Bureaucrats Behind Bars, or “Dictatorship of the law” – Putin-style Grigory Pasko, journalist On one of my business trips to Baikal last year, I made the acquaintance of the mayor of Listvyanka, Tatiana Kazakova. About Kazakova I had been told by an activist –an ecologist who had been an opponent of Kazakova’s plans to build in Listvyanka dozens of hotels, a business center and other facilities. In the opinion of the ecologist, this would cause very much harm to Lake Baikal, which is found but a short step from Listvyanka, and to the Angara River which flows out of it. And indeed, tiny Listvyanka just isn’t suitable for such a quantity of large buildings. Here are needed facilities of another type, but first you’d need to develop the infrastructure and build waste treatment facilities. The first time I saw Ms. Kazakova was in the conference hall belonging to her hotel «Europa» (see photo below). Kazakova was meeting with local inhabitants and was talking about how in the budget of the municipal formation of Listvyanka there is no means for rubbish removal. What was being spoken of was a couple hundred rubles. In so doing, Ms. Kazakova’s hands were carelessly playing around with a mobile telephone of the firm Verty with a value, as people who know these things prompted me, of around 10 thousand euros. The hotel «Europa» on the shores of Baikal (photo by Grigory Pasko)