MOSCOW (AP) – The mayor of the Russian Far East’s largest city was stripped of his authority Wednesday amid a criminal investigation into suspect land deals and embezzlement in the latest bout of corruption to hit the long-troubled port.
Vladivostok, a Pacific coast city of 584,000 that is home to the Russian Pacific Fleet, was notorious in the 1990s as a haven for corruption, violent crime and government incompetence. As President Vladimir Putin has reined in Russia’s far-flung regions and tightened federal control, however, the city has lost some of its lawless character.
A district court had approved prosecutors’ motion to strip Vladimir Nikolayev of his post of mayor, amid a criminal investigation for abuse of office, the Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement.
Primorsky regional prosecutors said they were investigating Nikolayev for allegedly handing out land plots to unnamed individuals for private use even as other public applications for building permits were pending and for using city budget funds to pay for private security guards.
“In this connection, prosecutors of the city Vladivostok have protested 20 illegal decisions on land allocation,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Irina Nomokonova, a regional prosecutor’s official, said in televised comments that Nikolayev had also allegedly misspent city budget funds, authorizing some 20 million rubles ($765,000) to back a car racing team.
Prosecutors said a total of five other related criminal investigation have also been opened, including into the city’s deputy mayor for corruption. Interfax, citing unnamed sources, said the sums allegedly embezzled by Nikolayev and other top city officials topped 80 million rubles ($3 million).
Nikolayev, was backed by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, won the mayoralty in 2004 after a scandal-plagued campaign atmosphere, in which candidates traded accusations and resorted to underhanded methods to beat their opponents.
His opponent in the 2004 race was Viktor Cherepkov, who was also accused of corruption and incompetence during his tenure as mayor in the 1990s and who waged often epic political battles with the governor of the Primorsky region, Yevgeny Nazdratenko.
Nikolayev – a businessman whose criminal nickname allegedly was Winnie the Pooh – was arrested in 1998 and accused of making threats, hooliganism and extortion, but he was amnestied and freed a year later under a decree by Russia’s lower house of parliament.
In Vladivostok’s main square, dozens protested over the court decision to strip Nikolayev of his authority. Several carried signs reading “Hands Off The Mayor” and “How Much Does It Cost to Remove Nikolayev?”
At a televised news conference, Nikolayev said he would fight the charges.
“This is all completely made up. The evidence shows not one shred of proof, not one bank which could show this,” he said.
Persistent corruption nationwide has clouded the record of Putin, who has made fighting corruption a major goal. But experts say the problems have worsened at all levels of government since he came to office in 2000.
Also Wednesday, the Prosecutor General’s office also announced a nationwide probe of the widely loathed traffic police, amid growing complaints from citizens and saying that bribe-taking and extortion by officers are increasing, authorities said Wednesday.
The statement was likely to confirm the views of many Russian motorists, for whom the traffic police are perhaps the most common contact point with a state bureaucracy plagued by corruption.
It noted cases in which traffic police officers sold driver’s licenses – apparently referring to the common practice of handing out licenses to applicants who have not completed the required classes or tests in exchange for bribes – and said some officers “mix entrepreneurial activity with their service.”
