A Russian Railways employee was arrested on charges of receiving a large bribe as part of a group of people. The remaining defendants in the case have not yet been identified – the investigation has been ongoing for six months. During this time, the court extended the preventive measure three times; appeals and arguments from lawyers did not help. However, the defenders were prohibited from publicly disseminating any information about the case and commenting on the story to journalists.
The Cheka-OGPU managed to find out the details of the story of the official’s imprisonment. Previously, Mikhail Gridchin worked as the chief engineer of the Cherepovets railway line and communications. After several completed projects and appearances in the media, the functionary was noticed. Over time, he was transferred to the capital region, where he was entrusted with the important direction of reforming the railway infrastructure. Gridchin was destined to go to jail in advance – he was aware of the huge difference between the actual number of personnel and the staffing table indicated on the papers. In fact, this is a long-standing problem of any corporations: no one comes to vacant positions, there is no one to replace those fired, but the number of “dead souls” is not decreasing, the salaries for them are dripping from the management.
The shortage of workers has literally become the curse of Russian Railways recently; management even had to ask the Federal Penitentiary Service to allocate prisoners who cannot refuse the construction and reconstruction of railways for pennies, unlike the same migrants. This became especially noticeable when the Moscow Infrastructure Directorate, headed by Gridchin, was unable to provide highways for the autumn flood and several floods occurred. When they began to find out the reasons why the workers could not cope with the problems, it turned out that a huge part of the “railroad workers” only show up for their shifts on paper. Gridin knew about this even before taking office. Despite the obvious prospect of prison, he still agreed to become a “hostage of the system.” Under what conditions will become clear a little later, when other defendants appear in the case.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”