News

A court has recognized the evidence collected by the Volgograd Region Office of the Investigative Committee sufficient to convict director of the Krasnooktyabrsky District Housing Utilities Olga Lemyakina, 33. She was found guilty of a crime under Part 2 of article 293 of the RF Penal Code (negligence entailing death of a person). CEO of contractor company ZAO ASTI Alfa Alexander Poshnagov, 43 was found guilty of a crime under Part 2, item “c” of article 238 (provision of unsafe services that entailed death of a person).

The court and investigators have established that in the summer 2015, the Krasnooktyabrsky District Housing Utilities took commitments to build The Globe Fountain located in the Victory's 70th Anniversary Park. Lemyakina hired ASTI Alfa company as a contractor so that the fountain was built by the Volgograd City Day which is celebrated each year on the first Sunday of September. As there was on a short time to do the job, the procedure of signing a municipal contract was basically ignored: the fountain was built by a commercial firm allegedly free of charge, but the company was promised to win the next bidding. A day before the City Day, on 12 September 2015, the fountain was successfully put into operation and a week later a boy drowned in it. About 3 PM, 20 September 2015, while swimming in the fountain, a 12-year-old boy was sucked down to the bottom of the fountain’s operational opening. Even adults who rushed to save the boy could not fight over the power of the pump. A forensic construction inquiry showed that the fountain had been built with considerable violations and with no design documentation.

Alexander Poshnagov admitted part of his guilt and took measures to compensate for the moral damage by paying 600,000 rubles of damages of 1.5 million ruled by court. The court has sentenced him to 2 years in a minimum-security correctional facility. Olga Lemyakina pleaded not guilty and the court has sentenced her to 1 year in a penal settlement.