 Vyacheslav Voyakin Police clear Cherepkov supporters -- including angry babushki -- from the Mayor's Office. |
Police working for acting Mayor Yury Kopylov forced former Mayor Viktor Cherepkov's supporters from City Hall Tuesday, ending a weeks-long occupation of the building.
The crowd had prevented the mayor, who was appointed after Yeltsin ousted Cherepkov Dec. 11, from moving into his offices. And so at about 3 p.m., a special police detachment pushed aside the babushki supporting the old mayor and cleared a corridor to the elevator for the newcomers.
Sergei Shvedov, the head of the police battalion headquarters, said the whole operation was relatively peaceful.
"The babushki sang hymns to Cherepkov and revolutionary songs, but they had been singing for a few days there and they were fed very well for doing this," he said, referring to the meals the Cherepkov camp had been providing the women.
On the 10th floor, Kopylov and his team met their rivals: Cherepkov's deputy Igor Deineko and former Deputy Mayor Nikolai Markovtsev. According to Fyodor Asalhkanov, head of the police press center, Kopylov gave Markovtsev 30 minutes to clear out.
However, Markovtsev insulted policemen and hit Gennady Tarabarov, the head of city police, so the officers handcuffed him until he settled down, Asalkhanov said.
Outside, a group of State Duma deputies supervised implementation of the decree by President Yeltsin that dismissed Cherepkov. Oleg Finko, head of the group, compared Cherepkov's headquarters to Hitler's bunker in 1945, as the premises had separate electricity and its own water system. There was even a Jacuzzi in the 10th-floor Mayor's Office, but someone had torn it out of the floor.
When Cherepkov's officials left the room, the babushki lay down on the stairs, and the police carried them outside.
"When the guys came up to them, the babushki screamed at them, and they were lost," Asalkhanov said. "I felt sorry for our boys, but finally they carried them away without hurting the ladies."
Igor Alexeyev, Cherepkov's legal proxy, called the take-over a "coup d'etat." However, Cherepkov's supporters will focus on the upcoming election, in which Cherepkov will try to regain his seat.
"We are trying to attract public attention to the whole situation," he said.
Vladimir Zhitkov, Kopylov's deputy for fuel and energy, said it was urgent that the new team work out of City Hall. "We have the dispatchers' network here, and we had to keep the city in order during the holidays," he said.
Zhitkov found out that Cherepkov's deputies had cancelled all the contracts for the fuel supply and the city might be frozen in the near future. Zhitkov said he is taking urgent measures to restore the contracts.
He said that he perfectly understands that after mayoral elections scheduled for Jan. 17 a new team might come.
"If they elect Cherepkov again, we'll put a huge poster in town: 'Sick mayor for a sick city'", Zhitkov said.
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