Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

The struggle for power in the Urals 225campaign against Osintsev the following year. Clearly in 2002 Bakov was not yetfully allied to the mayor’s team.29 Conversation with city officials, June 2007. The strategy had been presentedwidely, especially through the urban strategy network established by BorisZhikharevich at the Leontiev Centre in St Petersburg, and had been brought toMedvedev’s attention in 2003-4. The participatory structure of the strategy coordinationcouncil and the partnership principle embodied by the programmecouncil, as well as the arrangements for cooperation between stakeholders, expertsand line managers, were also highly innovative in a Russian context.30 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Svedlovsk Region, ‘Analytical conclusions on thedraft strategic plan of Ekaterinburg up to 2015’, prepared by the Deputy Chair ofthe Oblast Government and delivered to the City Duma of Ekaterinburg on 23April, 2003.31 Conversation with Ekaterinburg city officials, and with the Inter-regionalDeputies’s Faction (in April, 2003).32 A. Campbell and E. Denezhkina, ‘Comments on the “Analytical conclusions onthe draft strategic plan of Ekaterinburg up to 2015” prepared by the DeputyChair of the Oblast Government and delivered to the City Duma of Ekaterinburgon 23 April, 2003’, 15 pages. Sent to Regional Administration 28 April 2003.Published on (city) API news web-site (in Russian), 26 May 2003 under theheading: ‘Britansky experty rekomenduyut Ekaterinburgskoi gordumye prinyatstrategichesky plan goroda, nesmotrya na vozrazheniya Yuriya Osintseva.’ http://www.apiural.ru/politic/?news_id = 927133 e.g. ‘Director proiekta RACE obvinyaet nekotopykh deputatov Ekaterinburgskikhdeputatov vo lzhi’, http://www.apiural.ru/politic/?news_id = 8605, 7 May 2003.34 ‘Ekaterinburg. Deputaty gordumy pozhaluyutsya na ‘khamskiye deistviyaBritanskikh uchenykh’. http:www.regions.ru/news/1101157/, 12 May 2003.35 ‘Strategicheskaya Feeriya: rossisskaya deistvitel'nost' v zerkale skandala’, Revizor,No. 5, May–June 2003.36 ‘Britantsi ugodili v omutye Uralskoi PR’ – Uralpolit.ru, 15 May 2003, nowaccessible via http://www.allrussia.ru/nowadays/default.asp?NS_ID = percent7BF62824DC-F76E-4C8E-B1E1-FBB81BB28267 per cent7D&HN_ID = 237 Conversation with pro-Oblast journalists May 2003.38 ‘Vtoroi front protiv Gabinskovo’, Politsoviet.ru/analytic.asp.article = 5156, 19September 2003.39 http://www.egd.ru/index.php?menu_id = 16041&show_id = 8858. The strategicplan itself was seen by some as the precursor for the Russian Federation’s nationalprojects, see http://www.pnp-ekb.ru/.40 In some cases associations and voluntary groups concerned with those who hadserved in the war in Afghanistan became organised crime groups.41 V. Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of RussianCapitalism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.42 The main spheres of influence of this group were in copper-related holdings e.g.‘Evropa’, petrochemicals ‘Uralnefteproduct’, mobile services (‘Uralvestcom’), carsales, breweries.43 Expert, 15 April 2002.44 The name OPS (Organized Crime Society) became known in 1993 following thearrest of Konstantin Tsiganov, its then leader. The arrest caused a reaction in thebusiness community. The head of the broker firm ‘Eurasia’, Andrei Panpurin,referred to OPS Uralmash as being not a criminal group but a ‘financial group’with a speciality in socially oriented activities, and referred to their ‘civilized anddemocratic’ style of operation, and businesses were not squeezed by them. Thus,Konstantin Tsiganov was a ‘stabilizing factor’ for the enterprises that came intocontact with him. Tsiganov upheld a balance of power within the city that could