Russian senator drowned during fishing

A member of the Federation Council and a lawmaker of the Arkhangelsk regional legislature, Yuri Sivkov drowned during fishing.

An alarm came at 09.50 Moscow time in the emergency management center in the Arkhangelsk region that senator Sivkov got lost, a source in the regional emergencies department told Itar-Tass on Sunday.

On October 15 he went fishing in the vicinity of Zalakhotye in the mouth of Northern Dvina near Arkhangelsk. The rescuers spotted the overturned rubber boat fixed to a motorboat belonging to Sivkov 200 meters off the riverbank. There were Sivkov?s belongings and two cellular phones in the boat. Six boats and 22 people were involved in the search operation. The divers found and lifted Sivkov?s body at 13.00 Moscow time on Sunday. The investigators are probing in all details of the accident.

Chief press officer of the regional police department Andrei Kitayev earlier told Itar-Tass that Sivkov called his friends on Saturday evening and said the engine in his boat had broken down. "No traces of the violent death were found," Kitayev pointed out. "An accident most likely occurred. Sivkov was probably trying to remove the failed engine, a heavy rotor fell down and dragged him under the water," he added. "There were no witnesses of the accident, the senator was fishing alone," the source remarked.

A Zalakhotye resident told Itar-Tass that he heard somebody crying for help at night. Two villagers came to the bank, but found no one. The night air temperature was about zero, the water temperature in the river was eight degrees above zero.

Yuri Sivkov would turn 54 on December 14. He was born in Arkhangelsk and graduated from the Arkhangelsk Forestry Engineering Institute under the specialty of industrial power engineering. Before his political career he worked at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk. Since the early nineties he was repeatedly elected as a deputy of the regional legislature from the United Russia Party. Sivkov was an experienced fisherman and tourist. He built his boats on his own.

sections: Accidents, Region News
regions: North-West region