One year was enough for the mayor of Belgorod

On Monday, it became known about the resignation of the head of Belgorod, Anton Ivanov, who had been in this position for about a year. Recently, the mayor has been increasingly subjected to sharp criticism from the regional authorities. Acting mayor will be the ex-head of the administration of Simferopol Valentin Demidov, who also left his previous post ahead of schedule, without having worked on it even a year.

The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, announced on October 31 that the head of the administration of the regional center, 37-year-old Anton Ivanov, was leaving his post due to a transfer to another job. The head of the region did not name Mr. Ivanov’s new position, nor did the outgoing mayor himself.

Anton Ivanov worked as the head of Belgorod for a little over a year. He began to act as mayor in October 2021, leaving the post of general director of Belgorod Mortgage Corporation JSC. After taking the oath, Mr. Ivanov said that his plans included increasing the satisfaction of citizens with the work of the administration, pursuing a new information policy, increasing the role of governments and solving problems in the transport sector. His predecessor as head of the city, Yuri Galdun, after almost three years of work in the mayor’s office, moved to the Belgorod State Technological University. V. G. Shukhov.

During the work of Anton Ivanov, the administration of Belgorod was constantly criticized by Vyacheslav Gladkov. The head of the region regularly chastised the mayor at planning meetings in the regional government.

“Well, why are you turning me on in the morning?” – Mr. Gladkov asked the mayor of Belgorod, for example, at the end of the summer after the increased number of complaints about the cleaning of the city.

In connection with the increased shelling of Belgorod and the border regions of the region by Ukraine, the criticism of the governor became even more severe. And just a few hours before the dismissal of Anton Ivanov, Vyacheslav Gladkov called formalism in the work of the Belgorod administration to equip basements to shelter people from shelling unacceptable and dangerous. There are still many complaints from local residents about the poor condition of the shelters and the lack of information about them.

Recall that shelling of the Belgorod region from the territory of Ukraine has been carried out from the very beginning of a special military operation, hundreds of houses and buildings have already suffered from them.

For the regional center, the most extensive was the shelling on the night of July 3, as a result of which died five persons. Since the beginning of autumn, attacks have become more frequent: in October, residents of Belgorod reported almost daily on social networks about the operation of the air defense system, and in the border town of Shebekino, two people were killed and 13 more were injured from a shell fall. In the middle of the month a projectile hit in a high-rise building in a densely populated area of ​​Belgorod.

Anton Ivanov declined to comment for Kommersant. In his Telegram channel, he wrotethat the city is in safe hands: “The City Hall team is strong and united. I am very grateful to the whole team for the friendly and well-coordinated work.”

Now the duties of the mayor have passed to his first deputy, 45-year-old Valentin Demidov.

Mr. Demidov, who previously served as the Minister of Economy of Crimea and the mayor of Simferopol, became vice-mayor of Belgorod on October 12. Anton Ivanov entrusted him with the coordination of all major projects, noting that he has the necessary managerial experience. Prior to that, at the end of February 2022, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov made Mr. Demidov his adviser.

Before moving to Belgorod, the last job of Valentin Demidov was the post of head of the administration of Simferopol. The official left him ahead of schedule, without having worked there even for a year. The head of the Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, explained the resignation of the mayor by the fact that he “did not achieve the necessary results and admitted a flaw.”

Political scientist Vladimir Slatinov notes that Vyacheslav Gladkov, who previously worked as the mayor of the city of Zarechny in the Penza region, pays special attention to the problems of city government: “The role of the mayor is deeply embedded in him, so the attention to the regional center from the governor and the level of requirements for the mayor are higher. And since Belgorod actually turned out to be “at the forefront” of a special military operation, the need for the mayor’s involvement in the work coordinated by the head of the region reaches its maximum level. At the same time, the responsibility for the “Varangian” in such a significant post will to a large extent lie with Vyacheslav Gladkov himself, the political scientist adds.

Sergei Tolmachev, Voronezh