28 Former Russian Governors Now Living Abroad, Highlighting Russia’s Failure to Develop System in which They Remain Useful at Home

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 5 – KPRF Duma deputy Nikolay Kolomeytsev says that according to his data, 28 former governors of Russian federal subjects now live abroad. He suggests that they had access to state secrets and thus should be prevented from moving to another country without permission from the Kremlin.

            But Pavel Sklyanchuk, a political scientist with the Club of the Regions, says that this exodus if confirmed calls attention to a larger problem that other countries have addressed but that Russia has not: providing opportunities for those who lose political positions to work elsewhere inside the country (club-rf.ru/opinions/2945).

            In Putin’s Russia, some governors rise to positions in Moscow; but those who are ousted instead have a difficult future, the scholar says. Many of those cast aside decide to go abroad because they have the means to do so, because their children want to continue to study abroad, and because they fear for their personal security if they remain in Russia.

            “Personally,” Sklyanchuk says, “it seems to me that the problem with these former officials is that in our political culture we do not have the practice of having former government officials restart their careers elsewhere. Instead, if someone loses power, he in fact becomes a nobody and it breaks him.”

            In many other countries, he continues, society has learned “to work with this and these people find positions for themselves not only in business but in teaching, research and the development of creative startups.” Russians need to come up with something similar to avoid losing such talents.