Anatolii Guzhvin is one of the rare regional leaders who had been appointed to office by President Boris Yeltsin in 1991 and was able to secure the position during popular elections in 1996. In the 8 December 1996 gubernatorial race Guzhvin, backed by the pro-governmental Our Home Is Russia movement (NDR) and Grigorii Yavlinskii's Yabloko, beat his only rival, Communist State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Zvolinskii, in the first round by a margin of 52%-40 %.
After finishing high school in 1962, Guzhvin started his career as an electrician at a shipbuilding plant in his home-town of Akhtubinsk. In 1975, after graduating from Astrakhan Technical Institute and the Saratov Higher Communist Party School he was recruited to party work, becoming an instructor of the Astrakhan Oblast Communist Party Committee and first secretary of the oblast komsomol organization. In five years, Guzhvin was promoted to first secretary of the Kamyzyak district CPSU branch. In 1985, he returned to the oblast party committee as a secretary and, then, as a second secretary and in two years, with support of the Communist Party, was elected chairman of the oblast executive committee (ispolkom).
In 1990 he won a seat in the Russian Federation Supreme Soviet where he joined the Communists of Russia parliamentary group though his electoral program was more liberal than that of the Communist Party. The same year, Guzhvin was elected as a member of the oblast council and then chairman of the council.
Guzhvin has always been loyal to President Yeltsin and his policies. He opposed the August 1991 coup attempt for which Yeltsin rewarded him with the gubernatorial appointment. Guzhvin also backed the liberal reforms carried out by Yegor Gaidar's government, though he suggested some corrections to minimize their impact on the population. He then backed Viktor Chernomyrdin's appointment as the country's prime minister and in 1995 joined Chernomyrdin's NDR, becoming the leader of the movement's oblast branch. In April 1997 he joined the NDR Political Council.
Chairman of the Oblast Representative Assembly -- Valerii Borodaev, elected in March 1994
The oblast is located in a Caspian lowland at the mouth of the Volga River. It shares borders with Volgograd Oblast, Kalmykiya, and Kazakstan. Astrakhan Kingdom was conquered by Ivan the Terrible and integrated into the Russian State in 1556. It then began its rapid development as an industrial and trade center. The region's economy peaked during the first decade of the 20th century due to the construction of the Zakaspiiskaya Railroad and the development of the Baku oil fields.
During Soviet times, the regional economy was mostly dominated by fishing and the fish processing industry, shipbuilding, and freight handling. Now, due to environmental problems, the fishing industry is in decline and the regional administration is attempting to reorient the oblast economy toward the extraction of raw materials, in particular oil, gas, and sulfur. The oblast boasts favorable conditions for foreign investment.