Speaker of the Duma of the Belgorod Region Olga Pavlova with two deputies Valery Sergachev and Elena Bondarenko resigned, according to the website of the Parliament.
Sergachev and Bondarenko were already expelled from the party on April 12 for «actions discrediting» the United Russia». The exact reason was not named.
«Kommersant» linked the resignation of United Russia with the release of the book «Shock» by the former Belgorod governor, 72-year-old Evgeny Savchenko, about the experience of spiritual communication with the «Lord of the Earth Monoston.» Pavlova was Savchenko's deputy and became the speaker of the regional Duma after his resignation in 2020.
According to Lantern and Belgorod No. 1 sources, police officers came to all three deputies because of the distribution of Savchenko's book, which «could contain signs of extremism.» The Notebook publication connected Sergachev with the site monoston.ru, on which the text of the book was posted; now it is available in the archive.
Savchenko headed the Belgorod region after the October 1993 coup and announced his resignation in September 2020. The current governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, was appointed acting head of the region two months later. Savchenko became a senator and headed the representative office of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the region.
“The current head of the region skillfully took advantage of the scandal with the book of his predecessor, Evgeny Savchenko, to clean up the region from influential representatives of his team,” Kommersant retold the opinion of the respondents experts.
Savchenko’s book “The Shock” was published at the end of 2021, reviews on it appeared in late March and early April. Savchenko recounted meetings there since 2013 with a medium named Lyubov, who helped him «communicate directly with God, saints and the souls of the dead.»
In addition to describing his ideas about the «Lord of the Earth Monoston», Savchenko in the book criticized Prince Vladimir for the adoption of Christianity in Russia and wrote that «Christianity led [Rus] a little to the side, it was the path of another people.» Metropolitan John of Belgorod, who was an associate of Savchenko, criticized him for these words.
Savchenko also wrote in the book that fellowship with the Lord «changes our preconceived ideas about the war in the context of the events that took place in Ukraine.»
On pages 136-143 of the book, Savchenko cited a message received from the medium Lyubov «after the end of the active phase of hostilities in the south-east of Ukraine.» “The rulers, guided by the low vibrations of their souls, begin to influence their people with them. And people are not always able to resist such flows of low energy, which fall on them. And peoples, obeying the will of their ruler, go to kill other people, because they are told that this is necessary for their well-being,” the book said.
Screenshot from Savchenko's book «Shock»