The head of the information department called the discussion on the topic “ridiculous fantasies”, despite the fact that such accusations against Vadim Kstenin are not the first time.
The scandal surrounding the city manager of a city of more than a million, Vadim Kstenin, erupted after an unusual performance by male dancers at the Platonovfest 2023 festival held in Voronezh. Depending on the form of representation, many perceived it as propaganda of non-traditional values. A comment was placed below the note, the author of which hinted at the mayor’s sympathy for this kind of art. Notebook suggested that the city leader’s office give a rebuttal to the slander. However, there was no official response and the mayor’s press secretary Nikita Chebotarev, according to his personal account, called the discussion on the subject “stupid courage” and “ridiculous fantasies”. However, this is not the first time that such accusations have been leveled against Vadim Kstenin.
As part of the discussion of Notebook material on the performance of male dancers at the Platonovfest 2023 festival, one of the commentators said that the fact that art with a “European touch” regularly enters the stage in Voronezh is connected with the youth of the city mayor Vadim Kstenin. Like, his youth fell on the period of the collapse of the USSR. At that time, the future leader of Voronezh lived in Saulkrasti, Latvia, next to the largest nudist beach in the republic, where, allegedly, he joined the values with which he still sympathizes.
Screenshot from the scandalous video of the performance at Platonovfest 2023.
Scattered information on the web was published in Telegram, discussed by residents of Voronezh and people from other regions. The editors drew the attention of the authorities to the current situation, suggesting that the city administration respond publicly and highlight the “black point” in the official biography of the mayor – the first 22 years of his life.
Currently, the city administration website reports that Vadim Kstenin was born in Latvia, in Saulkrasti in 1975. And in 1997 he graduated from the Voronezh Academy of Architecture and Civil Engineering. Where he lived, what he did, liked, the future city manager was interested in between this – there is no data.
Moreover, this is not the first time that accusations of homosexuality against Vadim Kstenin have surfaced on the Internet. In particular, in June 2015, The Moscow Post published Dmitry Viktorov’s column “Voronezh Sodom”. He evokes the circumstances of the kidnapping of Vadim Kstenin in May of the same year. Criminals (of Ingush nationality) took the future mayor out of the city and demanded 5 million rubles from him, claiming that they had incriminating evidence. Then they released Kstenin, thinking he would not approach law enforcement.
The official biography of Vadim Kstenin.
As Dmitry Viktorov wrote, “the Ingushetian intruders had at their disposal a video recording made in one of the Voronezh baths. Where, in extremely frank erotic scenes, the whole head of the department of housing and communal services and energy of the government of the Voronezh region Vadim Kstenin plays a passive role.
The material was not only actively discussed in Voronezh and at the federal level, but also resulted in a kind of “compromising Wikipedia” – kompromat.wiki, linking the name of Vadim Kstenin with this information.
The topic was also discussed in 2018, on the eve of the first appointment of Vadim Kstenin as the head of the city by a specially created commission of deputies of the City Duma. Then the authoritative regional channel “Andrei Iosifovich Makin” suggested that compromising information about the official could become public in the near future. And again, experts began to talk about the “probable non-mainstream orientation of Vadim Kstenin.”
Screenshot of the first publication, in which in 2015 Vadim Kstenin was openly accused of unconventional views.
For his part, the political expert of Carnet-Voronezh, Viktor Ganik, maintained that “for a civil servant to leave the post of mayor because of his sexual orientation, he must come out, a public confession. Like, for example, the mayor of Tambov Kosenkov. No one cared about his orientation until he came out kidnapping his lover.”
It should be noted that the incriminating evidence was not published, and the deputies elected Vadim Kstenin to the post of city manager of Voronezh. However, since then, similar information periodically appears on the Internet.
The vast majority of Voronezh residents tend to trust the accusations against the mayor, but his staff do not consider it necessary to refute the “absurd fantasies” of the townspeople.
For his part, Bloknot tried to contact a school in Saulkrasti, where the mayor of Voronezh, Vadim Kstenin, was born and, presumably, grew up. Our reporter called her manager Oksana Vanaga on +37129859479. However, the Latvian educator refused to speak to our reporter in Russian.
Then the editors sent requests to the school director in English and Latvian, with a request to comment on the accusations voiced on the web against Vadim Kstenin. Editorial inquiries went unanswered.
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