Bobryshev from the mayor’s office through the deputies under his control. The Veliky Novgorod Duma impeached the mayor in May 2015, but in December Yuri Bobryshev returned to the position of mayor by court decision.

In 2017, with the arrival of Nikitin, Bobryshev changed his rhetoric and chose to compromise. The region proposed leaving municipalities with 50 percent of taxes under the simplified taxation system in 2018 and increasing this figure to 100 percent in a few years. A referendum on the return of direct elections of heads of municipalities was eventually proposed by the Novgorod Yabloko, but the deputies rejected it. Despite the agreements reached, Veliky Novgorod has so far won little. The funds collected under the simplified tax system will not be able to close budget holes, and there are not enough funds even to pay contractors for cleaning the city.

Governor's election

When Nikitin came to the region, the Novgorod opposition hoped for transparent gubernatorial elections. The last campaign, in which Mitin was elected in 2012, followed a non-competitive scenario. Many explained this by the character of the previous governor, but hopes for an open campaign in 2017 had to be abandoned quite quickly.

Among the acting rivals was Nikolai Zakharov, who participated in the last campaign from Patriots of Russia, a party that does not conduct any activities in the region. He, like the candidates from parliamentary parties, easily collected the required 10% of signatures from municipal deputies in his support.

The only opposition candidate, Anna Cherepanova, encountered difficulties and ultimately was unable to take part in the elections. “Officials of the government of the Novgorod region, administrations of municipal districts and rural settlements centrally collected signatures for the United Russia candidate Nikitin and candidates agreed with him. The candidate from Yabloko did not have the opportunity to officially and directly contact the deputies of the settlements and inform them about her nomination,” the Golos movement in defense of voters’ rights notes in a statement.

Andrei Nikitin himself avoided making statements and entering into controversy; in the public field during the campaign he behaved not as a candidate, but as an appointed manager, talking about road repairs, the Quantorium children's technology park and new jobs. As a result, the United Russia nominee scored 68% with a turnout of 28%.

After the elections, Andrei Nikitin formed a new team. The managers appointed under Mitin faded into the background. First Vice-Governor Sergei Sorokin received even more real powers, and new “Varangians” arrived from other regions. The local team in the government is represented by another first deputy, Veronika Minina, who oversees relations with Moscow.

An unpleasant surprise was the appointment of ex-governor Mitin as a senator from the executive branch of the Novgorod region. Opinions are being expressed that this decision was imposed on Nikitin from the federal center, or that he independently decided to maintain normal relations with Mitin and his supporters in the region. One way or another, the former “political heavyweight,” by the way, also a newcomer, retained some influence in the region, and Nikitin himself got rid of the image of “Nemitin,” as he was called on the Internet immediately after his appointment.

Mitin held weekly briefings, while Andrei Nikitin shunned media attention and preferred to communicate with state media. Media representatives were not included in the new composition of the regional Public Chamber, nor in the public council under the government. An illustrative example is the journalist Gennady Ryavkin, who worked as the editor-in-chief of the state newspaper Novgorodskie Vedomosti. After his dismissal, he became a columnist and consistent critic of the new governor on the pages of private media.

“Unfortunately, this year did not pass without conflicts: the board of the Novgorod Union of Journalists received complaints about the “black lists” that allegedly remained with the new government, that is, the selectivity of the approach to journalists (we work with these, but not with others; we call there, but not everyone here) is partially preserved,” notes Olga Larina, chairman of the board of the regional Union. “An absolute plus for the Union of Journalists was the political solution to the issue of our House of Journalists.” The new governor publicly promised to return the building, but legally fulfilling the promise of the head of the region turned out to be not so easy.

After the elections, the head of the region finally held a large press conference, to which all media without exception were invited. At it, he noted the important role of United Russia in governing the region, but also dissociated himself from it. “We work closely with United Russia. But I’m not going to join anywhere,” Nikitin said then.

After his election, Andrei Nikitin continued his tactics of measured communication with the media. Even the regional online publication “53 News” announced reform in the government according to an anonymous source. In 2018, the governor made an attempt to create a new image of a manager open to society, which was noted on the local telegram channel: “The attentive could not help but notice how Nikitin’s positioning has changed since the beginning of the year. The swift raid on the regional maternity hospital on Friday evening regarding several high-profile cases of infant mortality alone is worth it. Moreover, the result of the trip was not a public scolding of the head physician, but a completely thoughtful, intelligent conversation. Which is also very different from the times of Sergei Gerasimovich (Mitin) - he would have burned with napalm,” the author notes.

Nikitin may stay

They say that in this way Nikitin stopped speaking to the locals in the incomprehensible language of “foresights” and “strategic sessions” and decided to gain a foothold in the region as “his” person. Political experts, in turn, explain such changes by conversations with Moscow. “No leaks from an anonymous telegram channel about changing the image of the governor will change this practice, but are, like the recent formal appearance of the governor before deputies of the regional Duma, a reaction to the possible dissatisfaction of the federal center with the excessive closedness of the governor,” says Mikhail Shimanovsky.

Political observer Alexander Vlasov is also confident that rumors about the governor are being spread by his entourage in order to convince citizens that Nikitin is “his” person and has the opportunity to use Moscow’s favor towards him for the benefit of the Novgorod region. He doesn’t believe in Nikitin’s imminent departure for a promotion and considers this part of his team’s PR campaign, assessing its results negatively: “The Pskovites also thought that Andrei Turchak would leave in two or three years for a promotion. In my opinion, Nikitin will not be invited to Moscow, and he will have to prove his professional suitability here. This reminds me of the times of the governor Mikhail Prusak before last, when information appeared in the media that he would become deputy head of government or occupy another high position.”

First Vice-Governor Sergei Sorokin and the head of the information policy department of the governor’s administration, Yulia Slutskaya, who moved to this job from the post of press secretary of the ASI in the Northwestern Federal District, are responsible for the image of Nikitin in the public space. According to Vlasov, they are responsible for the unclear image of the first person of the region, together with the media holding Agency of Information Communications, which belongs to the region, as, indeed, is the governor himself. The main achievement of the new head at a press conference on the occasion of the anniversary of his appointment was the large-scale repair of roads in the region.

February marked one year since the appointment of Andrei Nikitin as acting governor. During this time, he was elected, reformatted the team and seemed to find a common language with the local elites. However, external management, especially in terms of internal and personnel policies, is handled by his first deputy, Sergei Sorokin. And it is still unclear whether Nikitin’s “business trip” in the Novgorod region will be long or whether this is just a step necessary to continue his career at the federal level.