Families of Ex-Kuzbass Officials Await Trial

Big position and high status in society lose meaning when a person ends up in a pretrial detention center. Several Kuzbass officials have experienced this firsthand, swapping comfortable offices for cells in isolation centers after becoming defendants in criminal cases. And while they languished awaiting trial, their relatives continued living their normal lives, but in the status of «zhduli» (waiters) — those waiting for their loved ones to return home.

NGS42.RU looked at how the relatives of those involved in the corruption case of Alexander Turbaba and Marina Kolyadenko, as well as former Kuzbass Health Minister Dmitry Beglov, behave in public, and what has changed for them over the past year.

Marina Kolyadenko and Gleb Orlov

The relationship between these two officials was an open secret. Nothing was officially reported, but both in the regional administration, where Gleb Orlov still works as deputy governor for construction, and in the Kemerovo district, which Marina Kolyadenko led, they knew that the couple lived under the roof of the same cottage in the village of Sukhovo.

Kolyadenko was detained in May 2025 along with a relative of another regional government staffer, whom we will discuss below. The alarming signs of the impending arrest came as early as February, when security forces came for the deputy head of the district. Orlov also attended the court hearing where the preventive measure for the woman was chosen, introducing himself to the bailiffs as the defendant«s common-law spouse.

During the hearing, Kolyadenko and Orlov looked at each other, and the woman«s gaze seemed to say that »everything is fine.« When the judge»s decision was announced, the deputy governor did not stay and left the hall before it was declared that his wife had been sent to a pretrial detention center.

More than a year has passed since then — how has this time gone for the official? Orlov is not a frequent guest on social media. He abandoned his VKontakte page long ago, and now his movements around the region and work in general can only be learned from the sparse press releases of the Kuzbass Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Housing and Utilities, which are under his responsibility. If before Kolyadenko«s arrest the official appeared in publications infrequently — about a couple of times a month — then when the handcuffs clicked on his partner, he disappeared.

The Ministry of Housing and Utilities did not issue a single press release about his work until February 2026. For almost a year, the department only notified about his participation in «direct lines.» He appeared on the pages of the Ministry of Construction earlier — in October, the department reported on his trips to Kaltan and Mariinsk, where he inspected the work of contractors at schools and cultural centers.

Sources in the regional administration told NGS42.RU that after Kolyadenko«s arrest, he seemed to »fall out of the agenda« for a while. The deputy governor went to work, and still does, but without his former enthusiasm. There was talk that he was thinking of leaving his post, but to this day he continues to fulfill his duties.

«He has aged, become gaunt, it»s clear that he«s worried, even though Marina has already been released to house arrest,» a source of the publication said.

In the corridors of the government, they whisper that Orlov may leave his post by the end of the year, as a decision on his wife«s criminal case is supposedly expected by then.

If Kolyadenko«s verdict actually comes down in the next few months, it would be atypical for such criminal cases. For example, former Vice-Governor Vyacheslav Telegin was convicted three years after the end of the investigation. Here, only about six months have passed since the materials were submitted for consideration.

If indeed everything is decided by then, the verdict will also be pronounced for the second defendant, who is also a relative of a former official.

Olga and Alexander Turbaba

Until spring 2025, Olga Turbaba was the deputy governor of Kuzbass and oversaw the internal policy department, meaning she was responsible for communications between parties, the federal government, and regional territories, as well as monitoring the information agenda. Among other things, it depended on her how the region was perceived at the federal level.

In May 2025, the name Turbaba resounded across the country when the official«s husband, Alexander, was arrested in a corruption case along with Marina Kolyadenko. The man was sent to a pretrial detention center, and his wife left her post in the regional administration amid these events. Unlike Gleb Orlov, she did not attend the court hearing.

Before these events, the now former official was very active on social media. She took selfies at holidays, concerts, ceremonial and other events. On the day of the court hearing, she wrote a poem by Nekrasov about the Caucasus mountains and disappeared.

There were no new posts until 22 August, but on that day a post appeared, again related to the mountains — Turbaba showed a photo from Mount Elbrus, where she posed with the Russian flag. The «vow of silence» was broken from that moment, and with the consistency of a popular blogger, she began to tell her eventful life almost daily.

For more than 10 months now, the ex-deputy governor has been telling her vast audience about visits to theaters, museums, exhibitions, and concerts. Once she even visited an exhibition in which journalists from the NGS42.RU editorial team participated.

The woman also shares footage of the harvest from her vegetable garden and orchard, which are laid out near her house in the village of Kedrovka on the outskirts of Kemerovo. She does not forget her former colleagues either: on VKontakte, there are birthday greetings, for example, to the former head of the regional capital, Vladimir Mikhailov, and the speaker of the parliament, Alexei Zelenin. In addition, in June she was at a meeting with city council deputies, who were celebrating their 30th anniversary.

One of her latest posts is timed to Family Day. In honor of the holiday, Turbaba published a series of photos with her husband, who has already been released from the pretrial detention center to house arrest. Shots from different years show how she vacationed with her spouse in the same mountains and European Union countries, such as the Czech Republic.

Dmitry Beglov and his loved ones

Until recently, the former minister«s official wife was Angelika Beglova — the daughter of Yuri and Lyudmila Dmukhovskikh, who continues family traditions. Both mother and father are connected to medicine: the woman is the deputy chief physician of the Kuzbass Regional Hospital, the man is a supplier of medical equipment, including to the same institution where his wife works. But that is probably just a coincidence, and not the main theme of this article.

Angelika, like her ex-husband, herself held a leadership position — at the Kuzbass Oncology Dispensary, she worked as deputy chief physician for several years. She recently left the region and now works in the same field, but in Veliky Novgorod.

Sources told NGS42.RU that Angelika cannot be classified as a «zhdul» — she broke off contact with her ex-husband long before his arrest. Now her social media are closed to outsiders, but friends of the medic said that in her posts neither at the time of the arrest nor after did she have any posts in support of Beglov or words of sympathy. Her status simply reads «just a mom.»

After the breakup, the spouses, logically, did not live together, but Dmitry could meet with the children without any problems. The last time he did so was a couple of days before the searches came to him. Notably, the reason for the breakup was supposedly another woman, whose relationship was also an open secret — Olesya Prindul.

Prindul, as NGS42.RU has already written, is also connected to the field of medicine: before Beglov«s arrest, she held the position of head of KOMIAC, which the ex-minister himself once headed.

Several months before Beglov«s detention, he was repeatedly seen with Olesya at Lesnaya Polyana, at the cottage where searches took place last year. This dwelling was ultimately forfeited to the state. Whether Prindul was waiting for Dmitry to be released or not is no longer relevant — the woman left the region and moved to St. Petersburg.

Before leaving Kuzbass, the woman appeared on social media, mainly on the KOMIAC page, and did not publicly comment on events related to the ex-minister. After the internal migration, she completely disappeared from the public space.

The former Kuzbass Minister of Health has always differed from other officials in the region: not only did he not hide his penchant for luxury, but he also managed to become a father while in a pretrial detention center. Little is known about the mother of the boy named Fyodor: she comes from a wealthy family, has a house at Lesnaya Polyana, and her name is, what a coincidence, Olesya.

Incidentally, according to one version, she may be involved in the arrest of her lover, as she allegedly revealed to security forces his role in the «shady schemes» for which both Beglov and the former chief physician who fled the country, Mikhail Likstanov, are accused. Sources told NGS42.RU that the reason could have been jealousy. Whether the young mother is waiting for the father of her child or not is unknown, but Dmitry remains in the detention center to this day.

Women are no less often than men in pretrial detention centers and colonies, where, despite isolation, they manage to become mothers. How mothers and their children live, read in the report of NGS42.RU from one of the few such institutions in the country.