Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

9 The struggle for power in the UralsElena Denezhkina and Adrian CampbellIntroductionThe aim of this chapter is to analyse the evolution of the conflict between theGovernor of Sverdlovsk Oblast (region) and the Mayor of the regionalcapital, Ekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk) over the period from the early1990s up to 2007. The chapter draws on research which was conducted overa long period and through different means. Initial visits were made in 1993–5to analyse the development of federal–regional and regional–local relations.There followed a period of intense participant observation in 2000–3 duringwhich the authors were directly involved in the development and implementationof a strategic plan for the city of Ekaterinburg 1 (which for a briefperiod in the spring of 2003 was the main focus of political conflict), followedby documentary research of local media and a follow-up visit in 2007.Due to the nature of the subject matter and the fact that most of thoseinvolved are still in post in what remains a highly sensitive political environment,we have made relatively little use of direct quotation from interviewsor conversations, but have rather let the insight from these inform ourreading of printed sources.Sverdovsk Region and EkaterinburgStrategically situated on the Europe–Asia boundary, and with a populationof 4.6 million, Sverdlovsk is one of the most populous of Russia’s subjects ofthe Federation. The pattern of industrial development has meant that, afterMoscow, St Petersburg and Moscow Region, Sverdlovsk is the most urbanizedof Russia’s Regions (over 4m urban inhabitants), the majority of thepopulation living either in Ekaterinburg (1.3m) or in the belt of industrialtowns which surrounds Ekaterinburg in the south of the region. 3 The concentrationof defence high technology research and development facilitiesmeant that Ekaterinburg (a closed city until 1992) possesses a high concentrationof what was in soviet times termed the ‘scientific technical intelligentsia’.As a result the city became a centre of progressive politics, andclosely associated with Boris Yeltsin who was Party First Secretary for the