The court began consideration of the high-profile case of ex-Deputy Minister of Culture Yarilova: denies guilt

She is charged with abuse of official powers, due to which 125 million rubles were leaked from the state budget.

The Tverskoy Court has begun a hearing in the case of former Deputy Minister of Culture Olga Yarilova, who is accused of fraud with the Pushkin Card and abuse of official powers. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

Let us recall that a year ago Olga Yarilova resigned from the post of Deputy Minister of Culture, allegedly of her own free will. Six months later, it became clear that she was asked to leave. Now some sources report that she was personally removed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. In April of this year, Yarilova was arrested. This happened a few weeks after the report of the director of the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring, Yuri Chikhanchin, to President Vladimir Putin, where he said that his agency, together with the FSB, had identified a criminal group that had laundered millions of rubles on the Pushkin Card state project. Yarilova’s house arrest was denied – she spent six months in a pre-trial detention center. Despite this, at the first meeting the ex-official appeared with her hair and makeup on and willingly posed for photojournalists.

The prosecutor announced the essence of the case. In October 2021, the SP-Capital company, which owns the “highest ice cream museum in the world”: it is located on the 89th floor of one of the Moscow City towers, was included in the Pushkin Card program by order of Yarilova. Six months later, the official’s subordinate Dmitry Konovalov drew attention to the status of the company, whose exhibition, at least according to the report, turned out to be the most visited in the “Event” category, thanks to which the company received more funds from the state budget. Konovalov pointed out to his boss that the site did not have official museum status, and then wrote a memo to Zhanna Alekseeva, Deputy Director of the Department of Regional Policy, Education and Project Management of the Ministry of Culture. She turned to Yarilova, but she did not see any problem, saying that of the four thousand participants in the program, only a few have museum status.

Subsequent inspection showed that the contents of the museum are small. There is a scooter with an ice cream trailer, an ice cream cart, stands with packaging and advertising posters for ice cream, and a gift shop. Olga Yarilova was again approached with questions, and she again refused to exclude the ice cream museum from the Pushkin Card program. In total, from May to September 2022, the company sold almost 67 thousand tickets worth more than 125 million rubles. Their cost was reimbursed by the Ministry of Culture, that is, these millions went to a private “museum” without official status from the federal budget.

The ex-official’s lawyer, Sergei Dyakin, insists that there was no intent in Yarilova’s actions. She herself denies guilt and explains that she was not the only one who made the decision. The next meeting is due to take place on December 13. It will hear testimony from witnesses, of whom there are more than a dozen. For abuse of official powers (Part 3 of Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), Olga Yarilova faces up to ten years in prison.