Mayor of submarine town faces 15 years in prison

According to the Russian General Prosecutor, Mayor of Vidyaevo Sergei Bogza is guilty of large-scale corruption.

The General Prosecutor in Murmansk has approved the indictment in a criminal case against Sergei Bogza, the mayor of Vidyaevo. Allegedly, Bogza accepted bribes worth 4,2 million rubles (€45,000) in connection with the signing of a contract for demolition of old houses in late 2024. In addition, he is accused of involvement in the municipality’s purchase of a bus from his former spouse at a knowingly inflated price. The case is coming up in the October District Court in Murmansk. Bogza faces up to 15 years behind bars.

Sergei Bogza was arrested in a well-staged setup by the Russian Investigative Committee in April 2025. Video by the Investigative Committee in Murmansk. The town mayor was arrested in April 2025 and has been in custody since then. The politician was appointed mayor in November 2022. At that time he was promoted from the post of deputy mayor of the neighbouring municipality of Aleksandrovsk.

Following the arrest of Bogza, the mayoral office was taken over by his deputy Olga Patramanskaya. Vidyaevo has the status of closed military town. It houses the Northern Fleet’s 7th Submarine Division. Today, the division is believed to include a few vessels of the Oscar-III and Sierra-I classes. Among them are the B-448 Tambov and the B-336 Pskov.

Previously, Vidyaevo also housed the Kursk, an Oscar-II nuclear-powered sub that sank in the Barents Sea in 2000.