Stepan Kirichuk: “Heydar Aliyev’s life is a tutorial in how to manage in a great country”

Tribune’s guest is Stepan Kirichuk, the First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Federal Structure, Regional Policy, Local Governance and Northern Affairs, Senator from the Tyumen Region.

- Today let's talk about contributions to a major overhaul. Recently the Prosecutor General's Office found them unconstitutional, but yesterday it took its words back, and stated that it is withdrawing its letter from the Constitutional Court. It was about the fact that people do not have the opportunity to control the flow rate of payments. What do you think, are these contributions justified or not?

- It depends on where, each region sets its own contributions. In St. Petersburg - 2 rubles, in Moscow - 15 rubles. Within a year or two we will be able to calculate the amount of work that needs to be carried out in each subject of the federation, in each municipality, then there will be the amount that should be spent on a major overhaul. Moreover, it is about the major overhaul of the common property of an apartment building: elevators, roofs, sanitary engineering, porches, areas close to buildings, facades. The point is that an owner, an apartment owner, a person who has the right to live in it, to be in it, to use the apartment, he will not be able to maintain it alone. Residents must unite. The state took the responsibility to organize residents and offered them an option of how to maintain their property. The common property of an apartment building also belongs to them, and not to some other unknown legal entities, companies.

So the state offered several options, and the disadvantages of these options can be seen today. We could not imagine that so few people, such a small percentage, would decide to collect money and use it on their own. Throughout the country it is somewhere around 5%.

I believe that it is necessary to collect money by yourself, and manage it by yourself. Well, if it does not work, regional funds operate under the personal responsibility of the governor. After all, the regional government of any subject of the federation is personally responsible, bears responsibility for the safety of these funds. Now the issue of interest on this money, for them not to be devalued, will be considered, it is already in the State Duma.

- A large part of the housing stock in our country is in need of a major overhaul, or is now coming to that term, but there are also new houses. For example, a major overhaul is planned for 30 years, and these contributions are not cancelled. Where is the guarantee that, firstly, 30 years later this money will not disappear from inflation? And after 30 years, what will be there – marble hallways and elevators with diamond buttons? After 30 years the amount will be huge.

- 30 years is a term that will pass very quickly. As for the money, we are talking about deposits. They will accrue interest. The interest will be the same as for individuals. This means that this interest will not come from inflationary costs. Nobody forbids individually composing this system. The only thing I do not exclude is that after some time you will already discuss the problem that we should not do all of this, that is, such a system is not necessary, because residents have found how to solve it on their own, how to maintain their common property. A lot of individual housing is being built, and many people are settled in individual housing. If there is housing as social rental, the owner of this property will bear responsibility.

But if the topic is used in election campaigns, various speakers today will shout "they have introduced contributions for a major overhaul, and now they will steal the money, and that’s why you definitely should not vote for them!" It is irresponsible and populist.

- How can use of the money be controlled?

- It is necessary to keep it all under control. And the government must help people. Housing control now works in each region. We have public control, which monitors the resettlement from emergency housing, monitors demolitions, overhauls, the formation of these funds. We have the Public Chamber, the All-Russian People's Front and we attempt to include the population of the state in this work.

One or two active people live in each house, who can control the general saving of money in a pro-active way. As the mayor of the city, I used to deal with quite different things – the introduction of a special document for activists. These people were seniors in the courtyard and around the house. They were my assistants, my organizers, the mayor's deputy of this neighborhood on a voluntary basis. People are active, they need to be responsible for this monitoring.

Certainly, it is necessary to deal with different cases of the stickiness of money in dirty hands. There are no prospects without a complete overhaul of property. I would like to ask what a person who urges not to pay, or not to carry out these works, how can these payments be unconstitutional? The Federal Assembly passed a law. The law was signed by the President and it was registered by the Ministry of Justice.

We asked the Ministry of Construction and the deputy minister will tell us as well as inform us in written form of the explanation of the legality of the use of the law in our country. We have to pay. The problem is that incomes are rising slowly. So we should think how to increase people's incomes, as well as how to make people's jobs more qualified; increase the level of economy and to make people richer. In any case it is necessary to monitor the condition of houses.

- Stepan Mikhailovich, we are in the studio of Vestnik Kavkaza, so there are questions connected with the Caucasus region. You are a great expert in the sphere of rail transport and you worked with people, natives of the Caucasus, in particular with Heydar Aliyev. Can you tell us how you worked?

- I didn’t work with Aliyev personally. I was a young man when Aliyev was appointed as the curator of the Politbureau for the railways. I listened to his conferences which he held once a month in order to set the goals put before us. At first, we were skeptical about this appointment. I still worry very much when I hear that a minister was appoint from a completely different specialty. I had the same attitude to the appointment of Heydar Aliyev as a curator. But his first decisions and his very first actions dispelled all doubts. He was a great statesman, who could direct his knowledge and abilities, as a member of the Politburo and one of the leaders of the large Soviet Union, to the development of rail transport and the solution of all-union tasks.

Today cargos are transported by vehicles. The current tariffs are so high that our Tyumen Accumulator Plant carries lead with the help of trucks from Kazakhstan. The system of railway transportation doesn't work. However, at that time, Heydar Aliyev was the leader who encouraged us to resolve the general state affairs. It is necessary to tell how he worked, because today his life is a tutorial in how to manage in a great country.

- Your colleague Arnold Tulokhonov has been our guest recently and he has proposed erecting a monument to Heydar Aliyev in Buryatia, in honor of the person who oversaw the construction of the BAM. He proposed remembering as many good things as possible about those times, things that united us. What do you think of this initiative?

- I have a very good attitude towards this. I think that there are decent people from the Caucasus who represented a lot of areas and who left a very large footprint on one or another territory of the large Soviet Union. Farman Salmanov, the geologist, was engaged in West Siberian oil [after 30 years of working in West Siberia, Salmanov was a pioneer and founder of more than 1300 oil and gas fields in the Tyumen Region, which became a basis for the oil-and-gas complex of Russia - VK]. Farman Salmanov was born in Azerbaijan, he was a young guy when he was sent to work in Siberia. We honor his memory today.

We don't blame those who do good things today. But we should speak more not only about the history of our victories, our history of conquests, but also about labour, industrial victories. I support my colleague's proposal to erect the monument. It is a cultural event. People will write and speak about it; it is what unites us all.