Speaker Profile

Boris Nemtsov

Leader The Russian Democratic Opposition

Boris Nemtsov is a leader of the Russian democratic opposition and a former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. He was born in Sochi, graduated from Gorky State University, and received his Ph.D. in physics. In 1990, Nemtsov was elected to Parliament as a candidate of the anticommunist “Democratic Russia” movement. Between 1991 and 1997, he served as Governor of Nizhny Novgorod region, earning the reputation of a successful free market reformer. He was re-elected as Governor in 1995 with 58 per cent of the vote. In 1997, President Boris Yeltsin appointed Nemtsov as First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, a post he occupied until 1998 (in 1997 simultaneously serving as Oil and Energy Minister). In 1999, Nemtsov became one of the leaders of the “Union of Rightist Forces” coalition and was again elected to Parliament. He served as Deputy Speaker in 2000 and as leader of the “Union of Rightist Forces” from 2000 to 2004. In 2004, he participated in Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution”, and became an advisor to President Viktor Yushchenko (2005-2006). In 2008, Boris Nemtsov co-founded “Solidarity”, a new Russian pro-democracy opposition movement, whose other leaders include Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Bukovsky. He is currently a member of the bureau of “Solidarity”, and the co-chairman (along with Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Ryzhkov) of the Popular Freedom Party, established in 2010. Boris Nemtsov was one of the organizers of the December 2011 pro-democracy rallies in Moscow, which attracted more than 100,000 people.

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