Aman Tuleyev

Aman (Amangeldy) Gumirovich Tuleyev ( _ru. Аман Гумирович Тулеев, Kazakh: Амангелді Молдағазыұлы Төлеев) is the governor of Kemerovo Oblast. He ran for President of Russia in 1991, 1996 (withdrawing during the campaign) and 2000, both times coming fourth. Tuleyev was born of Kazakh father and Tatar mother in Krasnovodsk, Turkmenistan, on 1944-05-13.

Career in the Soviet Union

Tuleyev was a railway engineer. In 1964, he finished his Higher Education at the Tikhoretsky Railway Technical College with distinction. He then moved to Siberia, to be a railway clerk at the small railway settlement of Mundybash in the Kemerovo area, where he became Station chief in 1969. In 1973, he graduated from the Novosibirsk Institute of Engineers as a railway engineer specialized in communication. From 1973 to 1978 he was Railway Station chief in the town of Mezhdurechensk. From 1978 to 1985 he worked at Novokuznetsk Railway Station, first as an assistant, and then as the chief of the Novokuznetsk branch of the Kemerovo Railway. In 1985, A.G.Tuleyev was appointed head of the Department of Transport and Communication in Kemerovo and in 1989 he became Head of the Kemerovo Railway System.

In 1990, he switched to politics and was elected to the Parliament of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from Kuzbas. In March 1990, Tuleyev was elected Chairman of the Kemerovo Regional Soviet.

Political career in Russia

Through most of the 1990s, he was a prominent member of the Communist Party of Russia. In January 1992, Tuleyev offered his resignation from the Post of Chairman of the Kemerovo Oblast Regional Council in protest against the policies of Yegor Gaidar, but the deputies voted to refuse his resignation.

In October 1993, Tuleyev took the side of Parliament against Boris Yeltsin. After the events of that month, the Kemerovo regional Soviet of People's Deputies was disbanded, like many other regional branches of government in Siberia and elsewhere in Russia. Tuleyev however, decided to remain active in politics, and for this purpose, he created a new political movement in the Kuzbas, called "People's power. Tuleyev Block.". In 1993 Tuleyev got the majority of the votes in Kuzbas and was elected to the new Russian Parliament. A year later, he was again voted Chairman of the local Parliament.

From August 1996 to June 1997 he was a Russian minister responsible for relations with the CIS. In this capacity, he proposed plans for a union between Russia and Belarus.

In July 1999, it was rumoured that he had accepted baptism in the Russian Orthodox Church. Although he denied being religious at all and claimed that an earlier visit to Mecca was not a pilgrimage, the Islamic Shura of Chechnya, under Sharia law, condemned him to death for apostasy. [ [http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/9907c.html] "Theologians from Chechnya and Dagestan, a neighbouring mainly Moslem region of Russia, called at an assembly in Grozny for Tuleyev's death, Interfax said. They urged all Moslems to carry out the sentence at the first possible opportunity."]

In March 2000 as a candidate he took part in the Russian presidential elections.

In 2000, Viktor Tikhonov, the brother of the former Olympic champion in biathlon, and former governor candidate of Moscow region, Alexander Tikhonov, was charged with plotting Tuleyev's assassination and sentenced to 4 years in prison. The person who is claimed to have ordered the assassination, Mikhail Zhivilo (who has since received political asylum in France), had had a business dispute with a Tuleyev ally. In the same year, Tuleyev received his doctorate.

In December 2003, he finally broke with the communist party, and supported Putin's regional party. In November 2005, he joined United Russia, one of the last regional governors to do so.

Tuleyev has been criticised for creating near-to-authoritarian regime in Kemerovo Oblast. [ [http://old.flb.ru/material.phtml?id=18696 Тулеев - кузбасский диктатор] ru icon]

Private life

His hobbies include mushroom gathering, langlaufing, driving a snowmobile and taking Russian baths. His mother, Munira Fayzovna Vlasova (maiden name Nasyrova) died in 2001, while his father, Moldagazy Kaldybaevich Tuleyev, died in the war, before he was born. He was brought up by his "Russian" stepfather, Innokenty Ivanovich Vlasov. Aman is married to Elvira Fedorovna Tuleyeva. They have a son, Dmitry, who lives in Novosibirsk, and is a Manager of the Federal Highways, and a grandson called Andrey who was born in 1999.

References

External links

* [http://www.panorama.ru/works/oe/tuleyeve.html Tuleyev's presentation as a Presidential candidate in 1996]
* [http://www.agentura.ru/english/timeline/2000/tuleev/ Attempt on his life]
* [http://sptimesrussia.com/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=12425 Arrest warrant issued on Mikhail Zhivilo]
* [http://russiaprofile.org/resources/whoiswho/alphabet/t/Tuleyev.wbp Russiaprofile.org: biografie]
* [http://www.mediakuzbass.ru/tuleev/ Biography]