Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin chaired the regional anti-terrorist committee meeting recently.

The main point on the agenda had to do with anti-terrorist protection of local schools and colleges. According to the regional Education Minister Vladimir Sadyrin, over 3,113 local schools, kindergartens, and colleges welcomed students on September 1, 2009; all of these have already been examined by the ministry’s experts and law-enforcement officers. The educational establishments based in Miass, Kartalinskiy district, and Lokomotivniy proved to be best protected from the possible threats.

The security is mainly ensured with the help of extra-departmental security officials, private security services, gate-keepers, and maintenance personnel. As for the means of protection proper, these are mainly alarm buttons and protection devices. In fact, Sadyrin believes an alarm button is one of the simplest and cost-effective emergency devices which nearly all local schools have, with the exception of those located in Varnenskiy, Verkhneuralskiy, Yemanzhelinskiy, and Oktyabrskiy districts. The mayors of these districts have been ordered to take measures as soon as possible.

Head of the regional Department of Internal Affairs Pavel Grigoriev noted that most schools’ security certificates were often only a window-dressing thing that did not stand for any real compliance with the national anti-terrorist committee’s demands.

Finally, as the spokesperson for the Governor reports, Petr Sumin observed that though some improvements were obvious, all the measures should be taken systematically rather than sporadically. He also emphasized the fact that it was the mayors’ responsibility to provide schools and kindergartens’ security and to allocate the resources for this.