Valentina Matviyenko

Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko (born 7 April 1949) is a Russian politician and diplomat serving as a Senator from Saint Petersburg and the Chairwoman of the Federation Council since 2011.

In 1972, Matviyenko graduated from Leningrad Institute of Chemistry and Pharmaceutics, where she met her husband, Vladimir Vasilyevich Matviyenko.

They had a son, Sergey, in 1973.

Born in the Ukrainian SSR, Matviyenko began her political career in the 1980s in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), and was the First Secretary of the Krasnogvardeysky District Communist Party of the city from 1984 to 1986.

Matviyenko held various leadership positions within the Komsomol organization until 1984.

In 1984–1986, she was the First Secretary of the Krasnogvardeysky District Committee of the Party.

Matviyenko was elected as a people's deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and headed the committee on women, family and children affairs.

Valentina Matviyenko graduated from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Academy in 1985 and became a party official in Leningrad's municipal government.

In the 1990s, Matviyenko served as the Russian Ambassador to Malta (1991–1995), and to Greece (1997–1998).

Between 1991 and 1998, Matviyenko served in the diplomatic service and held diplomatic positions including posts of Russian ambassador to Malta (1991–1995) and Greece (1997–1998).

From 1998 to 2003, Matviyenko was Deputy Prime Minister for Welfare, and briefly the Presidential Envoy to the Northwestern Federal District in 2003.

By that time, Matviyenko was firmly allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an alliance which secured her a victory in the gubernatorial elections in Saint Petersburg, Putin's native city.

Matviyenko became the first female leader of Saint Petersburg.

Since the start of Matviyenko's service as governor, a significant share of taxation money was transferred from the federal budget to the local budget, and along with the booming economy and improving investment climate the standard of living significantly increased in the city, making income levels much closer to Moscow, and far above most other Russian federal subjects.

On 24 September 1998, Matviyenko was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Russia for Welfare, and occupied this position until 2003.

In June 1999 she worked on the board of directors of the ORT TV channel.

On 3 February 2000, she was nominated for the presidency, but refused to contest.

On 29 February 2000, she announced that she was considering running in the St. Petersburg governor elections to be held on 14 May, and on 10 March announced that she was indeed launching her campaign.

However, on 4 April she claimed that Vladimir Putin had asked her to withdraw from the elections, and she did so on 5 April.

Previously she was Governor of Saint Petersburg from 2003 to 2011.

On 11 March 2003, she left the Deputy PM position and was appointed presidential envoy to the Northwestern Federal District by Vladimir Putin.

On 24 June 2003, after Saint Petersburg governor Vladimir Yakovlev resigned ahead of schedule, Matviyenko announced that she was ready to run for governor.

Her nomination was supported by the United Russia political party and President Vladimir Putin.

Putin publicly supported her candidacy on 2 September in a meeting that was broadcast by two state-owned TV stations.

Previously, at the end of June, the new management of local channel St. Petersburg Television shut down a range of analytical programmes on local politics, which was thought to be one of the factors in elections outcome.

In the first round of elections held on 21 September 2003, Matviyenko came first with 48.61% of the vote, followed by Anna Markova, a former member of Yakovlev's staff, with 15.89%.

10.97 percent of the electorate voted against all nine nominees.

Turnout was low at just 29%.

On 5 October 2003, Matviyenko won the second round with 63 percent (vs. 24% for Anna Markova) and was elected governor of Saint Petersburg, the head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration.

The profile of Saint Petersburg in Russian politics has risen, marked by the transfer of the Constitutional Court of Russia from Moscow in 2008.

Matviyenko developed a large number of megaprojects in housing and infrastructure, such as the construction of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road, including the Big Obukhovsky Bridge (the only non-draw bridge over the Neva River in the city), completion of the Saint Petersburg Dam aimed to put an end to the infamous Saint Petersburg floods, launching Line 5 of Saint Petersburg Metro, and starting land reclamation in the Neva Bay for the new Marine Facade of the city (the largest European waterfront development project) containing the Passenger Port of St. Petersburg.

Several major auto-producing companies were drawn to Saint Petersburg or its vicinity, including Toyota, General Motors, Nissan, Hyundai Motor, Suzuki, Magna International, Scania, and MAN SE (all having plants in the Shushary industrial zone), thus turning the city into an important center of automotive industry in Russia, specializing in foreign brands.

Another major point of criticism was Matviyenko's handling of the city's snow removal problems during the unusually cold and snowy winters of 2009–10 and 2010–11.

Another development of Matviyenko's governorship was tourism; by 2010 the number of tourists in Saint Petersburg doubled and reached 5.2 million, which placed the city among the top five tourist centers in Europe.

Some actions and practices of Governor Matviyenko have drawn significant criticisms from the Saint Petersburg public, the media, and opposition groups.

In particular, new construction in already heavily built-up areas and several building projects were deemed to conflict with the classical architecture of the city, where the entire centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Some projects eventually were cancelled or modified, such as the controversial design of a 400-metre-tall Okhta Center skyscraper, planned to be built adjacent to the historical center of the city; however, after a public campaign and the personal involvement of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, it was relocated from Okhta to the Lakhta suburb.

On 22 August 2011, soon after completion of the Saint Petersburg Dam, Matviyenko resigned from office.

As a member of the ruling United Russia Party, on 21 September 2011, Matviyenko was elected as Chairwoman of the Federation Council, the country's third-highest elected office.

Valentina Tyutina was born in Shepetivka in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast of Western Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union.