Penza, 28 December 2015. PenzaNews. The former coordinator of the Penza region Liberal Democratic Party branch Mikhail Usov is returning to Samara, a source close to the politician informed PenzaNews agency on Monday, December 28.

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In their comment on Mikhail Usov’s resignation and the new appointment of Alexander Vasilyev, who had been heading the city Party branch until December 27, the source called the change “a normal event in the current situation.”

“First of all, for a background: although Mikhail Usov returns to Samara, he will continue coming to Penza from time to time. He is a member of the coordination council, a notable person in the Penza politics, so please do not count him out just yet. Second, he resigned from the position on his own accord. Nobody ousted him: he was asked to make a choice, as we have two major elections coming – to the State Duma, and to the Samara gubernatorial Duma, with less than a year left to each. And Usov made his choice,” the source said.

They also reminded that Mikhail Usov is a deputy head of the culture, sports and youth policy committee of the Samara gubernatorial Duma.

“He will be concentrating on his work in this representative body: previously, he spent his time mostly in Penza, now he will spend more time in Samara,” the anonymous source added.

Meanwhile, according to them, the State Duma deputy will perform the same functions, as he remains the member of the regional branch’s coordination council and continues to curate the Penza and Saratov region in LDPR.

However, the source admitted that Penza recently “saw its party work weakened” as Anastasiya Koptelova, who played an important role in the regional Party branch, left the office.

“As of 1 December 2015, Anastasiya is working in Moscow, in the LDPR Central Administration. She heads the election committees affairs office in the administrative department. The people in the capital noticed her activities in Penza, offered her a promotion, and she agreed. Obviously, for Penza, this is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. The bad thing is that, as I said before, an experienced person – who, as you remember, headed the Penza LDPR branch one time – has left the region. The good thing lies in the fact that the local Liberal Democrats now have one more link to the higher-ups to quickly resolve the problems that appear. In any case, neither Usov nor Ischenko are disappearing anywhere. I believe that right now, they are going to reinforce the positions of Alexander Vasilyev and [the assistant coordinator for the Penza region LDPR branch] Pavel Kulikov. They are young men – one born in 1981, the other in 1985 – but still they have enough party management experience, so there is no reason to shun them,” the source concluded.