A few days ago, Kirovskiy Court of Yekaterinburg completed the criminal case related to a bridge failure at the intersection of Shevchenko-Vostochnaya-Sovetskaya St. in Yekaterinburg on September 4, 2006. The investigation revealed that the building and assembly jobs had been performed without a building permit and the design documentation hadn’t undergone the obligatory examination by experts. This violation of the law was occasioned by the negligence of Viktor Menshchikov, director of Blagoustroystvo and the customer. The grave designing mistakes and violations of technological provisos (as well as the fact that no one cared to find or eliminate those) resulted in a bridge failure with over 38 million RUR worth of damage. It was only by sheer luck that there were no people killed; it was quite possible after all, since the bridge was put up above a busy highway and Trans-Siberian railways.

Kirovskiy Court of Yekaterinburg found Mr. Menshchikov guilty of criminal negligence (Article 293 (part 1) of Russian Criminal Code). As the offender fully confessed and pleaded guilty himself, he was only sentenced to a 120,000-ruble fine and was forbidden to hold managerial positions in civil service or local government. The damages will be claimed in accordance with the usual civil justice proceedings.