Will the memorial to Kirov's anniversary be sold for scrap?

      Will the memory of Kirov’s anniversary be sold for scrap?

      

      Yesterday, 19:00 | Elena Ovchinnikova 41642

      

      A thousand commemorative medals produced at Governor Sokolov’s initiative for the city’s 650th birthday found only 85 people whom regional leadership deemed worthy of receiving the award. One can only assume that the remaining 915 of these now mostly-memorial insignia are stored somewhere in the cupboards of the “Tourism Development Center.”

      

      Photo: Newsler.ru

      

      But while the excess of medals can be blamed on negligence, forgetfulness or other reasons within the ruling echelon, the fate of 340 silver coins — with a gold-plated obverse bearing Sergey Mironovich, the Kirov coat of arms and the number 650 — with a total budget cost of three million rubles, is a matter law enforcement would do well to look into.

      As Newsler.ru’s own investigation over several weeks managed to establish, and even then only tentatively, after they were produced the “commemorative-money awards” (IP Gordin, Volgo-Vyatka Mint) were likely stored in the private garage of Ilya Pauzin (on October 27, 2025 he was sentenced for “assistance in fraud” and fined 220,000 rubles) — the former deputy to the ex-director of the “Tourism Development Center,” Ruslan Mamedov.

      By the way, neither the finance department nor the awards office have “heard of or seen” any award documents or write-off acts for the gift coins, each with a nominal value of 8,800 rubles. They didn’t even show simple human curiosity: what if “Father Frost” came and hauled off a sack of crimson-silver coins and secretly hid them away. Especially given that the price of silver has nearly doubled over the past year.

      No worthy recipients found?

      Recall that in May 2024 Alexander Sokolov signed a decree “on the procedure for nominating persons for the jubilee medal in commemoration of the 650th anniversary of the city of Kirov.” It specifically emphasized that priority for receiving the awards — for which one thousand pieces costing 2.5 million state rubles were produced — would be “prominent leaders” and “workers.”

      However, when the anniversary festivities — after the governor cancelled the “old June date” in favor of the “September redo” — ended, it turned out that in four months only 85 deserving “workers” were found in Kirov.

      Of course, one might assume that, expecting in June and September an influx of “honored guests” — representatives from the Kremlin and ministries, gubernatorial delegations, as well as the Patriarch and his large retinue — half or slightly more of the jubilee awards were kept in a “guest stash,” where, most likely, they remain unclaimed and unnecessary due to the “total snub of Kirov’s celebrations by the country’s top officials.”

      Still, to explain why they couldn’t scrape together 500 people among Kirov’s doctors, teachers, cultural figures, factory workers — civilian and military-industrial — and agricultural producers is beyond ordinary reason. After all, there are almost 120 thousand labor veterans in the region alone.

      

      Commemorative medal for the 650th anniversary of the city of Kirov. Photo: Provided by readers

      But the fact remains: 915 medals and just as many unused certificates are gathering dust as dead weight with a residual value of 2.3 million rubles. In November, Alexander Sokolov appealed to the Legislative Assembly to pass a law extending the period for awarding the jubilee medals, which deputies readily approved, extending the jubilee award year 2024 to... “indefinite bestowal.”

      In doing so they violated not only popular faith in the adage that “a costly egg for Christ’s Day” — now reinterpreted as “a medal for an anniversary” — but they effectively organized a Groundhog Day. Presumably thinking that presenting an “expired award” would cheer or inspire someone.

      “I’d love to see the deputies’ faces when in August or September 2026 they are all, and especially those who voted for the law, ceremonially presented with a medal sent from 2024. Shining faces, tears in their eyes, delight and pride in their souls? Sure... Bewilderment, anger, pure shame — that’s what someone awarded on a leftover basis would feel. Because in reality this is the disposal of leftovers, the sale of the unnecessary, getting rid of old junk,” one deputy of the Kirov Regional Legislative Assembly remarked, almost cynically.

      By the way, according to a source from the “gray house,” the medals will probably be kept until the number 650 can be “corrected.” For example, by changing the middle digit 5 to a 6, or redrawing the 0 into a 5. Then nearly a thousand jubilee awards would come in handy for the next milestone anniversaries.

      There were coins, but they left no trace

      If the production of the jubilee medals is an open topic — a thousand pieces costing two and a half million rubles — the story about the “jubilee coins” is apparently of some secrecy level and will likely be available only to enrich the knowledge of the next regional administration.

      All that is known is that the body authorized to procure the commemorative silver coins, according to the order signed by Governor Sokolov on June 26, 2024, is the regional Ministry of Sports and Tourism. It was also tasked with ensuring the transfer of the commemorative coins to the Governor’s and Kirov Region Government administrations for their subsequent presentation. It is also known that the gift coins have a gold imprint on the obverse and a diameter equal to the current five-ruble coin. The sum that went toward purchasing the coins may amount to 3 million rubles. However, the order signed by Sokolov does not make clear whether the coins are those issued by the Central Bank or ones produced by the Volgo-Vyatka Mint.

      

      Commemorative coin for the 650th anniversary of the city of Kirov. Photo: Provided by readers

      As regional deputy Albert Bikaluk explained, he managed “through his channels” to determine that the purchased coins were likely transferred for storage to the “Tourism Development Center,” headed by Alexey Cheptsov, who replaced Ruslan Mamedov in that post. The rest of the story — how many coins were gifted, how many remain and where they are stored today — remains “highly classified”:

      “I think I understood why the coins weren’t discussed at the Legislative Assembly sessions: any sane deputy could have asked: why is this needed, and for whom? You can’t simply give an official a silver coin — the value of the gift exceeds the allowable ‘gift limit’ for an official — three thousand rubles. And the recipient would have to enter it in their declaration, report it... Who needs that hassle?”

      Albert Alexandrovich believes that with secrecy, it would be quite pleasant to slip someone a shiny piece of silver into their sweaty palm, but, alas, there was an information leak:

      “I asked at the plenary: who were they given to, where are the leftovers? Silence in response... How did this not get reported to the authorities? When I was speaking, a prosecutor sat opposite me. But he, apparently, is also not interested in the fate of three million rubles, even though in any criminal article of a fraudster nature that’s called an ‘especially large amount.’”

      We barely managed to obtain a photograph of the silver jubilee coin, which proves they existed. But it does not explain where they went. And, as one official advised, we could get answers by asking the then-curator of the sports sector and, presumably, the “medal-money events,” Dmitry Kurdyumov. If, of course, Dmitry Alexandrovich would agree to answer.

      One deputy said he had seen a “commemorative coin” for sale on some website: “You can’t miss it — it has Vyatka symbolism,” and, most likely not a single specimen, “being sold for 12 to 14 thousand rubles.”

      However, it is more likely the coin in question is not the one “stamped” with Sergey Mironovich Kirov, but a commemorative coin issued by the Central Bank for the city’s 650th anniversary. Judging by the product description, it is made of 925 silver. The coin is sold in a capsule and comes with a certificate. Nominal — 3 rubles; quality — proof; total mass — 33.94 g; content of pure metal not less than 31.10 g. The mintage of such coins issued by the Bank of Russia is 3,000 pieces.