Attached dossier
The governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevich has refused to reward the athlete Maria Savinova for the 2012 Olympic gold medal. Meanwhile, until recently, he promised that the Chelyabinsk region authorities would encourage financially all the athletes representing the region in London. “We will certainly encourage all the athletes who represent the Chelyabinsk region at the Olympic Games”, Yurevich said. Upon that, he made a special mention of the athletic achievement of the Chelyabinsk region native, runner Maria Savinova, who won gold in the women's 800-meter distance.
Just a year ago, the head of the Chelyabinsk Region promised to give $ 1 million to each local athlete who would win the 2012 Olympic gold. But a year later, when the hole at 9.5 billion rubles appeared in the regional budget, and when the gold was won after all, it had to be amended. They say that it was not the governor who promised and not out of the budget, and not out of his pocket. “There were sponsors who promised to reward any Olympic champion representing the Chelyabinsk region with the sum equivalent to 30 million rubles”.
Nevertheless, the Olympic gold medalist, judoka Mansur Isaev, has received the promised reward. He expressed special gratitude to Yurevich “for the tremendous support he gave”.
Anastasia Baryshnikova who won “bronze” in taekwondo will get a special individual reward. She was promised $ 50 thousand. But the athlete Maria Savinova won the distance of 800 meters has been considered unworthy of the governor’s million.
According to Yurevich, she, the champion in the women's 800 meters, hasn’t been entitled to the reward as she represented not only the Chelyabinsk region but also the Moscow one at the Olympics in London. “Now she is the athlete of the Moscow region”, he said. However, it didn’t prevent them from hanging out the posters with a portrait of the Olympic champion all over Chelyabinsk.
But just in October last year, the Minister of Physical Culture, Sport and Tourism of the Chelyabinsk region declared in the presence of Maria Savinova that she could pretend for the reward if she had won at the Olympics. On July 27, on the official website of the governor, she was cited among the 14 representatives of the Chelyabinsk region in Russia's Olympic team. On morning of August 13, on the same site, the success of Maria Savinova was taken into account of the Olympic medals collection of the Chelyabinsk region. “Over the weekend ... Maria Savinova, leading standings on Chelyabinsk, Moscow and Sverdlovsk regions, became the first in the women's 800 meters. Thus, there are three medals on the account of the South Urals athletes who participated in the XXX Summer Olympics that ended in London yesterday”. On the same day, a congratulation where the judoka and the athlete were mentioned as an equal appeared on the official site: “gold” of Mansur Isaev and Maria Savinova and “bronze” of Anastasia Baryshnikova raised the sporting glory of the Chelyabinsk region to higher levels.
It should be noted that the Olympic high jump champion Ivan Ukhov is also from Chelyabinsk. But he wasn’t included in the PR list at all.
“Perhaps, our dear governor Mikhail Yurevich shouldn’t have declared such large sums”, Maria Savinova said. “Then he wouldn’t have had to reverse! But if a man promised, he should keep his word and pay the reward, for one must be worthy of his level and responsible for what he said. But Yurevich does not want to do that. The Chelyabinsk region considers my medal as its own but it doesn’t want to pay for it. But after all, so many efforts, so much energy, and so much money have been invested in the gold that it is terrible to remember. In any situation, a lot depends on personal qualities but a number of people have some problems with them”, she said.
It is worth mentioning that Yurevich is a fan of Traktor Chelyabinsk and he even set up a tournament of his own name. Sports analysts said that the Traktor was truly provided with manna from heaven. The role of the manna was reasonably allocated to the governor Mikhail Yurevich who was not averse to uniting the best hockey players in Chelyabinsk, however, without significant result until now. For a couple of “pre-seasons”, the “breeders” of Traktor with their reluctance to stuff the heads seeking for newcomers turned the club into a grab-bag of those who don’t interest other clubs. As a result, in the very first round of the Cup of the Governor, Traktor lost to Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
By investing heavily in unsuccessful plants, Mikhail Yurevich built brick by brick a powerful food industry empire. He was one of the first new wave businessman in Chelyabinsk to have his brand Makfa enter federal level market.
By 1999 Yurevich controlled newspaper Vecherny Chelyabinsk and Sosedi, TV stationPanorama, radio Dynamite and Echo of Moscow.
In elections to the Duma macaroni media mogul used a simple slogan which read "Stop the rise of bread prices," and stopped it because he owned the lion's share of the grain market in the region. As a result, he became a member of the State Duma.
Source: solomin, 21 March 2006
In 1999 business ties between Mikhail Yurevich and State Duma deputy Vladimir Golovlyov came to the surface for the first time. During the privatization, about 90 enterprises in the Southern Urals transferred 15-20% stakes to the Fund controlled by Golovlev, rhus reducing the amount of shares of employees. All of the mentioned property, estimated at nearly 4 trillion rubles, was actually at the disposal of Golovlyov and his confidants.
In August 2002 Golovlyov was murdered. According to one version, the murder was contracted by Boris Berezovsky over fraud worth 150 million dollars earmarked by Berezovsky for the needs of the party.
Death of Golovlyov weakened position of Yurevich. He quickly began to prepare for the elections to the Duma. The deputy actively bombarded regional authorities with questions like “How much do you earn? How much did the region pay for cars for the officials? Why such and such house has no heat?” And then he spoke with pleasure in his own media agencies about stupidity and ineptitude of the current government of Chelyabinsk region.
Source: solomin, 19 December 2005
In August 2003 German Galkin, a journalist of Rabochaya Gazeta, was sentenced to a year in correctional facility. The case against him was under number 511 382 and was referred to “authorities against journalist German Galkin”. He was accused of posting defamatory texts.
The prosecution considered that Rabochaya Gazeta published defamatory statement aimed as representatives of regional authorities. The victims in the case were Andrey Kosilov and Konstantin Bochkarev, two deputy-governors of Chelyabinsk region. Governor Pyotr Sumin did not file claims to law enforcement agencies.
Kosilov, when commenting on the court ruling, said the verdict would be used as grounds for another criminal case against Rabochaya Gazeta. And namely, against Russian State Duma deputy Mikhail Yurevich, who allegedly edited defamatory texts with Galkin.
Source: Gazeta, 19 August 2003
In summer 2011 Chelyabinsk witnessed the sixth stage of primaries of the All-Russia People's Front. Mikhail Yurevich won the previous five stages.
Source: Miass, 04 August 2011
