Why was ex-Deputy Minister of Culture Olga Yarilova arrested?
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Intermediate results of the investigation of theft with the help of “Pushkin cards”
The Basmanny Court of Moscow arrested until June 16 ex-Deputy Minister of Culture Olga Yarilova, refusing to satisfy her petition for house arrest. The former official is accused of abuse of office (part 3 of article 285 of the Criminal Code) in a case of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). For each of the criminal articles, the punishment provides for up to 10 years in prison. Three alleged fraudsters were also arrested in the case, who are accused of fraud with the Pushkin Card state program. It is suspected that the attackers stole more than 200 million rubles from the state budget. How they pulled off the criminal scheme, who else could be involved in it, and why the case surfaced right now, more than six months after Yarilova left the state post, MK figured it out.
The fact that the case in connection with large-scale frauds around the Pushkin Card program was underway became known back in early March – at a meeting between the director of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, Yuri Chikhanchin, and the president of the country. Vladimir Putin listened to a report that the department, together with the FSB, had identified a criminal group that had laundered millions of rubles on a state project, and said, shaking his head: “No matter what you do, crooks appear everywhere.”
True, then it was about the amount of about 100 million rubles. But already then, by the time of the report to the president, three suspected residents of the Moscow region were arrested – Viktor Yakubov, Emil Gurbanov and Ilya Safonov. And even then it was obvious that the matter would not be limited to the detention of several people, because machinations were carried out throughout the country.
Actually, how did the criminal scheme work? In Gogol’s way: according to the principle of “dead souls”. “They simply made imaginary lists of people who supposedly should have received these benefits, there were none,” Chikhanchin reported to the president. But this scheme described by the classic was not the only one. As part of the all-Russian cultural program “Pushkin Card”, launched on August 20, 2021, any citizen of the Russian Federation aged 14 to 22 years old can issue a plastic or virtual card with a face value of 5 thousand rubles for free (until January 1, 2022 – 3 thousand rubles ) and spend these funds on visiting theaters, museums, philharmonics and cinemas. Back in September of the same year, advertisements for the sale of personalized cards were noticed on various services and social networks. Fraudsters bought Pushkin Cards from young people for a couple of thousand rubles. At the same time, various activities were carried out to show – at least on paper – that the program works. For example, in Samara, the “Theater of New Times” was organized, which regularly gave performances at various venues, where tickets were purchased using the “Pushkin Card”. The reports indicated that the performances were sold out, but in fact the halls were empty. That is, the criminals sold tickets to themselves, paying for them with the Pushkin Card. Naturally, such tricks could not take place without the responsible officials not closing their eyes in time. At the level of Deputy Minister.
Olga Yarilova left her post as Deputy Minister of Culture, which she had held since 2018, on September 24 last year. It was reported that she wrote the statement of her own free will. But now it seems that this is hardly the case. It is clear that the Ministry of Culture did not want to cast a shadow on its department, so the wording was chosen soft. It is obvious that the investigation did not begin in March, when it was reported to the president, while presenting the result (the top three, already arrested, suspects), but much earlier. Yarilova must have been summoned for interrogation more than once before being arrested. That is, the detention was not a surprise for her. And, quite possibly, she is not the only one among the ranks of officials who can be involved in a dark scheme. In this sense, it is curious that an official from Nizhny Novgorod Nadezhda Reverend, far from the Moscow “club”, was put in the place of Yarilova.
Here it is worth remembering that the name of Olga Yarilova, like her colleagues and girlfriend Alla Manilova, was already featured in a corruption scandal last year that ended in a criminal case with a real term. It’s about the case of “Tables”. As a result, an employee of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve, chief accountant of the Association for the Preservation and Revival of Cultural Property “Skryzhal” Irina Khodzhaeva was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for fraud. In 2017–18, the Skrizhal Association received a target subsidy in the amount of 8 million rubles from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for the implementation of the Annual Festival of Small Towns in Tobolsk and Kostroma. Another subsidy was received by the Zmey Gorynych Historical Reconstruction Club (5 million rubles) for a “cycle of creative events dedicated to the 800th anniversary of Alexander Nevsky” in Yaroslavl, Veliky Novgorod and Baltiysk. Part of the funds did go to cultural events, but most went into pockets. A witness, ex-employee of the Ministry of Culture Anna Nikitsova, spoke at the trial and said that two deputy ministers of culture, Alla Manilova and Olga Yarilova, were directly involved in the scheme. Khodjaeva’s verdict was announced on May 12, 2022. Ministry of culture officials seemed to get away with it, but soon Alla Manilova was getting ready to leave the ministry. Back in the spring of 2022, rumors spread that she might leave the department for the post of director of some St. Petersburg museum. There were various options – first the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, then the Peterhof Museum-Reserve and even the Hermitage. But in the end, the choice fell on the Russian Museum. Its now ex-head, Vladimir Gusev, has already taken his belongings out of the director’s office and taken the honorary position of president. Since the beginning of the year, the timing has been waiting for the arrival of Alla Manilova, but the wait is suspiciously long. Whether it will happen now that such a large-scale investigation of the Investigative Committee with the participation of the FSB has unfolded is a question.
In any case, we should expect that new defendants will appear in the Pushkin Card case. And the program itself will be at least revised, as a maximum – closed. It has been criticized for a long time, and now it is obvious that the doubts were not in vain.
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