Viacheslav Volodin rotated half of the deputies of the head of the State Duma apparatus

State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin made personnel changes in the leadership of the State Duma apparatus. This was reported to Vedomosti by four interlocutors in the lower house.

Deputy Chief of Staff of the State Duma Konstantin Tarasov moved to the position of full-time (that is, paid) adviser to the speaker of the lower house of parliament. Instead, Sergey Pushkin was appointed, who until that moment served as editor-in-chief of Duma TV (the founder is the ANO Editorial Board of Parliamentary Television, the budget for 2022 is 350 million rubles).

This deputy head of the apparatus of the State Duma is responsible for the management of the press service and information, the expert-analytical department and the management of library collections. In addition, he oversaw work with the media. Now these powers will pass to Pushkin. The functionality of working with the media will also remain with Tarasov, sources say.

Tarasov has been working in the State Duma since 2004, when Boris Gryzlov was the speaker of the lower house.

After Volodin’s arrival, he headed the State Duma’s department for public relations and interaction with the media, and later moved to the position of deputy head of the apparatus. He confirmed the transition to the post of adviser to Volodin. According to him, new tasks have been set for the deputy head of the apparatus, so the apparatus of the State Duma “only strengthened” with the appointment of Pushkin.

An interlocutor in the State Duma says that Pushkin is from the presidential administration, where he worked at a time when Volodin was in charge of the domestic political bloc.

The creation of Duma TV was announced in 2017. The then head of the State Duma committee on regulations, Olga Savastyanova, said that the chamber would like to have a tool for informing about the activities of the State Duma. In April 2022, Google blocked the Duma TV YouTube channel. Roskomnadzor demanded to restore access, but the channel is still blocked.

Earlier, Olga Sitnikova, a longtime colleague of Volodin, who has been working with him since the mid-2000s, when he was Vice Speaker of the State Duma from United Russia, moved from the post of deputy head of the apparatus to the position of adviser. Instead, the position was taken by Vladimir Popov, who previously headed the secretariat of the Chairman of the State Duma. From the new convocation in 2021, the secretariat is headed by Savastyanov, who was not elected to the VIII convocation of the Duma.

According to the regulation on the apparatus of the State Duma, it provides legal, organizational, documentation, analytical, informational, financial, logistical, social and welfare support for the activities of deputies, committees and commissions, the chairman of the Duma and his deputies, etc.