Yurii Goryachev won election as governor in December 1996, receiving over 42% of the vote. He was backed by Grigorii Yavlinskii?s Yabloko movement and the local branch of Our Home Is Russia (NDR), even though the NDR?s national leadership refused to support him. The Communist Party did not support him either, opting for another candidate, despite his close ties to it.
Goryachev was born in 1938. At the age of 23, he graduated from Ulyanovsk Agricultural Institute. After serving in the army, he was recruited for Komsomol and party work. By 1965, he was promoted to the rank of Ulyanovsk Komsomol first secretary and in 1973 became first secretary of the Ulyanovsk district organization of the Communist Party. In 1978, he was elected chairman of the oblast executive committee, simultaneously being a member of the oblast CPSU committee.
In March 1990, Goryachev was elected to a seat in the Russian Federation parliament. He also won a spot in the oblast legislature, where he soon became chairman, and first secretary of the obkom. In June that year, he was a delegate at the 28th Communist Party Congress, which elected him to the CPSU Central Committee.
During the August 1991 coup attempt, he remained neutral. After that, the oblast council proposed that Yeltsin appoint him governor, but the president rejected that idea. The council opposed Yeltsin's choice and made it almost impossible for him to accomplish anything. In January next year, Yeltsin replaced the old governor with Goryachev.
A year later, Yeltsin offered Goryachev the post of deputy prime minister for agriculture, but Goryachev declined the offer. In December that year, with the support of the Communist Party, he was elected to the Federation Council, the upper house of the new Russian parliament.
Chairman of the Legislative Assembly -- Sergei Ryabukhin, elected in December 1995
Ulyanovsk Oblast is located in the basin of the Volga River about 900 km from Moscow. It shares borders with Samara, Saratov, and Penza oblasts, and the republics of Mordoviya, Chuvashiya and Tatarstan. The oblast has a considerable non-Russian population, including 11.4% Tatars, 8.3% Chuvash, and 4.4% Mordvins.
Ulyanovsk, which bore the name Simbirsk until 1924, was founded in 1648 as a military fortress. In 1796 it became the center of Simbirsk Guberniya, an administrative unit in Czarist Russia. Simbirsk is the home town of Vladimir Lenin (Ulyanov).
In the last century, the city became one of the country?s trade centers. Today, the region has a highly developed machine building industry, which manufacturers cars, planes, and agricultural and chemical equipment. There is also a strong light and food industries. Regional agriculture specializes in cultivating grain, potatoes, vegetables, sugar-beets, and sunflowers.
1995 Population (est.): 1,492,300 (1.01% of Russian total)
Industrial production as percentage of all Russian production (Jan.-Aug. 1995): 0.98%
Agricultural production as percentage of all Russian production (1994): 1.19%
Average personal income index in July 1995: 59 (Russia as a whole = 100) Price basket index in July 1995: 66 (Russia = 100)
Average back wages owed per person (September 1995): 53,900 rubles (Russian average = 37,100)
Urban population: 72.6% (Russia overall: 73.0%)
Student population (1993): 128 per 10,000 (Russia overall: 171/10,000);
Pensioner population (1994): 23.52%
Percent of population with higher education (1989 census): 8.9% (Russia overall: 11.3%)
Percent of population working in (1993): Industry: 34.9% (Russian average: 29.9%); Agriculture: 16.1% (12.8%); Trade: 7.9% (9.1%); Culture: 12.2% (13. 6%); Management: 2.0% (2.3%)
Number of telephones per 100 families (1993): in cities : 28.5 (Russian average: 41.5); in villages: 12.9 (17.2)
According to a 1995 survey by Bank Austria, the oblast is ranked 30th among Russia's 89 regions in terms of investment climate.
Sources: Rossiiskie regiony nakanune vyborov-95 [Russian regions on the eve of 1995 elections], Moscow: Yuridicheskaya Literatura, 1995; Itogi vyborov 17 dekabrya 1995 goda po regionam [Results of the 17 December 1995 elections, regional breakdown], Moscow: Panorama, 1996; Vybory deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy 1995 [State Duma elections 1995], Moscow: Central Electoral Commission, 1996; Gubernatory Rossii [Governors of Russia], Moscow: AO Solid, 1996; S.A. Nagaev and A. Woergoetter: Regional Risk Rating in Russia, Vienna: Bank Austria, 1995.