In June 2016, a group of 150 people including some children with disabilities and their attendants arrived in a hotel in Saki District, Crimea from Saint Petersburg for a summer holiday under a voucher provided on budget funds. Investigators have found out that the living conditions in the hotel were not adequate: there were no ramps or other special equipment and there was no medical station on the premises; in addition, the conditions in the hotel did not comply with sanitary or fire codes. The Crimea Directorate of the Investigative Committee has made a decision to open a criminal case over a crime under Part 1 of Article 238 of the RF Penal Code (provision of services that do not meet safety standards) in order to study all the details of the incident and to assess the actions of the hotel staff and qualification of the hotel administration.
The investigators also have a lot of questions about apparently very disinterested attitude to organization of summer holidays for children on budget funds. The Saint Petersburg Directorate of the Investigative Committee is checking for possible breaches committed by the staff of the education committee of the Saint Petersburg Administration and the staff of Zemlya-tur, a public corporation, when they concluded a contract for providing vouchers for children with disabilities to have a holiday in a sanatorium in Crimea bought by budget funds.
It is known by now that there were 5 companies bidding for the contract from February to April 2016. Zemlya-tur submitted to the Saint Petersburg education committee forged conclusions of the federal consumer protection authority, Rospotrebnadzor, and the Crime Directorate of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations which had not issued those conclusions. The company won the bid on 8 April 2016. Under the contract 900 vouchers were bought for 4 summer sessions including 450 for the children and the same number for their attendants. The check underway was initiated after parent of one of the children had lodged a statement with the police.
Protection of children’s rights has always been and will always be one of the priorities for the Investigative Committee. At the moment the investigators in both Crime and Saint Petersburg are taking all measures to find out all the details of the incident. In Crimea they have confiscated regulatory documents and assigned a number of forensic inquiries. In Saint Petersburg, the investigators are going to assess the actions of the representatives of the company and the officials that had made it possible for the governmental contract with violations to be signed.
PDF version 
DOC version
