Political analyst on Simakov and the post of city mayor: "It would be surprising if he didn't have such ambitions."

      Recently the Rating Center and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation conducted a study devoted to evaluating the performance of mayors for October–November of this year. In it the head of Kirov’s administration, Vyacheslav Simakov, ranked 72nd.

      The news was commented on by political scientist, historian, and acting head of the Department of World History and Political Sciences at VyatGU, Dmitry Ilyin:

      "De facto the region entered a period of preparation for the 2026 federal (State Duma) and regional (Legislative Assembly) elections at the beginning of autumn. The focus of the 'federals', regional leadership, journalists and the local public in the coming months will be on these upcoming events. It would seem that in such a situation the head of the city administration, Vyacheslav Simakov, as a figure originally apolitical and controlled by the Gray House, could feel relatively calm — almost no one (more or less) is concerned with him, provided scandals are avoided. But that last point did not fully work out — in mid-November there was a high-profile incident involving the closure of a school building in the settlement of Lyangasovo due to its hazardous condition. After the autumn holidays ended, pupils were moved to remote learning and later temporarily redistributed to neighboring schools. The causes of such an emergency — after all, it is November and someone prepared the school building for the school year and accepted it — remain to be determined; nevertheless Simakov has already received some public criticism from Governor Sokolov.

      So far this criticism does not look like a 'black mark' for the city manager (there have been worse cases; indeed, some of the earlier missteps in the city economy and last year’s loud 650th-anniversary celebrations are also the responsibility of the regional authorities), but it came at the most inopportune time for him.

      In November the governor submitted to the Legislative Assembly a draft of a new law 'On Local Self-Government in the Kirov Region', which envisages, for the regional capital, the separation of the positions of head of administration, head of the city and chairman of the city Duma (at present the latter two are combined). According to the draft, a dedicated (full-time) head of the city will coordinate the activities of the administration, other self-government bodies and subordinate entities with public authorities, citizens and organizations. How the new configuration of city power will look in practice — we will see later (especially since the law has not yet been adopted); for now the prospective post of head of the city looks very attractive in terms of freedom from 'day-to-day grind' and greater political weight. A kind of 'mini-governor' at the city level. Neither Simakov nor other well-known local figures have publicly shown ambitions to take the new seat, but it would be surprising if Vyacheslav Nikolaevich did not have such ambitions. And the scandal over the school in Lyangasovo does not add political points to the head of the administration."