The investigation did not notice the pigs – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

As it became known to Kommersant, the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs stopped investigating criminal cases on the transfer of land plots for breeding pigs in the protective zone of the Lake Pleshcheyevo National Park in Pereslavl-Zalessky. Both departments decided that there was no corpus delicti in the actions of officials. The Prosecutor General’s Office, however, recognized these decisions as illegal – and the Prosecutor’s Office of the Yaroslavl Region canceled them. Now the cases have been combined into one proceeding and transferred to the regional department of the Investigative Committee.

Back in October, the Investigative Committee of the ICR and the Investigative Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Yaroslavl Region closed criminal cases on the unlawful alienation of municipal lands in the security zone of the Lake Pleshcheyevo National Park in Pereslavl-Zalessky. This follows from the response of the Prosecutor General’s Office to a resident of Moscow, Irina Pavlova, who, through the court, demands that transactions to transfer land plots to private hands be recognized as illegal. The private owner of the plot has been raising pigs and other domestic animals on it for almost ten years. However, the investigation under paragraph “c” of Part 3 of Art. 286 (abuse of power with causing grave consequences) and under Part 4 of Art. 159 (fraud on an especially large scale) was terminated due to the lack of corpus delicti.

“In the Prosecutor General’s Office, these decisions were declared illegal, and therefore, on November 10, 2022, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Yaroslavl Region canceled them. Criminal cases are connected in one proceeding, their further investigation is carried out by the Investigative Committee of the ICR in the Yaroslavl Region. A legal assessment of the events under investigation will be given based on its results, taking into account the totality of evidence collected,” the response of the Prosecutor General’s Office says. It is also noted that back in August last year, the prosecutor’s office of the Yaroslavl region demanded through the court to recognize the contracts for the sale of land plots as null and void and return them to state ownership. The trial has not been completed.

During the consideration of the civil case, it was established that the transferred plots also belonged to public lands and natural landscapes.

Any of the residents and guests of the city could use these lands for walking and recreation, but after the transfer to private ownership, only pigs walked on these sites.

In October last year, “Kommersant” informedthat the border of the land plot transferred to the private owner is located one and a half meters from the coastline, and animal waste products fell into Lake Pleshcheyevo through the drainage ditch. The land was also not equipped with a “human” sewage system: it has a wooden toilet and a cesspool. Water samples taken at the confluence of the drainage ditch into the reservoir showed that the permissible concentrations of harmful substances were several times exceeded. In particular, an excess of ammonium ions, nitrite ions and phosphorus ions was recorded, the increase in the concentration of which leads to uncontrolled growth of algae. The National Park noted that the current situation could lead to an acceleration of the euthophytization of the lake and the mass death of fish, including the famous Pereslavl vendace.

Lake Pleshcheyevo is also an important source of drinking water. Consequently, the health of local residents and tourists was also at risk. The Prosecutor General’s Office told Irina Pavlova that the Yaroslavl Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor’s Office had taken “response measures due to the failure of the city administration to take measures to organize storm drains and provide pollution to the reservoir.” Currently, work is underway on the design and construction of storm sewers and local treatment facilities, as well as the approval of the terms of reference for the development of design estimates for the transfer of the release of centralized sewers outside the buffer zone of the Pleshcheyevo Lake National Park. We add that for violation of the rules for the protection and use of natural resources in a specially protected natural area in May 2022, the administration of Pereslavl-Zalessky was brought to administrative responsibility.

Alexander Tikhonov, Yaroslavl