Aman Tuleyev

Amangeldy Gumirovich "Aman" Tuleyev (Амангельды (Аман) Гумирович Тулеев, Амангелді Молдағазыұлы Төлеев, Amangeldı Moldağazyūly Töleev; 13 May 1944 – 20 November 2023) was a Russian statesman.

In 1964, he graduated from 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 a stationmaster 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, 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 Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from Kuzbas.

In March 1990, Tuleyev was elected chairman of the Kemerovo Regional Soviet.

Through most of the 1990s, he was a prominent politician of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

Tuleyev ran for President of Russia in 1991, 1996 (withdrawing during the campaign) and 2000, coming fourth in both 1991 and 2000.

Tuleyev was born to a Kazakh father and a half-Tatar half-Bashkir mother in Krasnovodsk, Turkmen SSR, USSR.

Early at his career Tuleyev worked as a railway engineer.

In August 1991, he supported the GKChP coup attempt.

Tuleyev was a presidential candidate in the 1991 Russian presidential election.

His running mate was Viktor Bocharov.

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 the 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 voted Chairman of the Council of People's Deputies of Kemerovo.

From August 1996 to June 1997, he was a Russian minister responsible for relations with the CIS in Viktor Chernomyrdin's Second Cabinet.

In this capacity, he proposed plans for a union between Russia and Belarus.

He served as governor of Kemerovo Oblast from 1997 to 2018 and was the chairman of the Council of People's Deputies of the Kemerovo Oblast briefly in 2018.

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.

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

In 2000, he was expelled from the nationalist-communist umbrella organization called Popular-Patriotic Union.

In 2000, Viktor Tikhonov, the brother of the former Olympic champion in biathlon, and former governor candidate of Moscow Oblast, 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 led the electoral list of United Russia in Kuzbass.

In November 2005, he formally joined the United Russia, one of the last regional governors to do so.

The same year, Vladimir Putin extended Tuleyev's term as governor to 2010.

In 2015, Tuleyev was re-elected.

Tuleyev was criticised for creating a near-to-authoritarian regime in Kemerovo Oblast.

Tuleyev resigned from his position as governor after a devastating mall fire in Kemerovo.

Previously it was thought that he would resign due to health problems in May 2018, following his 74th birthday.

In April 2018, Tuleyev became the chairman of the Council of People's Deputies (legislative assembly) of Kemerovo oblast.