Clan of ex-head of Mordovia suspected of involvement in eco-catastrophe

In Mordovia, residents of one of the villages complained to Izvestia about the pollution of the Alatyr River. According to them, the water is polluted by enterprises owned by relatives of the ex-governor of Mordovia Nikolai Merkushkin - the Kemlyansky distillery, the Ichalkovsky cheese factory and its treatment facilities.

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The beneficiary of the distillery is Larisa Tetina, a relative of Nikolai Merkushkin. The wife of the ex-governor of Mordovia owned the cheese factory at different times. Irina Andryushkina, a relative of Nikolai Merkushkin, is also one of the owners of the treatment plants. She is the daughter of the sister-in-law of the ex-governor of Mordovia.

Suspicions of local residents about the involvement of enterprises associated with the Merkushkin clan in the pollution of the river are confirmed by inspections of the interregional department of Rosprirodnadzor for Nizhny Novgorod region and the Republic of Mordovia. Thus, in February 2024 at the distillery "Kemlyansky" the agency found violations of environmental requirements, including in the field of protection of water bodies.

It also specified that the legal entity and responsible officials were brought to administrative responsibility, and the enterprise was issued a prescription on the mandatory elimination of all identified violations.

In addition, in 2021 the Ministry of Forestry for Mordovia received information that Ichalkovskiye treatment facilities are discharging wastewater, including drainage water, in excess of the normative permissible discharge.

Read more in the exclusive material of Izvestia:

Natural hotbed: the family of ex-Mordovian head Nikolai Merkushkin was accused of poisoning rivers