Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

216 Elena Denezhkina and Adrian CampbellVorobyev, premier of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Administration, and the governor’sPR team, led by Alexander Levin. The governor’s team reportedlyregarded the strategic plan as non-political 35 and moreover were hostile toOsintsev, preferring to back city duma opposition deputy Jan Gabinsky astheir candidate for mayor. 36The definitive end to the dispute over the strategy came on 10 June (thelast day before the start of the campaign for the gubernatorial election inSeptember), after weeks of behind-the-scenes diplomacy (involving discussionswith each deputy in turn) by the Duma Chair Yakov Silin, a quorateCity Duma convened to debate the strategy.At the end of a four-hour debate the final vote was fifteen in favour, fouragainst and four abstentions. 37 The hard core of the OPS Uralmash groupcontinued to oppose the plan (in line with the Governor’s position), althoughsome of their allies changed sides and supported the strategy. The four ‘interregionalgroup’ deputies abstained, thereby confirming that Yuri Osintsev,whilst not supporting the strategy, would no longer oppose it and that thestrategy would not be a major theme in the mayoral election campaign inDecember.In the event, both the gubernatorial and mayoral elections were dominatedby a quite different issue, that of organized crime. Before reviewing itsrole in the elections of 2003 it is necessary to consider the changing role oforganized crime in Sverdlovsk Region over the previous decade.The rise of OPS ‘Uralmash’In Sverdlovsk Region in the early 1990s criminal gangs could be divided intothose that were ethnically Russian (‘Uralmash’, the ‘Central’ gang, the‘Blues’, the ‘Khimmash’ and the ‘Afghans’ 38 ), and those that were based onminority ethnicities (Georgians, Chechens, Azeris, Armenians, Tadzhiks andothers). The mid-1990s saw a period of violent gang warfare in whichUralmash fought and won a battle for supremacy first against the otherRussian gangs in Ekaterinburg and then against the ethnic minority gangs.The battle followed a pattern that was being repeated in other large cities inRussia where, as described by Volkov, 39 the traditional collectivist gangs weresidelined by market-oriented ‘violent entrepreneurs’ of which Uralmash werean influential prototype. According the security service data, by 1998 OPGUralmash had established 200 companies, including 12 banks, and wereshareholders in a further 90 companies. 40 Up to 30 per cent of the organization’sprofits were reinvested in production in the region and also into agrowing number of social initiatives. These were geared to improving thegang’s image sufficiently to enable them to enter the political arena, 41 inalliance with leading regional political forces. 42In 1999 Alexander Khabarov, now the lead figure in OPS Uralmash,changed the name of the organization from Organized Crime SocietyUralmash to ‘Social and Political Union’ Uralmash (the Russian acronym