Pavel Martynov, exclusively to VK
Rumors about the authorities' intention to redraw the map of the North Caucasus Federal District were literally spread from the moment of its formation. First, some experts have questioned the appropriateness of including the Stavropol Territory in the district; then they were indignant at the lack of Adygea and the Krasnodar Region in it.
Now, we are witnesses to a new stage with economic implications – they began talking about the possibility of uniting the Stavropol Territory with Chechnya or introducing external federal control over it. The subtext is clear: we are talking about the most interesting part of the Stavropol Territory from a financial and economic point of view - the Caucasus Mineral Waters with their famous resorts and probably a lot of people are wishing to control such a promising region with proper funding and investment support.
The sprawling rumors disturb not only business people in the Stavropol Territory, but in general (including the general alarm situation in international relations) the situation is heating up. Perhaps the starting point for the rumors was the statements of some federal officials about the possibility of enlarging the regions, and perhaps someone's desire for economic gain. The media suddenly started to severely criticize the famous sharp judgments of journalist Maxim Shevchenko as the chief proponent of the division of the Stavropol Territory. And although he did not say a word about the separation of the Caucasus Mineral Waters from Stavropol, the flywheel has been launched. The presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, Alexander Khloponin,, who has for several years been struggling with the problem of the resort of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, was also criticized, and despite the variety of challenges average annual load of the resorts in the region has reached the level of 85%, which even Sochi hoteliers have so far failed to achieve.
It is interesting that if now Khloponin’s opponents are trying to "separate" part of the Stavropol Territory, a couple of years ago, they tried to "separate" the Stavropol Territory itself from the North Caucasus Federal District, citing the fact that there was a sharp increase in the number of conflicts on ethnic grounds. Nevertheless, it is clear that not the number of conflicts but their information support increased. Then the envoy reacted quite harshly: "This is difficult to even imagine. The people who wrote it really threw their thesis to nowhere. People do not just know their history. These are really crazy ideas ... These things should be responded by regional authority, which must be available, meet and communicate with the public. "
But it seems that the regional authorities still have problems with this. The authorities of the Stavropol Territory have to carry out serious work on the development of unified information policy and positioning themselves in the country. "Look at Chechnya – it’s only positive for all federal channels, although we all know that things are not so rosy. The Stavropol Territory had to talk about the festival of small towns and youth forums ...”, Hloponin urged. However, so far professional team working in the territory cannot bring down the stream of negativity pouring out of there and taking the most absurd form.
