The Minister of Youth Policy of the Samara Region resigned amid a loud “gay scandal”
[ad_1]
The Minister of Youth Policy of the Samara Region, Sergei Burtsev, announced at the end of last week that he was voluntarily leaving his post. According to him, this decision was influenced by certain “voiced assumptions” with which he “absolutely disagree.” The resignation of the minister was preceded by the appearance of information about his non-traditional sexual orientation, which was disseminated by State Duma deputy from the region Alexander Khinshtein. Mr. Burtsev is not the first high-ranking official whose career ended after Mr. Khinshtein’s revelations, but previously the talk was mainly about official or criminal violations.
On leaving his position Sergey Burtsev reported on social networks on the evening of April 11. “Despite the fact that I absolutely disagree with the assumptions voiced and refute them, I think it is wrong to cast a shadow on the youth policy of the region. In this regard, I decided to resign. Time will put everything in its place,” the official wrote.
State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein was more specific, saying that Mr. Burtsev “urgently resigned amid the gay scandal that erupted in the region.”
A few hours before the minister’s statement in Telegram channel deputy, a post appeared in which it was alleged that 34-year-old Sergei Burtsev, during a week-long vacation in Kislovodsk, lived in the same hotel room with his 32-year-old subordinate Andrei Zolotukhin. In addition, the deputy published numerous joint photographs of Messrs. Burtsev and Zolotukhin.
“These people go through life together: wherever Burtsev is appointed, Zolotukhin follows him,” noted Mr. Khinshtein. He suggested that the dismissal of the minister was initiated by Samara governor Dmitry Azarov, “who decided to stop another scandal that was obviously harmful to him.”
Alexander Khinshtein said that “one of the members of the regional government went on vacation with his subordinate” on April 2, without naming names. A couple of days later, Sergei Burtsev wrote on social networks that “dirty laundry” was being circulated “in the Samara telegram dumpsters”, where his name was mentioned “including in a very unsightly and inappropriate context.” “I have had several serious and long-term relationships in my life. I have always adhered to the rule that my personal life is my personal life, and it should not bother anyone. I am grateful to each of my girlfriends for the wonderful time spent together,” said Mr. Burtsev.
The government of the Samara region refused to comment on Sergei Burtsev’s decision, emphasizing only that he himself announced his resignation on his page on the social network.
The Ministry of Youth Policy was established in the Samara region in the summer of 2023, and in November Sergei Burtsev, who previously headed the department for youth affairs in the regional Ministry of Education and Science, became its head. At the beginning of April 2024, Denis Leontovich, whom Alexander Khinshtein had previously called an “open supporter” of LGBT (the LGBT movement is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) and a person promoting this movement, voluntarily resigned from the “Agency for the Implementation of Youth Policy” subordinate to the Ministry of Youth. .
Sergei Burtsev is not the first high-ranking Samara official whose career ended after Mr. Khinshtein’s revelations. Thus, in February 2024, Alexander Balashov left the post of head of the State Institution “Expertise of Projects in the Field of Construction”, who, according to the deputy, “approved the conclusions of dubious examinations justifying the sharp increase in the cost of the project for the construction of the Teatralnaya metro station.”
As part of the criminal investigation into this construction in November 2023 was detained the first vice-governor is the chairman of the government of the Samara region, Viktor Kudryashov, who announced his resignation just hours before the visit of the security forces. That investigators have “serious questions” for him
Alexander Khinshtein reported several months before his arrest. Now the ex-official, who is charged with abuse of power (Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code), is in a Moscow pre-trial detention center. At the same time as Mr. Kudryashov, Acting Minister of Construction Mikhail Aseev, who also appeared in Alexander Khinshtein’s revealing posts, was also detained. At the end of November, Mr. Aseev entered into an agreement with the investigation and was transferred from the pre-trial detention center in Samara to house arrest.
Another high-profile victim of parliamentary revelations was the chairman of the Samara-based Sixth Court of Cassation, Alexander Efanov.
His powers were premature discontinued by the Higher Qualification Board of Judges in May 2023. The reason for this was the results of checking the information of Mr. Khinshtein, who had previously reported that the head of the court had acquired expensive property at a reduced price, some of which, moreover, was not indicated in his declarations.
According to the general director of the Institute of Regional Problems, Dmitry Zhuravlev, the resignation of Sergei Burtsev could indeed be a consequence of Alexander Khinshtein’s publications about the minister’s non-traditional sexual orientation. “Everything that the deputy wrote about is not even indirect evidence, it’s hints. But since the topic is painful for Russia with our traditional attitude to life, even a hint can influence political decisions. But the fact that Sergei Burtsev hastily announced his resignation indirectly confirms the accusations. It doesn’t even matter whether he leaves voluntarily or the governor fires him,” explains the political scientist.
[ad_2]
Source link
