Thanks to yesterday’s PR stunt by United Russia deputy Sidyakin, who first went missing in Antarctica among ice floes, pressure ridges, and angry penguins, and then was found, we learned what the deputy wanted to tell us:
Sidyakin went to Antarctica to conquer Mount Vinson and plant the Russian flag at its summit. He was accompanied on the trip by fellow United Russia member Oleg Savchenko.
True, two more interesting facts immediately came to light: The deputies violated their own law governing how Russian citizens may visit Antarctica. The trip is taking place on working days, and it’s completely unclear why the whole country is at work while deputies earning 450,000 rubles a month are roaming around Antarctica.
But even more interesting questions arise when you think about how much this trip by these “servants of the people” cost.
The Antarctica tour for Sidyakin and Savchenko was organized by Seven Summits. The cost of such a tour is almost $43,000. We called the carrier itself and asked whether it was really the service provider or just an intermediary, and how much such a trip actually costs.
So, the deputies bought the tour six months earlier. Recalculating the cost of the ascent at the dollar exchange rate on July 15, 2014, it comes to 1.5 million rubles per person.
Not bad. For example, for deputy Savchenko, with a declared income of 3,942,234 rubles, that is half of his annual income.
And the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets did an even more impressive calculation—good for them. They took into account not only the cost of climbing Vinson, but also tickets to all the other places around the world that Sidyakin visited on his journey before reaching Antarctica (and that he made sure to mention on his Twitter).
Thus, United Russia deputy Savchenko spent an amount equal to his official annual income on his wonderful winter adventure, while United Russia deputy Sidyakin spent a third of his official annual income.
A wonderful example of why we really do need a law to combat the illicit enrichment of officials whose spending exceeds their income.
Lawyers for the Progress Party will send the Duma this statement on the matter today.
And I suggest spreading information about these globe-trotting deputies as widely as possible, especially in Tatarstan and the Volgograd Region, whose residents are represented by both of these crooks.