The former head of Udmurtia Alexander Solovyov died at the age of 74. As his eldest daughter Yevgenia Sirik said, the politician was very ill from the very moment of his release from the pre-trial detention center (due to a serious illness, he was released from punishment in March 2021).

“He was very ill, he was paralyzed. I was in the hospital for almost a month and died today,” Sirik said.

“On July 24, the former head of the Udmurt Republic Alexander Vasilyevich Solovyov died in the hospital as a result of a long illness at the age of 74. The Ministry of Health of the Udmurt Republic expresses its deepest condolences to the family and friends,” the ministry’s press service said.

Civil memorial service will be held at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Izhevsk. The farewell date will be announced later.

Career and criminal case

Solovyov worked for a long time at Udmurtavtodor. He was the chairman of the State Council of Udmurtia. April 28, 2013 became a member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation from the Udmurt Republic.He took a bribe, but not all of it Former Governor of Udmurtia Alexander Solovyov admitted his guilt in taking bribes, but not in the amount of all… 29 May 12:23

In February 2014, Solovyov was appointed interim head of the Udmurt Republic, and in September he headed the republic based on the results of the elections.

On April 4, 2017, Solovyov was detained on suspicion of corruption and transported to Moscow. On the same day, the politician was removed from his post due to the loss of confidence. The Prosecutor General’s Office found that in the period from 2007 to 2016, Soloviev received illegal income, “clearly exceeding his official earnings.” Among the discovered assets of the ex-head are a house, cars, apartments, land and other luxury real estate. Property with a total value of more than 120 million rubles was turned into state revenue.

In 2020, the court sentenced Solovyov to ten years in prison, finding him guilty of taking bribes worth 140 million rubles from a company that was building a toll bridge across the Kama. He denied his guilt at trial.

Bribes in favorite fish

For a monetary reward, the head of Udmurtia was supposed to provide the bridgemen with “extraordinary payment for work from the federal and regional budgets, the allocation of licenses for the geological study of a subsoil area and for exploration, as well as the extraction of sand and sand and gravel mixture.”

At the same time, the money was handed over to Solovyov in boxes with fish, which the head of the republic loved. She was delivered to Izhevsk by private planes.

Shortly before his arrest, the politician was treated in Germany, where he had a kidney removed. In the Moscow City Court, Solovyov pointed out that “he is unlikely to live to see the trial.”

Already after his release from prison, the former head of the region gave an interview to the Kommersant newspaper, in which, answering the question if he regrets anything, he noted: “What I regret is only one thing, that I agreed to become the head of the republic.”