Valeria Chaika has been appointed acting rector of the Timiryazev Academy. Valeria Chaika was appointed acting rector of the Timiryazev Academy Appeal

City farming, biohacking, eco-products and agrotourism - such “professions of the future” attract applicants to the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, where students are being enrolled these days. Meanwhile, after the arrival of a new rector - a friend of the Minister of Agriculture - the famous university had only one name left. Over the past few years, the academy’s management has gotten rid of almost all of the previous teaching staff, many laboratories are closed as unnecessary, water is gushing from the ceilings in the dormitories, students and employees who disagree with the policies of the university’s management are intimidated, and there is no one else to teach real agricultural disciplines. The Insider spoke with former and current employees of Timiryazevka to understand what is happening there.

How a minister's friend became a rector

In December 2016, the former vice-governor of the Krasnodar Territory, United Russia member Galina Zolina was appointed to the position of acting. Rector of the Timiryazev Academy, the largest agricultural university in Russia. Zolina never worked in agriculture - she graduated from the correspondence department of the Maikop Pedagogical Institute and taught Russian language and literature.

Zolina became the rector of Timiryazevka when she was the Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev, with whom she has a long-standing close relationship. In 1999, she took the post of deputy general director for social issues of the Vyselkovsky Agrocomplex, co-owned by Tkachev's father and brother. After Tkachev’s appointment as head of the region, Zolina became his media adviser, and even later, his deputy for social development.

Zolina is a philologist by training. In 2007, she defended her PhD thesis at the Faculty of Journalism of KubSU and received the academic degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences. Her scientific work was devoted to the most important philological problem - the formation of a positive image of the Krasnodar region in the media. According to the Dissernet Project, her dissertation consists of borrowings.

In 2015, after Tkachev’s appointment as Minister of Agriculture, Zolina was dismissed from the post of deputy governor and a year and a half later she headed Timiryazevka. Immediately become a rector without an acting prefix. she could not because she did not meet the necessary qualification requirements - for this she must have at least five years of specialized experience. But three years later, in January 2018, she was confirmed in the position. During Zolina’s work in Timiryazevka, many employees who disagreed with her management decisions were fired. Teachers and students of the academy repeatedly went to rallies to protest against the leadership methods of the new rector.

["Interlocutor", 11.21.2017, "How Tkachev's friend plowed the agricultural academy": Galina Zolina is a long-time and close friend and ally of the Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev. They are the same age, born in the same village of Vyselki, Krasnodar Territory. [...]
Tkachev’s deputy, they recall in Krasnodar, kept the edge with a tight rein. Locals compare her either with Furtseva - also from the plow, but gravitating towards culture, or with Khrushchev - with all his quirks. On Krasnodar soil, Zolina lined up the local media, established connections with the diocese, and for this even received the Order of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga. After Tkachev moved to Moscow, the new governor fired his predecessor’s ally, and she followed her fellow countryman to the capital. After working for some time at the Ministry of Agriculture, Galina Zolina was appointed rector of the Timiryazev Academy. The team received the Varangian coolly. [...]
Timiryazevka thundered in the spring of 2016, when a government commission decided to seize 100 hectares of land from the academy for development. University staff united and began to fight to prevent their alma mater from being robbed. Putin personally had to intervene in the matter. “Leave Timiryazevka alone!” - was his verdict. After this, the issue with the lands was abandoned, but, as the university suggests, it was not closed.
- This is too tasty a morsel. We know that after the scandal, Minister Tkachev had a conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov behind closed doors. Whether they abandoned the original idea or decided to act differently is unknown, but it was at this time that Zolina’s candidacy arose, says a source at the academy.
First of all, the heads of the most active fighters against the transfer of land fell. [...]
Dozens of people, even those who had worked at the university for 20–30 years, left their jobs. Instead, new ones were hired, many came from Krasnodar. From there, dance and vocal ensembles are drawn up and perform at university celebrations. Products are now being transported from Kuban to Timiryazevka - from CJSC Agrokompleks. Of course, the path is not short, but who’s counting? - Insert K.ru]

“Students are threatened, almost everyone is under surveillance”

One of the latest high-profile stories was the dismissal of the dean of the Faculty of Agronomy and Biotechnology, Alexander Solovyov. He was one of the organizers of protests against the transfer of experimental land to the academy for commercial development. He told The Insider about the reasons for his dismissal:

“From the moment of her appointment, Zolina was faced with the task of getting rid of those who opposed the seizure of land. In just over a year, she got rid of hundreds of people, and now she’s simply clearing out those who didn’t particularly perform. After I was dismissed from the post of dean of the Faculty of Agronomy and Biotechnology for far-fetched reasons, it was necessary to arrange for two reprimands, which was done. And, despite the fact that the trade union committee unanimously supported me, a dismissal order was issued.

The union members who voted for me were subsequently deprived of all bonuses, so as to discourage them. One of the students was accused of organizing a picket and was fined. By and large, everyone who quit, was fired, or tried to sue everyone lost. As I understand it, the matter cannot proceed without financial remuneration for the judge.

Recently, the use of the laboratory has been banned; students have stopped going there and cannot conduct scientific research. Students are constantly threatened. Almost everyone is under surveillance - who writes what on social networks, who gave whom likes - individual conversations are immediately carried out, and they are intimidated with expulsion. Despite the fact that these are students who study normally.

And about. The dean, who came in my place, immediately told my assistant at the dean’s office, student Ekaterina: “We won’t work well together.” All her allowances were immediately reduced, leaving her on a bare salary, despite the fact that her work requires a lot of time, effort, and most importantly, skills and knowledge. Naturally, she was forced to leave.

When her contract for living in a hostel ended, she was given a week to leave - despite the fact that she lived in the hostel with her daughter. They were simply thrown out the door.

Teachers who at least once spoke out somewhere or did not support, that is, did not speak out “for” the rector’s policy, had their bonuses cancelled. This is 7 km from the Kremlin, and they operate as in Krasnodar during the governorship of Tkachev and the vice-government of Zolina. But our authorities don’t see anything, “everything is fine” with us.

My former deputy at the faculty, Olga Aleksandrovna Shchuklina, and deputy dean for educational work, Igor Anatolyevich Zavertkin, were fired the day after my dismissal from the post of dean. Shchuklina, when her contract for living in a hostel ended, was given a week to leave - despite the fact that she lived in the hostel with her daughter. They were simply thrown out the door.

I don’t really imagine how the educational process in the disciplines of our department will be carried out now. There are still teachers at the department, the workload is now distributed between them, but, for example, the people who conducted the practice have left. Now there is no one to conduct the practice. The laboratory that was previously used is closed. Vice-Rector for Science, Mr. Belopukhov, says that students do not have to learn the methods in practice. Of course, why do we need people who know the methods? We don’t need them, we only need obedient ones who will exclusively follow the instructions of management.”

"Close Timiryazevka and give the fields for development"

“One gets the impression that Zolina came to essentially close Timiryazevka - at least to remove the technological faculties from there, which need fields for preparing students and performing experiments, and leave there several faculties such as humanities and economics. Well, the Timiryazev Academy stop will remain, everything else will simply be given over for development.

Over the past year, no funds have been allocated to maintain these areas. They sowed mustard in the fields for show, and then forgot about it. She died. So resistant to everything, but for some reason it hasn’t grown. It would be better not to disgrace yourself, as they say.

And now the heads of the experimental stations have been expelled: the field station - Yegor Berezovsky, the vegetable station - Vasily Suddenko, he was in charge for many years. Even at the time when I was allowed to sit on the academic council of the university, Zolina said that in order to develop the scientific base, we need to build new buildings, despite the fact that not all of our buildings are even registered, and we will demarcate individual areas. That is, where individual plots are demarcated for development, it will be possible to say: you are not using them effectively, so why should you build, there will be Mr. Shuvalov’s companies to develop these territories.

“All our appeals through deputies, through the round table in the Moscow City Duma, directly to the president, the president’s representative in the Central Federal District, through the government and the Federation Council - it all went into the sand.”

"There are almost no living animals left. At least there will be plastic ones"

From an open letter from former and current employees of Timiryazevka to President Putin: “Up to 30% of procurement costs - almost 300 million budget rubles! - last year it was spent on numerous pseudo-holidays and PR campaigns. And for the maintenance of all experimental fields, gardens, greenhouses, forests and vivarium, 2.6% of the funds allocated to the university were allocated last year.”

Against the background of the indifferent attitude of the university management to the educational process, salary cuts, deprivation of bonuses and dismissals, a festive atmosphere reigns in the academy. For example, Rector Zolina purchased plastic vegetables, fruits and plastic animals worth more than 0.5 million rubles to decorate the territory and premises. “We purchased about 20 thousand plastic toys to “decorate” the territory of the academy. Around the same time, in student dormitories, water was gushing from the ceiling so much that the bucket provided had to be emptied almost every hour,” a former academy employee told The Insider. “There are almost no living animals left, although there will be plastic ones. And baskets with plastic bell peppers are an excellent decoration,” he noted.

According to a former employee of Timiryazevka, on March 30, shortly after the tragedy in the Kemerovo “Winter Cherry,” there was a fire in the dormitory:

“The garbage chute was on fire. But students on several floors woke up not from the sound of an alarm, but from smoke. It turned out that a significant part of the residents had already been evacuated, standing dressed and with their belongings on the street. But on these floors there was no signal, and they might not have woken up. Fire protection systems have not been maintained for a long time because there is no money for it. But there is money to invite Galustyan and “Tea for Two.” And about. the head of the university’s integrated security department, Farhad Zagirov, then demanded that students spread comments that the alarm was working and everything was ok. They threaten students and teachers. In the rector’s office there are real bandits, and they are protected by the Ministry of Agriculture and the governor of the Krasnodar Territory.”

“They spend money on all sorts of nonsense, they just filled the academy with all sorts of props. From lace curtains to ugly animal figures,” another academy employee told The Insider. According to the interlocutor, enormous amounts of money are spent on concerts and performances. “Everyone is dancing and singing. Millions are spent on graduation, on September 1, on awards, and on awarding certificates with cash certificates. It feels like they just decided to shut people’s eyes with this nonsense. But the fields are not being developed; a whole year has already passed.”

This information was confirmed by The Insider and chemistry teacher Pavel Uglinsky, who resigned from the academy:

“Against the backdrop of all these events, Zolina spends unaffordable expenses on various entertainment events. Concerts, invitations to some stars, the Turkish choir... The toilets were renovated with the involvement of so-called designers. Well, against the backdrop of this are falling ceilings. If previously all resources were used to resolve these issues with the involvement of the property fund, now, it turns out, the priorities are different. A person with a degree in philology, a candidate of science, does what he can. In the sixth building where I worked, it was 12–13 degrees in the laboratory all winter. The rooms are not heated, the ceilings are also leaking, it’s a mess, basically.”

On January 12, 2018, the administration of the Timiryazev Academy filed a lawsuit against a group of university employees, former and current. Eight people were defendants in the lawsuit. Among them are Academy Professor Alexander Solovyov, Associate Professor Olga Shchuklina and former head of the Department of Protocol Events and Personnel Certification Oksana Tarasenkova. On January 10, Zolina published an appeal in which she complained about “attempts to discredit the university leadership.” In her appeal, she claimed that after her appointment as rector at the end of 2016, she discovered numerous financial irregularities, “which law enforcement agencies still have to sort out.” Zolina also accused the dean of the Faculty of Agronomy and Biotechnology Solovyov of the fact that he “in pursuit of the image of a “public politician” began to increasingly move away from his main line of work” and “repeatedly committed violations of labor duties.” A week later, Solovyov was fired from the academy. In April, the Koptevsky court rejected the second filing of documents.

The Insider was unable to get a comment from Galina Zolina. Her assistant Galina Tsinamdzgvrishvili at first refused to connect the editorial office with the rector, accusing The Insider of incompetence and “executing an order,” and a week later she reported that she “no longer works in Timiryazevka.” This development of events surprised The Insider correspondents, because until recently she had expressed complete loyalty and devotion to the academy to its rector. In one of her last posts she

Russian State Agrarian University named after Timiryazev - MSHA announced the resignation of Galina Zolina from the post of rector. Mrs. Zolina began leading the university in December 2016; she is considered a member of the team of Alexander Tkachev, who at that time headed the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation. Galina Zolina's tenure as rector of Timiryazevka was marked by numerous conflicts with the teaching staff, who objected to plans to transfer the experimental fields for development.

The press service of the Russian State Agrarian University named after Timiryazev - MSHA reported that Galina Zolina left the post of rector, moving to another job. Mrs. Zolina began leading Russia's largest agricultural university in December 2016; her arrival to the position is associated with support from the then head of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev. Galina Zolina began her career at the Agrokompleks company, owned by the Tkachev family, and then for ten years was the vice-governor of the Krasnodar Territory for social issues.

From the text published on the official website of the university, it follows that during the 20 months of her work as rector of Timiryazevka, Galina Zolina brought positive changes to the work of the educational institution. In particular, the Institute of Economics and Management in the Agro-Industrial Complex, the Institute of Mechanics and Energy, as well as the Institute of Land Reclamation, Water Management and Construction have been created within the structure of the Moscow Agricultural Academy. The university updated its material and technical base and created a new information infrastructure; the volume of research work in 2017 amounted to 397 million rubles, which is the highest figure in ten years. “The university’s property complex has not undergone negative changes, the university’s land is safe and sound, the registration of property rights for those real estate objects whose status has not previously been brought into legal form continues. The university said goodbye to semi-underground tenants,” the university’s press service said in a statement.

It was no coincidence that the mention of the safety of the MSHA property complex in the message about the resignation of Galina Zolina appeared - her tenure as rector of Timiryazevka was marked by numerous scandalous situations, at the center of which were disputes over the property of the university. As Kommersant previously reported, in 2016, Ms. Zolina’s predecessor, Vyacheslav Lukomets, announced plans to transfer the academy’s experimental fields located within Moscow for commercial development. A group of university teachers and students opposed this. In November 2017, the teachers had a conflict with the new rector Galina Zolina, who, as stated by Professor Alexander Solovyov, initiated the dismissal of employees who criticized the rector. In January of this year, the university filed a defamation claim against former and current employees. At the same time, Galina Zolina published an appeal in which she complained about “attempts to discredit the leadership of the Moscow Agricultural Academy and provocative statements aimed at undermining the reputation of the academy.” True, the case did not reach the point of consideration of the claim in court - in February the court returned the application to the management of the MSHA.

Anna Perova, Krasnodar

Galina Zolina was appointed rector of the Timiryazev Academy

Until today, she has been acting rector of Timiryazevka for a year.

www.timacad.ru

The appointment of Galina Zolina as rector of the Russian State Agrarian University-Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev was announced on January 29 at a meeting of the academic council of the university. The order for her confirmation in office was signed 5 days ago by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, State Secretary Ivan Lebedev.

Galina Zolina was sent to Timiryazevka at the very end of 2016 from the post of director of the department of scientific and technological policy and education of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, where she worked briefly under the leadership of Minister Alexander Tkachev (when he was governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Zolina was his deputy for a number of years).

During her work as acting Rector at the Timiryazev Academy there were significant personnel changes; many employees who disagreed with its management decisions were fired. Employees and students of Timiryazevka repeatedly went to rallies to protest against Zolina’s leadership methods.

One of the latest high-profile stories was He was one of the organizers of protests against the transfer of experimental land to the academy for commercial development, and his relationship with Galina Zolina did not work out.

Zolina herself, in a published appeal, denied political persecution of Solovyov and referred to objective complaints from management against him regarding the performance of his job duties.

Galina Zolina worked for many years in the team of the current head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev. In 1999, she became deputy general director of CJSC Firm Agrokompleks, which was then headed by Tkachev. After his election as governor of Kuban in 2000, she received the position of adviser on media and social policy, and since 2005 she has served as vice-governor for social issues.

In 2007, Zolina defended her PhD thesis “Formation of a positive image of the Krasnodar region in the media.” According to the Anti-Plagiarism system, the originality of scientific work is 30.3%, citation takes up 10.18%, borrowing accounts for 59.49%.

In March 2015, the academic council of Voronezh State University, following the results of the defense of her doctoral dissertation “The Universe of Mass Information of a Social Community: Identity-Image Discourse,” voted against awarding her the degree of Doctor of Philology in the specialty “Journalism.”

On April 28, 2015, the new head of the region, Veniamin Kondratyev, announced personnel changes in the administration of the Krasnodar region. Galina Zolina was among the first to resign.

Columnist Anzhelika Gyurza spoke about Galina Zolina on the pages of Yugopolis in her author's column.