"The Food Service Complex" was cheated out of money.

      Having initiated proceedings in February of this year, in September the court ruled that Gabdeeva’s dismissal “due to staff reductions” was unlawful and reinstated her to her position as of the 3rd. It also ordered payment for forced absences and compensation for non‑pecuniary damage in the amount of half a million rubles. So, if you count the payments for the “staff reduction,” Elena Alekseevna’s dismissal cost the municipal enterprise almost a million rubles.

      For a MUE with arguably the lowest wages in Kirov’s food industry, maintained on the public budget, that is an almost astronomical sum. Which the “Kombinat” will likely try to “regressively recover” from Vasily Shupletsov, who dismissed Gabdeeva and ran the enterprise until Denis Sitnikov’s arrival (March 2025).

      As a source at the “Kombinat” explained, there was no doubt that Elena Alekseevna, dismissed, in the employees’ opinion, “unlawfully,” would be reinstated. Since it was obvious that, to achieve their goal — likely deliberately getting rid of an “inconvenient deputy” who had served as acting director of the municipal institution for more than six months (from December 2023 to July 2024) — the new management might even resort to an “obvious violation of the Labor Code.”

      “On November 5 Gabdeeva was handed a notice that she was being dismissed due to staff reduction, even though it was Elena Alekseevna who carried the bulk of the work. You wouldn’t call her an obedient yes‑woman: she wouldn’t let through rotting vegetables and fruit that might be bought at triple the price to feed children; she would likely notice water‑ or hormone‑injected meat and chicken straight away, so disputes and quarrels over the quality and cost of products supplied to schools and kindergartens shook the ‘Kombinat’ quite often. Who needs such a manager if before everything was covered up? Well, they’ll feed the pupils somehow, parents will squabble a little, deputies will comment a bit, and then, following the usual scenario — we feed the children off the ‘Piggy’s Delight’ menu,” the interlocutor shared.

      Of course, the lawyers understood that the dismissal of Elena Gabdeeva — a duplicate position having been added to the staff even before her firing — would end badly and that the court would uphold her claim. So now — whether they want to or not, whether they can or not — they will have to find the amount ordered to be recovered from the enterprise. And you can’t postpone the payments to “sometime later.”

      Elena Gabdeeva refused to comment on the court’s decision, saying only that it seems the new management is not happy about her return to the “Kombinat.” And she may have to look for a new job.