Political career Alexandra Bespalova is not yet going down as rapidly as, say, Doku Zavgaev, who, after failing to cope with the tasks of leading Chechnya, was sent as ambassador to Tanzania. Gazprom’s current mission—to serve as the purse strings of the party in power during an election year—is still more prestigious.
True, Bespalov was given a very modest place in the Gazprom hierarchy, and according to his own ambitions, completely insignificant.
If in the post of chairman of the General Council and the Central Election Commission " United Russia“Alexander Bespalov could afford to place posters with his image all over the country (which, among other things, other leaders of the party in power did not like), but now nothing like this can happen in principle.
Alexander Bespalov received only half of the duties that, until recently, were previously performed by the chairman of the board of directors, and now the general director of Gazprom-Media, Alexander Dybal. When Dybal was appointed general director of the media holding, it was decided that the less significant position of chief information management He will leave Gazprom.
However, it is also impossible to say that the current position is completely worthless. The question is what share of Gazprom’s total advertising budget – and, according to some estimates, it is about 2.1 billion rubles. per year - Bespalov will be able to bring it under his control. Yes, even in political sense managing PR and advertising for the gas monopoly may be an improvement over representing the interests of the Penza region in the Federation Council. Although Bespalov, of course, dreamed of something else.
Formally, Bespalov is still the chairman of the General Council of United Russia, but, according to the party, only until the next congress, which will take place on March 29. At the same time, the role of the Central Election Commission, which is headed by Bespalov, is expected to be reduced “to the level of the office.” And in order to start receiving an honest salary at Gazprom, Bespalov will also have to leave the senators, who, according to the law, can receive money on the side only for teaching, as well as scientific and creative achievements.
So far, as Gazeta.Ru has found out, no documents on the recall of Alexander Bespalov, as well as in relation to his colleague Valery Golubev, whom Gazprom head Alexey Miller appointed general director of Gazkomplektimpex on February 17, have been received by the Federation Council. Be that as it may, Bespalov is expected at his new place of work on March 4, but it is not a fact that he will appear. According to available information, upon learning of his new appointment, Bespalov fell ill.
As for Gazprom, the appointment of Bespalov as head of information policy is most likely neither hot nor cold for it. IN information policy Gazprom has always had many problems. The official concern has always been a very closed organization for the press; on the other hand, from time to time such “leaks” leaked from its depths that the impression of total corruption and theft was created. In reality, both were only a reflection of the struggle of clans within Gazprom itself or the desire of individual government officials to somehow reform it.
However, the opposition within the concern, as Gazeta.Ru already reported, was recently successfully suppressed by Alexey Miller, and the ardor of the reformers was cooled by Vladimir Putin personally during the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the concern. The position of head of the information department in such a situation is, in general, a sinecure. Why not assign a good person to her.
(b. 04/13/1950)
Chairman of the General Council of the United Russia party in
2001–2002
Born in Borovichi Novgorod region. Father,
military man, from the Belgorod region, mother, Russian language teacher and
literature from the neighboring Kharkov region. From the age of two in Leningrad.
He received his education at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Leningrad State
University named after A. A. Zhdanova. Started his career at enterprises
Leningrad, then was appointed instructor in the organizational department of the executive committee
Leningrad City Council of People's Deputies. In 1991–1993
head of the organizational department of the St. Petersburg People's Council
deputies. Since 1993, Deputy Head of the Secretariat of the St. Petersburg City Hall,
since December 1993, headed the public relations department of the mayor's office
St. Petersburg, which was supervised by V.V. Putin. With coming V.A.
Yakovlev, the governor of St. Petersburg A.D. Bespalov was dismissed. WITH
November 1996, at the request of V.V. Putin, became chief adviser
chairman Legislative Assembly St. Petersburg Yu. A. Kravtsova.
Elected executive secretary of the council of the St. Petersburg organization
All-Russian socio-political movement “Our Home is Russia”
(NDR), in 1999 he was elected chairman of the executive committee of the NDR. Headed the St. Petersburg
regional list of candidates for deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from the electoral
association “Our Home is Russia”. Since January 2000, he served as acting
authorized representative President of the Russian Federation in St. Petersburg. Was
Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Central Federal
district. Led the executive committee of the Union “Unity and Fatherland”, was elected
General Secretary of the All-Russian Party "Unity and Fatherland". IN
2001 elected chairman of the general council of the all-Russian
political party "United Russia". In 2002–2003 member of the Federation Council
Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, representative of the administration of the Penza region. By
according to him, Penza was the first region where a visiting meeting took place
of the General Council of the United Russia party: “They were just going through
gubernatorial elections, and we supported Vasily Bochkarev. By the way, one of
candidates were State Duma deputy Viktor Ilyukhin. Bochkarev honestly
won and invited me to represent the region in the Federation Council. I thought
why not? Penza is an indicative region for Russia. Full set of problems:
the smallest per capita income, the airport was closed long ago, there are four
On March 29, a congress of United Russia will take place, which will make a fundamental decision - who will lead this party to the elections: Minister of Internal Affairs Boris Gryzlov or Senator Alexander Bespalov. The first heads the Supreme Council of the party, the second occupies two chairs at once - chairman of the General Council and the Central Executive Committee. While both councils (Higher and General) compete with each other for main role in the party. This confrontation must be resolved in someone's favor at the party forum. Now both United Russia factions are actively fighting for potential delegates to the congress. If Gryzlov is more or less “in the public eye” (largely due to his post in the Ministry of Internal Affairs), then Bespalov has firmly “gone into the shadows.” Lately, he has hardly communicated with journalists, and at the same time has minimized his contacts with his comrades in United Russia. In turn, they say: it cannot be otherwise - Bespalov led the party to collapse. What is this person really like? Izvestia conducted its own investigation.
Vladivostok. August 24, 2002. Vladimir Putin's motorcade, which arrived in Primorye the day before, is rushing through the rainy city. At one of the forks, the car encounters three huge advertising billboards: female legs in Levante tights; a girl with Lipstik lipstick, and between them is a portrait of a man with a plump, round face and a thin mustache, who promises protection for state employees from the United Russia party. This is Alexander Bespalov. The poster hung so that Putin could not help but notice it. “And here he got!” - one of the high-ranking Kremlin officials said gloomily. "get" to Far East However, it was not easy for Bespalov to “settle” with his numerous images in other Russian cities and towns. It was a long time before thorny path with ups and downs. There were more of the latter.
Tenacious chemist
Sasha Bespalov was born in last years"cult of personality" - in April 1950 in the city of Borovichi Leningrad region. He prefers not to talk about his childhood (this is what many politicians do, tormented by childhood memories unknown to voters). In fact, his biography begins in 1969, when Bespalov entered the chemistry department of Leningrad State University. He received his diploma in 1973 and remained to work at the department. Vladimir Putin graduated from law school in 1975. Theoretically, during their student years they could have crossed paths and even been friends. However, there is no evidence of this. Nothing is known about Bespalov’s work in the KGB-FSB. As one of Izvestia’s interlocutors put it, “this is non-binding Internet information.” Bespalov himself prefers to talk about that period as vaguely as possible: that
there was, then there was something to remember.
The “chemist” did not ruin his career in the laboratories and departments of Leningrad State University. In the stagnant year of 1982, he “surfaced” as a representative of the Soviet nomenklatura: instructor, deputy, then head of the vorgot department of the Lensovet executive committee. Perestroika brings Bespalov into “big city politics” - in 1987-1989 he was a deputy of the Vasileostrovsky District Council. From 1993 to 1996 he worked at the St. Petersburg City Hall, where he created and headed the public relations department.
This is where the first doubts about Bespalov’s organizational and other abilities appear. In 1994-1995, a massive attack began on the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. The Bespalovsky Public Relations Department had to somehow resist this. Bespalov did not succeed. Surprisingly, this circumstance did not prevent him career growth. After all, he clearly understood the main rule of nomenklatura survival: you need to cling to a strong figure, and then you won’t be able to swim out on your own, either connections or a simple hint of them will help.
Putin has been working in the St. Petersburg mayor's office since June 1991, and since 1994 he has been the first vice-governor. It was then that Bespalov clung to Putin and began to push the topic in every possible way." informal relations"with him. In the mid-90s, Putin and Bespalov together headed the St. Petersburg branch of the Chernomyrdin bloc of the NDR. The future president was its head, and the future party leader was its secretary.
When a person has no other arguments to support his image, then “skeletons in the closet” are used. Bespalov periodically takes out one such “skeleton” and begins to sell it: I know Putin, I’m friends with him, etc., one Kremlin official told Izvestia. However, he does not provide any evidence of “informal relations”. Everything is on the level beautiful legend.
After the future president moved to Moscow in 1996, Bespalov remained in St. Petersburg as the main adviser to the speaker of the Legislative Assembly. In 2000, acting President Putin appoints Bespalov as acting president. Representative of the President in St. Petersburg.
In 2001, Bespalov moved to Moscow - deputy plenipotentiary representative in the Central District. The official's chair turned out to be a bit cramped, and the role of Georgy Poltavchenko's deputy apparently seemed unpromising. This coincided with the emergence of a Kremlin plan to unite Unity and Fatherland - All Russia. As a result, on December 1, 2001, at the founding congress, Alexander Bespalov was elected chairman of the General Council and the executive committee of United Russia. The Kremlin accepted this “personnel decision” with understanding: it’s good that a St. Petersburg resident became the party leader - there is something symbolic in this. The party was generally jubilant: not only is he from St. Petersburg, he is also, they say, a friend of the president, but now things will go well for United Russia. And off we go...
Shocking in circulation!
At first, the party treated Bespalov with reverence. But after a few weeks, strange things began to happen. For example, the Chairman of the General Council began to communicate condescendingly with the leaders of the Duma factions. And publicly, in the presence of journalists. Then endless extravagant ideas began to pour in. So, in February last year, United Russia proposed: if a governor does not receive 50% of the votes, then the elections are declared invalid, and the head of the region is appointed by presidential decree. The Central Election Commission grabbed its head: the model threatened to disrupt 70-80% of all regional elections (our people don’t like going to the ballot box). This did not bother Bespalov. After all, the main thing is to throw in a slogan.
Then there was a sudden attack on the government (at the congress of young managers “Putin’s Call”), and personally on the “Petersburg residents” Gref and Kudrin; and the idea to increase the size of the party to 1 million people by December 2003 (all that remains is to smile); and the desire to announce a “tender” (that’s right!) for the best publication about United Russia in regional media. (Since then, Bespalov’s phrase “Of all the arts, we prefer the multi-circulation” has been popular among journalists.)
There were other initiatives as well. Bespalov put forward all sorts of social slogans - from control over the payment of salaries to public sector employees to gasification of the village. At the end of last year, in the reporting report, everything came down to statistics - so many letters were received, so many were answered. Everything is dry. According to the party (in the communist sense).
Bespalov did not care about the result, he was always concerned with the process. When he worked in the mayor's office and with Cherkesov (Viktor Cherkesov is now the presidential envoy to the North-West - Izvestia), he was more than once on the verge of relegation for such an approach. He was saved alone by cunning trick: came to Putin and threw himself at his feet. Vladimir Vladimirovich did not like such scenes and every time tried to get rid of the visitor. For this, Putin could promise him anything,” said a source in United Russia.
Money Shield Cemetery
Whether Bespalov threw himself at Putin’s feet or not, the “friend of the president” and the St. Petersburg party builder got away with extravagant initiatives. Until the Kremlin learned about the overspending of funds from the party fund on a PR campaign in 2002. Then it became clear: Alexander Dmitrievich had gone too wild.
"There are a lot of opinions about whether our advertising campaign, but the mass of people sees the shields, and it is directed at them. Existing estimates of the cost of the campaign are greatly overestimated. I don’t even understand where the media came up with the figure of $5 million. I can tell you that it is ten times less. The advertising market, especially in Moscow, is characterized by large “kickbacks” on many levels, and perhaps this is why such estimates appear. We have experience working directly with billboard owners, so the advertising campaign cost us relatively little,” Bespalov himself said in an interview.
If you believe the rumors, the shields “ate” the notorious 5 million dollars. True, United Russia themselves voiced a more modest figure - $900 thousand. Moscow turned out to be the most expensive - here it took about $400 thousand to clone Bespalov's image.
A serious imbalance has occurred. Because of these billboards, the pre-election funding of single-mandate candidates and specific party figures suffered, complained one of the party members.
Bespalov's billboards have become jokes. Some of them ended up near a garbage dump, others - next to a cemetery, others were adjacent to half-naked girls, cigarettes, tights and other goods (see above - the Vladivostok version).
Won't you transfer power?
It’s not just money that has become a bone of contention in United Russia. Bespalov not only destabilized the party, but also discredited the government. The Kremlin began to be seriously concerned about the statements of the head of the United Russia General Council that Putin would certainly join the party before the 2003 parliamentary elections. The presidential administration regarded this “as an obvious setup.” Last year (pre-election!) turned out to be a failure for the party. The upcoming (elective!!!) may even end in complete collapse. Something had to be done with Bespalov.
This man has such a character that he himself will never leave, says one of the members of the General Council. He put himself in the current situation: he doesn’t admit his mistakes and doesn’t want to leave.
Analyzing all Bespalov’s miscalculations, failures, and setups, you cannot find an answer to the question: what, in fact, was this man trying to achieve? Izvestia interviewed several experts (both independent and party), United Russia functionaries, St. Petersburg residents, and members of the presidential administration. They called different reasons such behavior ranges from personal sloppiness to hints of greed. And yet, summing up these opinions, one can find the key to “Bespalov’s problem”: his power ambitions do not correspond to his managerial abilities. He wants power, but does not know the right path to it. Of course, he strives for some kind of personal career leap. At one time they said that Bespalov was aiming to become speaker of the Federation Council. There is reason to believe that everything is much more complicated.
We must build a stable political system in six
years - until 2008 (apparently, he does not consider the 2004 presidential elections a problem. - Izvestia), so that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin transfers power to a person nominated by the party, Bespalov said at the end of last year at the United Russia congress.
I wonder who he meant by successor?..
Skeleton Trader
The United Russia charter is written in such a way that only the congress can remove Bespalov from the leadership of the party. According to Izvestia, active bargaining is currently underway. Bespalov is not going to just give up his position. Having given up one seat (say, the chairman of the General Council), he intends to “sit down” on the executive committee. They say he chose this structure allegedly because it is the executive committee that controls financial flows parties.
In regional organizations there is a struggle for each vote of a potential candidate at the congress. Bespalov’s people are conducting active “educational” work and explaining who Putin “really” supports. But the “Gryzlovites” are not giving up positions either.
There is only one circumstance that characterizes, as it was customary to say in Soviet years, the moral character of the opposing sides. At the end of January, the leaders of the Duma factions (Vladimir Pekhtin, Vyacheslav Volodin, Oleg Morozov) came to the president and talked about the situation in United Russia. Bespalov was not with them. Alexander Dmitrievich made it clear through his people: he met with the president separately, a few days later. There is no confirmation of this. Even if it appears, it will become clear: Bespalov has not betrayed himself. He is ready to continue selling “skeletons from the closet.”