Pshenisnova: newly elected Sochi Mayor Pakhomov has "A pupil syndrome"

As noted by Tatiana Pshenisnova, representative of the press service of the administration of the city of Anapa, Anatoly Pakhomov, former Anapa Mayor, elected on April 26 to the post of the Mayor of Sochi, has "A pupil syndrome"; while Galina Snimschikova, head of the information department of the administration of Sochi, asserts that Pakhomov, being acting Mayor, made "a lot of good things for Sochi."

"Pakhomov will be remembered in Anapa by making the best today's Russian resort out of a provincial town. The Moscow Institute of Independent Studies held an analysis, the results of which were reported by central TV Channels, under the motto: 'What's the best place in Russia to live in?', and Anapa was ranked first by the comfort for local residents," Tatiana Pshenisnova said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to her story, the above study took into account the wages, the number of kindergartens and children's playgrounds per capita, public transport support and quality of water and gas supplying facilities.

In her opinion, Pakhomov made a revolution in balneology: "A resort lives during a season - it's wrong. It has no production facilities, and the budget is formed by tourists. It's now very fine to get treatment in winter either. Under Mr Pakhomov, 7 mineral water pump-rooms were built. Anapa has 22 kilometres of walking zones. Pakhomov made a product out of natural resources the city, which attracts tourists in winter and spring."

The incumbents of Sochi administration are already welcoming Pakhomov's achievements in this city.

"The first thing he did - he stopped the chaotic build-up of the city. He has completely vetoed allocation of land plots for construction. Pakhomov fired out the Chief Architect, who admitted all these skyscrapers that nobody needs," asserts Galina Snimschikova, head of the information department of Sochi administration.

According to her story, Pakhomov has started to enforce the federal land law as applied to beach territories. "They are now municipal property. Earlier, access to city beaches was closed. Tourists had no place to bathe. Pakhomov has started to smash down the fences," she said.

Besides, as she added, Pakhomov declared a war on corruption - he has toughly limited the time for document turnover on land and cadastral issues. "Earlier, bureaucrats deliberately protracted in order to extort money from people," said Ms Snimschikova and continued: "On the first day of his work, Pakhomov made a tour around the city and forced a thousand of trucks to remove the garbage. The city became actually cleaner."

However, a Sochi resident Yuri Dzaganiya, Pakhomov's former competitor in election race nominated by the CPRF, sticks to the opposite opinion; he believes that Pakhomov is catastrophe for Sochi. "I have nothing to recollect about Pakhomov; there's nothing that he approved himself by," he said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Anapa is quite a different scale - it's a children's resort, while Sochi is a balneology centre with very serious functions. In a certain sense, it's an elite resort," said Dzaganiya.

According to his version, Pakhomov started his work in Sochi with a very rude manner of holding everyday briefings.

Therefore, in Mr Dzaganiya's opinion, Pakhomov will not be independent in Sochi: "Tkachov (Governor of the Krasnodar Territory, - editor's comment) will pull the strings, as Pakhomov is his full protege."

He also said about the methods Pakhomov used in his work in Anapa. "According to our data, under Pakhomov, they improved the Anapa seashore as follows: they brought bulldozers and KAMAZ trucks and smashed down all the booths and tents of commercial traders," said Dzaganiya and added that painters who earned money by drawing tourists' portraits were also violently forced out of the beaches.