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Street Politics
By Andrew Roth
Special to Russia Profile,
11/25/2010The dust has settled after government officials wiped over 2,000 carts and kiosks from Moscow’s streets in a whirlwind campaign during the first two weeks of November. Amid concerns over lack of due process, an oversight by the city government has further angered small business owners and organizations: no official order was given by the city government to undertake the massive campaign to close the kiosks. Instead, officials were acting under what they considered a “verbal order” from Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.
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SOBYANIN, Sergei Semyonovich
The Mayor of Moscow
09/30/2010
Former Deputy Prime Minister & Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration
Sergey Sobyanin (Сергей Семёнович Собянин) was born on June 21, 1958, in the village of Nyaksimvol, which now lies in the Khanty-Mansiisk region of Russia. Deputy Prime Minister of Russia since 2008, in September 2010 he was named one of the front runners to replace ousted Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
Sobyanin started work in the Chelyabinsk tube and pipe mill in 1975, and went on to graduate in 1980 from the Kostroma Technology Institute. He worked for the Komsomol in the early 1980s before returning to Khanty-Mansiisk in 1984 and holding various government and party jobs until 1990.
He served as head of the State Tax Inspectorate in Kogaly, Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous Region from 1990 to 1991 and also served as first deputy head of that administration in the early 1990s.
From 1994 to 2000 he was speaker of the legislature of Khanty-Mansiisk and a member of the Russian Federation Council, where he chaired the Committee for Constitutional Legislation, Courts and Law.
After a brief spell as presidential envoy to the Urals Federal District, Sobyanin served as governor of the Tyumen Region from 2001 to 2005. Sobyanin received over 50 percent of the vote to reach this post, and support of the heads of Khanty-Mansiisk and Yamalo-Nenets was seen to be a key factor in his success. During his time as governor Sobyanin tried to find a compromise between the Kremlin’s requirements to merge Khanty-Mansiisk and Yamalo-Nenets within the Tyumen region and those who opposed this merger. The proposed union was eventually suspended. Sobyanin also earned a good reputation for reforming public services and education, doubling spending.
Having been reappointed by then-President Vladimir Putin in January 2005. In December of the same year he was appointed chief of staff of the Presidential Administration, replacing Dmitry Medvedev.
Some experts regard Sobyanin as a notably technical figure through which the Kremlin keeps in touch with the heads of regions and oil companies. At the same time other analysts assume that Sobyanin, being a skilled governor and functionary, could have become Putin's successor as president of the Russian Federation.
In December 2007, following Putin's nomination of Medvedev as his successor, Sobyanin headed Medvedev's pre-election staff. In March 2008 Medvedev was elected president. Following Medvedev's inauguration, on May 12, 2008 it was announced that Sobyanin has been appointed deputy prime minister and the government's chief of staff under Putin's second cabinet.
On October 15, Medvedev nominated Sobyanin to be the new Moscow mayor from a list of four candidates put forward by United Russia. This list also included Nizhny Novgorod Governor Valery Shantsev, Deputy Moscow Mayor Lyudmila Shvetsova and Transport Minister Igor Levitin. On October 21 this nomination was approved by the Moscow city duma.
Sobyanin is married and has two daughters.
Related links:
Sergei Sobyanin profile on the Moscow City Government website
