Why did the governor of Krasnoyarsk leave
One of Russia’s oldest governors (if not the oldest) has resigned. Alexander Uss ruled the Krasnoyarsk Territory for 5.5 years.
Her biography is a vivid example of the fact that everything must be done in a timely manner. Alexander Uss was born in 1954 in the family of a chairman of a collective farm, a hero of socialist labor. A boy from such a family, of course, received a higher education – he entered university, law school, and chose a scientific career for himself. It was common for the Soviet nomenklatura for children to enter the academic field.
Putin and Uss at a meeting on the environmental situation in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Photo: kremlin.ru Uss showed himself well, suffice it to say that in Soviet times he got a long internship in Germany – from Siberia. In 1993, already in the new Russia, he was invited to a high post in the administration, where he headed the legal department, and in the same year he became a member of the Federation Council, elected from Evenkia ( several thousand voters in total). In other words, Uss appeared on the federal political scene almost thirty years ago. The administration needed a smart lawyer to represent its interests. And then the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory was another scientist – professor of economics Valery Zubov.
In January 1998, Uss became the Speaker of the Krasnoyarsk Legislative Assembly – the region headed a tandem of two professors. But the idea failed – a few months later Zubov lost the election to Alexander Lebed. Uss found a common language with the new governor and, by the way, ex officio returned to the Federation Council, playing a peacemaking role in the region against the background of an extravagant general and scandals with Anatoly Bykov.
In 2002, Alexander Lebed dies in a plane crash, and one of the most intense and dramatic gubernatorial campaigns in Russian history begins. Alexander Uss was then already considered one of the most experienced and influential politicians in the region. Therefore, his appointment, supported by Oleg Deripaska, who owned an aluminum plant in Krasnoyarsk, was predictable. But then another clan of non-ferrous metallurgy intervened – the Norilsk clan, headed by Potanin, he appointed the governor of Taimyr, Alexander Khloponin. The Communist Party presented its strong candidate, Sergei Glazyev, and the mayor of Krasnoyarsk, Pyotr Pimashkov, joined the fight.
In a fierce battle, Uss (with first place) and Khloponin (2.5% behind) qualified for the second round. As a result, the “Varangian” won, and Uss remained the speaker – for another fifteen years. He worked well with Khloponin and with subsequent governors. It seemed that his political career would end at the head of ZAKS. But in 2017, the president proposed as governor Alexander Uss, who was then already 63 years old, an atypical age for candidates of the new generation. I don’t know what the Kremlin was guided by, maybe he was afraid of creating conflicts in a key region of the country by the proposal of a young person from outside, maybe he thought that Uss was an excellent mediator and diplomat, and after so many foreigners, the region must be given “one of its own”.
Either way, the governorship came to Uss when he was no longer at his best. Obviously, he “had been sick” with this idea and had cooled off. He was to become its boss in 2002, when he was relatively young and full of ambitions. And in 2017 he was already a veteran who missed his time. But Uss agreed.
Vladimir Putin as Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Uss. Photo: kremlin.ru He did not win any special laurels in this position. There were no obvious failures, but no achievements either. In 2020, he suffered a flat tire when, during an environmental disaster in Norilsk, he reacted slowly to a fuel leak, earning him a public rebuke from the president – a rare occurrence for a governor. I must say that Vladimir Putin is very sensitive to everything related to the environment, to overcoming natural disasters and accidents. On this, in 2019, the neighbor of Uss, the governor of the Irkutsk region, Sergey Levchenko, burned.
So there is nothing surprising in Uss leaving, rather, it is strange that he was even able to work for so long, clearly not matching the requirements in terms of age and style of work. The story of his son’s detention in Italy and subsequent escape could only delay his father’s resignation.
Uss was replaced in Krasnoyarsk by the typical Putin governor of the new project, Mikhail Kotyukov. He is 22 years younger than him, almost all his life in the civil service, and had a brilliant career – at 30, deputy governor of finance in Krasnoyarsk (Kotyukov – local), at 35 – deputy minister of finances of the Russian Federation, headed the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations for five years, a little less For two years he was Minister of Science and Higher Education, and in 2020 he returned to the Ministry of Finance as a deputy.
Next, the head of FASO Mikhail Kotyukov. Photo: wikimedia.org So, despite his relative youth, he has a lot of experience, connections in Moscow too, he has a fresh look at the problems of Krasnoyarsk, since he has not lived there for 13 years, but at the same time he does not need to familiarize himself with the region. It should be noted that in modern Russia, the Krasnoyarsk Territory acts as a forge of personnel, the current governors of the Chelyabinsk region and the Altai Territory, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, came out of it.
Kotyukov is just at the age when Uss first ran for governor, he’s full of strength and energy, and he has something to fight for. In this sense, he is an ideal figure from the Kremlin’s point of view. But this is all personal information. Let’s see how it works in reality, because the governor’s job is very different from the ministerial one. Here, you have to be a politician, know how to express yourself and take into account the many interests of the various influence groups.
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