Valentin Tsvetkov is a famous domestic statesman and politician. For six years he was the governor of the Magadan region. In 2002, he became a victim of contract murder, which could only be discovered a few years later.
Biography Politician
Valentin Tsvetkov was born in August 1948. Nationality Russian. After school, he entered the Engineering Institute in Zaporozhye, which he successfully graduated in 1974.
Valentin Ivanovich Tsvetkov began his career in Magadan, which for many years turned into his homeland. He entered the local mechanical repair plant. First there was a foreman, then he was promoted to senior foreman, shop manager and, finally, department head.
In 1980, Valentin Tsvetkov was appointed deputy director of the woodworking plant in Magadan. Three years later, he transferred to the company under the name "Magadannerud" to the position of deputy director, and soon headed the plant. In 1986, he was already the general director of the joint-stock company of the same name.
In 1990, Valentin Tsvetkov had problems with the law. A criminal case was opened in the KGB Central Office on the facts of industrial smuggling against the Spark company, of which he was also the director at that time. Only in April 1991 the case was closed, finding the absence of corpus delicti.
Political career
The general director of Magadannerud Tsvetkov remained until 1994. Shortly before the end of this period, he decided to start building a political career.
In 1993, he won the election of deputies to the Federation Council. Two years later, took part in the elections to the State Duma. He was elected to the lower house of the federal parliament in a single-mandate constituency from the Magadan region. There he led the Subcommittee on Gemstones and Precious Metals.
Governor Election
In 1996, the first elections of the governor in the history of the Magadan region took place. In total, four candidates were registered, among whom was Tsvetkov.
His rivals were the current head of the regional administration Viktor Mikhailov, chairman of the Union of Entrepreneurs and Manufacturers of the North-East Vyacheslav Kobets, and the head of the glass factory in Magadan Vasily Miroshnichenko.
In the midst of the election campaign, just a few days before the vote, Kobets withdrew his candidacy in favor of Tsvetkov. Many experts and political scientists believe that this was one of the decisive moments of these elections.
As a result, the hero of our article won the first round, 33, 651 voters voted for him. Already in January 1997, Governor Valentin Tsvetkov, like all heads of regions at that time, received the authority of a member of the Federation Council.
For a second term
Tsvetkov’s first term was quite successful, as a result he decided to re-nominate his candidacy in 2000. This time he had an order of magnitude more rivals. Seven more candidates claimed for the chair of the head of the region.
The turnout in the elections amounted to a little more than 42 percent, the governor at that time was elected by a simple majority of votes.
According to the results of counting ballots, the number of voters who voted against all candidates turned out to be prohibitively high. There were almost 9% of them. In the final ranking, this is the third indicator. The head of the village of Sinegorye, Yuri Akopov, the chairman of the Rescue Service public organization Konstantin Potoroka, the general director of the closed joint-stock company Hermesneft Nikolai Dmitriev and the human rights activist Rafael Usmanov could not get even one percent of the vote.
The general director of Firs limited liability company Gennady Dorofeev earned a little more than two percent of the vote, 8.7% of residents of the Magadan region voted for the executive director of the Gold Industry Corporation Vladimir Markov.
The main rival of Tsvetkov was the State Duma deputy Vladimir Butkeev, but he was able to gain only 14.13%. The hero of our article enlisted the support of almost 63% of the region’s inhabitants. For the second time in a row, he became Governor of the Magadan Region, Valentin Tsvetkov.
Murder on Novy Arbat
However, in the new position, he managed to work out only about two years. On October 18, 2002, Governor of the Magadan Region Valentin Ivanovich Tsvetkov was killed in Moscow on Novy Arbat. Killer attacked him right near the office of the regional representative office in the capital.
The assassin, who was waiting for him near the entrance to the building, shot Tsvetkov in the head. From the wound he died on the spot, without regaining consciousness. The shot was fired at the back of the head, almost point blank. At the time of the death, the governor of Magadan, Valentin Tsvetkov, was 54 years old. The head of the Magadan region was buried in the Russian capital at the Vagankovsky cemetery.
It is worth noting that in his work as head of the region he had many opponents. Local media noted that he pursued an independent economic policy. For his determination and authority, he received the nickname "Bulldozer" from colleagues and supporters.
Almost immediately, the main version of his murder was the conflict over the distribution of fishing quotas in the Magadan region to marine biological resources. As well as attempts by organized criminal groups, among which there were so-called ethnic groups, to weaken state control in gold mining, thanks to which the region flourished.
Assessment of the work of Tsvetkov
As governor, Valentin Ivanovich Tsvetkov noted that he always advocated the independence of his region, which was extremely rich in valuable resources. Lobbying these interests, he often visited Moscow, had access to the highest offices. People from his close circle often regarded Tsvetkov as a tough person who often clashed with local business.
The results of Tsvetkov’s work were impressive. Under him, gold mining in Kolyma increased by about a third, and the new Shkolnoye, Kubaka, and Juliet mines were introduced. In 1998, the refinery was put into operation.
In 2002 and 2003, it was planned to complete the construction of several mining complexes at once discovered at the Vetrenskoye, Dukat, Tidit, Arylakh, and Goltsovoye deposits. We often talked about the so-called Tsvetkov clan, which penetrated all kinds of industries, actively attracting investments from the United States.
The main conflicts of Tsvetkov were connected with the Berelekhsky and Susumansky GOKs, which at that time played a key role in gold mining. Together with about 20 influential artels, they opposed with all their might the policies pursued by the regional administration to restructure the entire industry.
Contradictions with local business
Key contradictions with local business were related to attempts by the authorities to introduce a licensing policy. At that time, 260 enterprises with interests in the gold mining industry had more than a thousand licenses. The emergence of additional capacities led to a revision of property rights to most of the gold mining sites, and also caused the so-called licensed pressure, which the authorities began to carry out.
In addition, at that time, Tsvetkov had conflicts with the fishing industry. It was the distribution of fishing quotas for biological resources that became the main version of the murder.
Suspects
The citizens of the Russian Federation Martin Babakekhyan and Alexander Zakharov were suspected of the murder of the governor of Magadan. They managed to be arrested only a few years later - in July 2006, when they were in the Spanish resort town of Marbella.
A year later, the Spanish courts decided to extradite Zakharov to Russia. Babakekhian was extradited only at the beginning of 2008.
