On November 5, 45-year-old Vitaly Korolyov, a deputy head of Russia’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, was appointed acting head of the Tver region. The region had spent 37 days without a governor after Igor Rudenya was moved to the post of presidential envoy to the Northwestern Federal District; regional finance minister Marina Podtikhova had been serving as acting chief.
Political analyst Ivan Preobrazhensky told Novaya Gazeta Europe that reports about difficulties finding a candidate appear credible: in his view, the governor’s post in Russia has long lost real independence and increasingly brings criminal risks for a leader’s team after resignation. He recalled that Sakhalin searched for a new governor for 71 days in 2018, while Belgorod region went 57 days without one in 2020.
Korolyov has spent the last twenty years in the anti-monopoly service: he headed the electricity oversight department and became a deputy chief of FAS in 2015. His portfolio included the fuel and energy sector and public utilities. He holds three university degrees, including in law and economics, and a candidate degree in economics. Preobrazhensky describes him as a manager with broad political ties and suggests the appointment may be linked to control over an energy system important to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Sources in the Tver region say little is yet known locally about the new appointee, but consider it significant that he does not come from a military background. At the same time, they stress that the region has once again received a Moscow outsider rather than a local politician. According to journalist Anastasia and activist Alexey, Korolyov inherits a territory suffering from population outflow, shortages of doctors and teachers, worn-out utility networks, and repeated housing and power failures.
Residents cited heating-season breakdowns, gas debt, unfinished construction projects and a shortage of administrators among the most acute problems. The region has more than thirty municipalities, and roughly half lack full-time heads. Sources mentioned the stalled hospital in Bezhetsk, the regional children’s hospital, a museum in Kalyazin and the Western Bridge among delayed projects. The new acting chief has already said that the high-speed rail project will be one of his priorities, despite earlier objections from local activists to the planned route.
Former governor Igor Rudenya, who led the region for ten years, was assessed mostly in sharply negative terms by the publication’s sources. They blame him for centralizing power, weakening local self-government, driving officials away and failing in the social sphere, while acknowledging that some roads improved under him and construction of a new bridge in Tver finally began. Their overall conclusion is that the new acting head will have to deal with a large backlog of problems in a region of about 1.2 million people.