Elections for Star City’s first-ever mayor are mired in scandal after a vast majority of voters, among them famous cosmonauts, backed a candidate who was arrested for smuggling four days before polling day.
The scandal in the tiny, closed town outside Moscow is linked to the far larger smuggling dispute involving flamboyant businessman Telman Ismailov and his Cherkizovsky Market.
The election is also an embarrassing failure for United Russia, because two candidates who ran as independents but have close ties to the party trailed miserably, drawing less than 15 percent between them.
Star City houses the training center for the country’s space program and is also home to many retired cosmonauts. Visitors need a special pass to access even residential areas.
The winning candidate, Nikolai Rybkin, a former deputy director of the cosmonaut training center, was arrested four days before the June 28 elections. Nevertheless, he won 82.6 percent of the vote, according to a tally on the Central Elections Commission’s web site.
Rybkin, a retired FSB colonel, ran as an independent candidate. Runner-up Nikolai Yumanov, an adviser to the United Russia mayor of Shchyolkovo, gained 11.4 percent of the votes. Oleg Sokovikov, who finished third with 2.6 percent, is an assistant of United Russia State Duma Deputy Vladimir Pekarev.
The arrest even boosted Rybkin’s voting tally, Vladimir Reznikov, a member of his campaign team, said by telephone from Star City. “The preliminary rating was a little bit lower,” he said.
Rybkin’s lawyer, Roman Smadich, said Monday that the elections were legal.
“Everything was legal. Elections can only be pronounced invalid by a court decision. So far, there is no legal basis to annul the elections,” Smadich said.
The head of the Moscow region elections committee, Valentina Smirnova, said in a faxed statement that the elections were “valid” and that “Rybkin was elected the head of the given municipal entity.”
Rybkin is being investigated on smuggling charges involving a company called Rosmoravia that allegedly smuggled Chinese goods into Russia via its northwestern borders. Investigators said he was among Rosmoravia’s founders.
He is charged under Article 188 of the Criminal Code, smuggling as part of an organized group, which carries a maximum sentence of 12 years in jail.
The Investigative Committee said in a statement on its web site that two other founders, identified by their surnames Pototsky and Tarakanov, were arrested earlier, without giving a date.
The case is part of the high-profile criminal investigation into Ismailov and his AST Group. The statement on the Investigative Committee’s web site says the goods were sold at markets “including the markets of AST companies.”
Rosmoravia is a brokerage and logistics company, Kommersant wrote in September 2008, saying police had investigated the firm after raiding containers of smuggled goods at Moscow’s giant Cherkizovsky Market.
Rybkin, 62, was listed as a “pensioner” in his campaign materials.
His web site, Starcity.su, writes that he created a Star City Development Foundation last year. The foundation has no connection with Rosmoravia, said Reznikov, the campaign worker.
Rybkin graduated from the KGB Higher School in 1973 and worked as an anti-espionage expert at Star City, his site says. He also took part in special operations abroad. In the 1990s, he was knifed while detaining a serial killer, Vadim Yershov, in Krasnoyarsk, and was awarded a medal for heroism. Yershov was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing 19 people.
In 2000, he started a foundation “to fight corruption and terrorism” called Gvardia, which owns companies involved in IT, metallurgy, aviation and logistics, the web site says. The foundation runs military training courses for young people.
His web site lists charitable activities such as building a rotunda and a Park of Cosmos Traditions, as well as replacing the town’s 12 swans. The original swans were eaten in the perestroika years by vandals who dumped the bones outside the town hall, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.
In a statement on his web site dated July 2, Rybkin writes that it’s “too early to comment” but calls the accusations “all mistaken, unfair, hurtful and humiliating.”
“My analysis convinces me that it’s dangerous doing business in Russia and attempts to fight corruption are even more dangerous. I can’t remain silent and am being punished for this.”
Rybkin was questioned by an investigator for the first time on Monday, 27 days after he was detained, his lawyer Smadich said.
Asked whether he felt the investigators were carrying out a serious investigation, Smadich said no. “They just went and arrested him and that’s all, just so he could be in prison.”
Rybkin has influential supporters. Six cosmonauts — Valery Bykovsky, Alexei Leonov, Vladimir Titov, Alexander Volkov, Anatoly Solovyov and Valery Korzun — took out a paid ad in Kommersant on June 14 asking President Dmitry Medvedev “to ensure legality and an objective investigation” of Rybkin’s case.
They described Rybkin as “a respected, decent person” and suggested that his arrest was a deliberate attempt to prevent his election.
“We get the impression that behind the detention of the lawfully elected mayor stand forces that are trying in every way to prevent N.N. Rybkin from entering office,” they wrote in the petition.
Reznikov said the cosmonauts all know Rybkin personally, since he worked at the training center for around 25 years and worked his way up to deputy director.
“Naturally they all knew him and bumped into him,” he said. “It’s not that someone asked them to do it. It’s their honest and open position.”
Residents of Star City also went out on the streets to protest and were filmed by an NTV television crew, Reznikov said. “People are mainly asking about his fate, they want to know what is happening. Everyone believes that this will end in a positive way.”
Smadich said he visited Rybkin on Monday. “His health has strongly deteriorated,” he said. “He’s not young and he has various chronic ailments.”
Under a law signed by Medvedev in May, mayors can be dismissed by local deputies if they fail to carry out their duties for three months. Asked whether deputies might use the law, Smadich said, “I don’t know and so I shouldn’t comment.”
A deputy mayor is carrying out Rybkin’s duties, Reznikov said.
Star City was founded in 1960 as a training center for future cosmonauts. It has never had mayoral elections before because it was previously controlled by the Defense Ministry and classed as a military garrison. Since June 1, it has been reclassified as a “closed administrative territorial entity.”
According to election results published on the Central Election Commission’s web site, around 5,800 residents voted. The turnout was around 53 percent, Reznikov said.
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