Penza, 25 December 2014. PenzaNews. The chairman of the agricultural committee in the Russian Duma Nikolai Pankov for United Russia faction may end up leading the Penza region as early as in summer of 2015, said the deputy of the Russian Duma from CPRF Olga Alimova during her yearly press conference in Saratov city on Thursday, December 25.

“The Russian Duma talks more and more about [Nikolai] Pankov. Seven people already asked me, and I told all the best about him. Looks like they want to place him on [Vasily] Bochkarev’s place as the governor of the Penza region. If Nikolai Vasilyevich [Pankov] gose to Penza and takes his team there, the city will ‘luck out’ very much,” the news agency “Svobodniye Novosti” quotes Olga Alimova.

She added that Vasily Bochkarev himself is still reluctant to abandon the office, and reminded he will have to leave it in spring of 2015.