Boris Nemtsov (Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov, Борис Ефимович Немцов; 9 October 1959 – 27 February 2015) was a Russian physicist and politician who served as the first post-Soviet governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast from 1991 to 1997. During his governorship Western correspondents called the region Russia's "free market showcase" and a "reform laboratory": the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, began its privatisation work in Russia there, and the models tested in Nizhny Novgorod were later copied across the country.[25][26] Nemtsov went on to become First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in 1997 and later one of the leaders of the liberal opposition. He was shot dead on a bridge beside the Moscow Kremlin on 27 February 2015.[1][3]

Nizhny Novgorod is one of Russia's largest cities. It stands where the Oka flows into the Volga, about 400 km (250 miles) east of Moscow. In Soviet times the city was called Gorky and, because of its many defence plants, was sealed off from the outside world; Nemtsov, who grew up there, is remembered locally as the governor under whom it opened to foreigners and foreign investment.[2][23][24]

A Russian reformer known abroad

For foreign observers of the 1990s Nemtsov personified the young generation of Russian reformers. In 1993 The Christian Science Monitor described the 34-year-old governor as "reform's most important champion" in a region that was "moving faster and farther than any other Russian area to privatize state-owned enterprises and unleash entrepreneurial potential".[25] In March 1997 President Boris Yeltsin brought him to Moscow as First Deputy Prime Minister; Nemtsov was widely seen as Yeltsin's political heir, and according to a biography published by the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) he was presented in that role in his dealings with the United States authorities.[1][30]

After leaving the government in 1998 Nemtsov led the Union of Right Forces, served as a deputy speaker of the State Duma and, in 2005–2006, as an adviser to the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko; Ukraine awarded him the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise.[1][5] In the 2000s and 2010s he was one of the leaders of the opposition to President Vladimir Putin.[30] His murder in 2015 was followed by calls from the European Union and the United States for an impartial and transparent investigation, and several European politicians were refused Russian visas to attend his funeral.[30] Squares and streets in front of Russian embassies in several foreign capitals now bear his name (see Memory).

Gorky: physicist and activist

Nemtsov was born on 9 October 1959 in Sochi, on the Black Sea coast, and from the age of eight lived in Gorky with his mother, a paediatrician. He graduated with a gold medal from School No. 11 in the Priokski District of the city.[1][2][30] In 1976–1981 he studied at the Faculty of Radiophysics of Gorky State University, specialising in radiophysics.[1]

He then worked at research institutes in Gorky, among them the Radiophysical Research Institute (NIRFI), on problems of plasma physics, acoustics and hydrodynamics. In 1985 he defended a Candidate of Sciences thesis — the Russian equivalent of a PhD — in physics and mathematics. He was the author of more than 60 scientific papers and of several inventions, among them what his biographers describe as an acoustic laser.[5][30]

He is a truly talented physicist; he has many good papers.

— Academician Vitaly Ginzburg, Nobel Prize in Physics 2003, who founded the radio wave propagation chair at the Faculty of Radiophysics where Nemtsov studied[5][33]

Nemtsov came into public life after the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, when, encouraged by his mother, he helped to launch a citizens' campaign against the construction of the Gorky nuclear district-heating plant; the plant never went into operation.[2][30] In 1989 he tried to stand for the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR as the candidate of the regional society "For Nuclear Safety", but the district electoral commission refused to register him.[1][2] A year later he was elected a People's Deputy of the RSFSR — the Russian republic within the Soviet Union — for the Gorky national-territorial constituency, and met Boris Yeltsin. During the Russian presidential election of 1991 Nemtsov was Yeltsin's authorised representative in the region.[1][2]

Governor of Nizhny Novgorod (1991–1997)

After the failed coup of August 1991 Yeltsin made Nemtsov his presidential representative in the Nizhny Novgorod region, and on 30 November 1991 appointed him head of the regional administration. He was 32 years old.[1][30] Nemtsov is credited with the idea of calling the heads of Russia's regions governors; his own post received the new title within a month of his appointment.[2] He had also supported, while still a deputy, the return of the city's historical name, Nizhny Novgorod, in place of Gorky.[2]

The governor's team ran a series of regional programmes with memorable names: "Roads and Churches", "Gifted Children", the "People's Telephone", which helped many families get a home telephone line, "Metre by Metre", a housing programme for servicemen, and "ZeRNO" (Russian for "grain", an acronym of "Land Reform of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast").[2][5] Some 5,000 km of roads were built in the region during his time in office. More than 150 Orthodox churches and monasteries were built or restored, together with dozens of Old Believer sketes and several mosques; for this the Russian Orthodox Church awarded Nemtsov the Order of the Holy Right-Believing Prince Daniel of Moscow, first class.[2][5]

The region issued its own bonds, popularly called nemtsovki ("Nemtsov notes"), which substantially replenished the regional budget. In 1993 the city's Strigino airport received international status, and in 1996 the region ranked third in Russia by the volume of investment it attracted.[2][5] In March 1995 tax-privileged production zones were set up at three Nizhny Novgorod defence plants undergoing conversion to civilian work — the Petrovsky plant, the Lazur plant in Sormovo and the Salyut research and production enterprise; more than 40 companies joined them, investing about 53 billion roubles.[5]

The metro

Two stations of the Nizhny Novgorod Metro, Kanavinskaya and Burnakovskaya, opened in December 1993, during Nemtsov's governorship.[17] A story popular with advocates of "strong rule" holds that metro construction in the city stopped in the late 1980s because of a picket organised by Nemtsov. It leaves out objective factors of the time, such as the transfer of construction machinery to the clean-up after the Chernobyl disaster and the general shortage of resources of the period.

Election

In December 1995 Nemtsov was elected governor by popular vote, winning, according to CIDOB, more than 60 per cent of the votes; as governor he sat in the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament.[1][30]

A million signatures against the Chechen war

In January 1996, during the First Chechen War, Nemtsov organised a region-wide collection of signatures for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. About one million signatures were gathered, and on 29 January 1996 he handed them to President Yeltsin.[5][31]

Nemtsov left the region in March 1997, when Yeltsin appointed him First Deputy Prime Minister.[1]

Nizhny Novgorod and the world

The IFC privatisation programme

In late January 1992, according to Anthony Doran, the IFC's chief for operations in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the corporation chose Nizhny Novgorod for its privatisation project in Russia. As The Christian Science Monitor reported, the city was selected because the IFC felt it had "the strong, reform-minded leaders needed to make privatization work", and because it was a typical Russian city with which officials elsewhere could identify. IFC experts drew up the scheme in six weeks, using their experience of privatisation in Eastern Europe.[23]

The method chosen was the public auction of small state-owned shops. Anyone could bid, although the rules slightly favoured employee collectives wishing to buy out their shop; no buyer could take more than five shops, and foreigners were not allowed to take part. The programme aimed to sell 2,000 shops in six months. At one of the first auctions, in April 1992, attended by Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, 21 shops were sold in an hour and a half for 46.5 million roubles, nine of them to employee groups. Gaidar called the scheme "a model which could be repeated throughout Russia". Outside the hall several hundred demonstrators, many of them canteen and shop workers afraid of losing their jobs, jeered him with shouts of "Shame!".[23]

On 31 October 1992 the region held, with the IFC, an auction of lorries from the state trucking conglomerate Nizhgorodavtotrans. It was the first time that the privatisation vouchers just issued to every Russian citizen were used to buy state property. Fifty-nine of the sixty lorries were sold, mostly to young small-scale entrepreneurs; Nemtsov called the sale "the beginning of a new era of privatization — popular privatization".[24] Nemtsov's invitation to the auction, addressed to President Yeltsin, is preserved in the Yeltsin Center archive.[27]

According to the IFC, the models it developed "in close partnership with the reform-minded leadership of the Nizhny Novgorod province" were replicated across Russia: by June 1994, 72 per cent of all small businesses available for privatisation had been sold by this method.[26] Nizhny Novgorod Oblast was also among the first regions to sell agricultural land; the IFC's land privatisation model was adopted by the Russian government as a national programme in April 1994.[25][26]

A showcase for foreign visitors

The reforms made Nizhny Novgorod a stop for foreign politicians, investors and advisers. In 1993 the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited the city. Archive newsreel footage shows her leaving the regional administration building with Nemtsov and walking down the street with him, tasting cheese in a grocery shop together with her husband Denis, visiting a crafts shop, an exhibition of local goods, the history museum and a food factory, where she was given a book about Nizhny Novgorod.[28][5]

In the same year The Christian Science Monitor called the region "Russia's free market showcase" and wrote that "tradition, liberal leadership, and stability" had made Nizhny Novgorod "a reform laboratory, attracting lots of outside attention". The paper noted the advice given by the IFC, a regional reform plan drawn up with the economist Grigory Yavlinsky, and the issue of post-communist Russia's first municipal bond, which had raised about 3 billion roubles for the city.[25]

Ties with American cities followed. Michael Sklaroff of Philadelphia recalled meeting Nemtsov in 1992, on what he believed was the governor's first trip to the United States, to discuss investment in the Philadelphia region. With the support of Mayor Ed Rendell a sister-city relationship between Philadelphia and Nizhny Novgorod was established; the papers were completed in Nizhny Novgorod in October 1992.[29]

The Balakhna paper mill and the IFC

The largest foreign financing of the Nemtsov years went to the newsprint mill in Balakhna, a town on the Volga upstream of Nizhny Novgorod, privatised as AO Volga.[34] In March 1995 the IFC arranged a US$150 million financing package for the mill, which it called the largest direct investment in Russia's manufacturing sector and the sector's first major commercial loan syndication. The main foreign partner and manager was HIT, part of the German stationery group Herlitz; the programme was intended to raise output to 520,000 tonnes of newsprint a year, two thirds of it for export, and to close an environmentally damaging sulphite pulp plant, reducing discharges into the Volga.[26]

In Russia the mill's privatisation remained controversial. Nemtsov said he had introduced his adviser Boris Brevnov to Gretchen Wilson, an American employee of the IFC, in 1992; the two married in 1997. The mill was bought for 7 million dollars by the American bank CS First Boston, whose Moscow office was headed by Boris Jordan. Critics in the Russian press alleged that Wilson had privatised the mill with Nemtsov's help at a price many times below its real value, and that the mill was afterwards stripped and run down, with unbearable conditions for its workers; Nemtsov's former adviser Andrei Klimentyev claimed that the mill's annual turnover reached 250 million dollars and that the bank later organised Nemtsov's trips to Davos in Switzerland. In his book Confession of a Rebel Nemtsov called Wilson "a very shrewd woman" who "did a great deal for the Nizhny Novgorod region".[13][14]

Controversies of the governorship

Nemtsov's years in Nizhny Novgorod were also the subject of criminal cases, investigations and bitter local disputes, which the Russian press followed closely.

The Nizhegorodets bank and the Bank of New York

In 1994 the Bank of New York transferred 2 million dollars to the Nizhegorodets bank in the Nizhny Novgorod region; the operation was handled by the American banker of Russian origin Natalya Gurfinkel-Kagalovskaya. The transfer was declared to have been made in error, but Nizhegorodets, which was close to bankruptcy, used the money to pay its creditors.[6] The US Embassy in Russia turned to Nemtsov, who, according to the Prosecutor General's Office, instructed the director of the large state enterprise Nizhpoligraf to take out a 3.5 million dollar loan from a branch of Inkombank against its new administrative building, which, as federal property, could not be privatised. The deal went through with the help of Anatoly Chubais, then head of the State Property Committee.[6]

According to the investigators, 2 million dollars of the loan were transferred to the Bank of New York. The loan was never repaid, and the mortgaged building passed to Inkombank. A criminal case over the unlawful alienation of federal property was opened in early 1998, and investigators questioned Nemtsov.[6] In 1997 Klimentyev stated in court that Nemtsov had first asked him to pay the 2 million dollar debt to the Bank of New York, and turned to Nizhpoligraf only because Klimentyev had no free money.[7] In 2003 Rossiyskaya Gazeta wrote that the building was worth ten times its collateral value and that "Boris Nemtsov's scam may cost the state 30–40 million dollars".

Nemtsov and Klimentyev

According to Kommersant, Nemtsov's campaign for the Federation Council was financed by Andrei Klimentyev, whom Nemtsov had known since the 1980s; Klimentyev spent 100 million roubles on Nemtsov and another candidate. Klimentyev then joined Nemtsov's inner circle as an adviser. Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote that he "was not only for a long time a friend and adviser of Governor Boris Nemtsov, but was in fact the chief Nizhny Novgorod businessman, who largely determined Nemtsov's economic policy".[8]

On 20 January 1994 the Russian Ministry of Finance and the state-owned Oka shipyard in Navashino signed a loan agreement for 30 million dollars.[9] Eighteen million dollars were transferred to the shipyard, with the regional administration as guarantor. In the summer of 1994 Klimentyev bought a 30 per cent stake in the shipyard during its privatisation and in January 1995 joined its board; the regional administration did not monitor the use of the loan, and part of it was spent on other purposes. In early 1995, at Nemtsov's initiative, prosecutors opened a criminal case against Klimentyev, and Nemtsov testified for the prosecution.[10][7] Klimentyev and the shipyard's director Kislyakov were found guilty of misappropriating 2.462 million dollars,[7] but the Supreme Court overturned the verdict.[10] In 1998 Klimentyev was tried again, convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.[10][11] Vladimir Semago, who headed a State Duma commission, held that Nemtsov himself was to blame for the embezzlement.

Klimentyev in turn accused Nemtsov of taking and extorting bribes and called the prosecution Nemtsov's revenge: he claimed that Nemtsov had expected 400,000 dollars from the Bank of New York transfer and 800,000 dollars for helping the shipyard obtain its loan.[7] Nemtsov called these accusations slander. The sociologist Alexander Prudnik of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences wrote that Klimentyev's arrest "may be considered the first experiment in Russia in introducing penitentiary technologies into political and electoral reality".[12]

Nemtsov and Brevnov

From 1992 the young businessman Boris Brevnov, whom Nemtsov later called "a talented man", worked as his economic adviser. In March 1992 Gaidar signed a government order allowing Nemtsov to set up a conversion fund; the money went to the Nizhny Novgorod Bankers' House, a commercial bank created with state funds, and in the same year Brevnov, with Nemtsov's permission, became chairman of its management board.[13] In 1997 he became chairman of its board of directors. The bank founded a subsidiary, the limited liability company Region, owned by Brevnov; according to Semago, considerable sums were transferred to it. The bank also featured in the case of the Oka shipyard loan.

Moisei Gelman, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Promyshlennye Vedomosti, wrote that "the manipulations of budget money by Nemtsov and Brevnov also led, among other things, to the collapse of the Navashino shipbuilding plant itself, and consequently to unemployment in that town".[9] When Nemtsov moved to the federal government, Brevnov, with his backing, became chairman of the management board of the national electricity monopoly RAO UES of Russia; he was dismissed in January 1998.[13][14]

Assessments

« Valery Yevlampiev, director general of the department of foreign economic relations and resources:

- Speaking seriously, Boris Nemtsov did a very great deal for the Nizhny Novgorod region. First of all, he governed here for seven years. That is a very long period, during which the political system and economic relations in Russia were changing.

For a leader, seven years is a very long time. I believe that any team develops over the course of four years, and after that degradation begins.
 »


« Sergei Borisov, president of the Nizhny Novgorod Research Foundation, in his study "The Current Political Regime in the Nizhny Novgorod Region: Its Formation in the 1990s"[15] calls one of the "most natural consequences of the authoritarianisation of the political regime" the formation around Nemtsov by the end of 1993 of an "informal alliance of individual representatives of the most influential, elite-generating corporations": the executive and legislative branches of power, the local security services, entrepreneurs and heads of the mass media.

Borisov noted the following features characteristic of a regime of regional authoritarianism:

  • "the dominance of executive power over representative power at all levels";
  • "the predominance of the principle of corporatism in the code of conduct of the actors in political relations";
  • "the toleration by the authorities of the strengthening of other centres of economic and political influence within limits strictly controlled by them";
  • "direct or indirect control over the regional media, above all the electronic media";
  • "a stable contract with the central authorities, including formal and informal guarantees of mutual loyalty";
  • "the wide use of populist instruments in relations with the population".

As Borisov wrote, "in the very set of the listed features of a regime of regional authoritarianism the Nizhny Novgorod region was no exception". In Borisov's opinion, a liberal-populist version of such a regime was realised in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Alternative poles of political influence outside the ruling hierarchy were not suppressed by the administration of Governor Nemtsov, yet their possible strengthening was kept under close watch and was restricted, as Sergei Borisov wrote, by the most varied means. The activity of the representative bodies of power was likewise pushed by the governor's administration away from the epicentre of the political process.

At the same time, as Borisov writes, political opposition was not perceived by the governor as something necessarily hostile, and was surrounded by "an atmosphere of a certain tolerance". The governor's political competitors were pushed to the periphery of public life not by means of bureaucratic pressure, but by the methods of public politics.

Candidate of Historical Sciences Nikolai Raspopov wrote that "'the regime of B. Nemtsov' was characterised by many experts as close to authoritarian".

Alexander Prudnik, a member of the staff of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote that the events after January 1994 in the history of the Nizhny Novgorod region "represent a technology of the intuitive working out of new elements of managed democracy". In Prudnik's opinion, Nemtsov "blocked the way to the desired future for many talented residents of Nizhny Novgorod — both a new generation of politicians and a new generation of entrepreneurs".[12]

A collection of scholarly papers of the Moscow Public Science Foundation stated that "Nemtsov's style of political leadership can be characterised as intuitive, improvisational and moderately authoritarian".
 »


« The expert, academic, political and media communities of Nizhny Novgorod and the region took part in another business breakfast devoted to the project "City Brand. The New Nizhny". The Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of Solidarnost was represented by two co-chairs of the regional political council: Konstantin Borisovich Baranovsky and Svetlana Sumina.

As the discussion showed, the name and personality of Boris Nemtsov are named as an important part of the city's brand not only by experts and political analysts, but also by ordinary residents of Nizhny Novgorod. Moreover, in the minds of ordinary townspeople Boris Nemtsov holds one of the leading places. Experts associate with him not only the slogans "The Capital of Reforms", ""Pocket of Russia"", "Russian Detroit (Nizhny Novgorod)", "Kazan, Russia's Third Capital", but also the real positive dynamics of the development of the city and the region, including in the difficult conditions of the early nineties.

"Much of Nemtsov's legacy still works for the region today. True, something has been lost, and something has been taken over without any mention of its author. For instance, the programme to encourage the people of Nizhny Novgorod to buy cars made by the Gorky automobile plant, including state orders, was first proposed by Nemtsov. He was ridiculed. And now it is one of GAZ's hopes of climbing out of its pre-bankruptcy state. And across the country as a whole the federal centre has proposed stimulating purchases of cars produced in Russia," comments Konstantin Baranovsky. The Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of Solidarnost will go on taking part in the project "City Brand. The New Nizhny", not least because this is a private civic initiative aimed at developing civil society and consolidating potential for the benefit of the residents of Nizhny Novgorod.[16]
 »


Federal career

As First Deputy Prime Minister from March 1997, and Minister of Fuel and Energy from April to November 1997, Nemtsov was responsible for restructuring the energy sector, dominated by state giants such as Gazprom.[30] He resigned from the government in August 1998 and then built a political career in the liberal opposition.[1] In December 1999 he was elected to the State Duma for the Avtozavodsky constituency of Nizhny Novgorod, the district of the GAZ automobile plant.[1]

Career timeline

  • 9 October 1959 — born in Sochi, Krasnodar Krai.[1]
  • 1966–1976 — studied at School No. 11 in the Priokski District of Gorky.
  • 1976–1981 — studied radiophysics at the Faculty of Radiophysics of Gorky State University.
  • 1989 — not allowed to stand in the elections to the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR.
  • 1990–1993 — People's Deputy of the RSFSR, member of the legislation committee of the Supreme Soviet of Russia.
  • August 1991 – April 1994 — Representative of the President of Russia in the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
  • November 1991 — appointed governor (head of the administration) of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
  • 1993 — elected to the Federation Council, the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Russia.
  • December 1995 — elected governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, and ex officio a member of the Federation Council.
  • 17 March 1997 — appointed First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia; member of the Security Council.
  • April 1997 — also Minister of Fuel and Energy (until November 1997) and deputy chairman of the government commission on operational matters.
  • March 1998 — dismissed together with the government of Viktor Chernomyrdin.
  • April 1998 — Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Sergei Kiriyenko.
  • 24 August 1998 — resigned as Deputy Prime Minister.
  • 22 September 1998 — deputy chairman of the Presidential Council for Local Self-Government (on a voluntary basis).
  • December 1998 — founded the all-Russian political movement Young Russia and chaired its federal political council; in 1999 the movement joined the Right Cause coalition and then the Union of Right Forces electoral bloc.
  • April–December 1999 — toured Russia with Irina Khakamada in the Union of Right Forces campaign "You Are Right".
  • 19 December 1999 — elected to the State Duma for the 117th Avtozavodsky constituency of Nizhny Novgorod.
  • 1 March 2000 — elected Deputy Speaker of the State Duma from the Union of Right Forces faction; from March 2000 head of the faction.
  • May 2001 — chairman of the federal political council of the Union of Right Forces party.
  • 1 February 2004 – 25 December 2005 — chairman of the board of directors of the Neftyanoy concern.
  • 15 February 2004 — elected to the council of the "Committee 2008: Free Choice".
  • 9 February 2005 – 9 October 2006 — adviser to the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko.[1]

Why Nemtsov supported Putin in 1999

« B. NEMTSOV - I believe that of all the candidates who intend to take part in the election, Putin is the worthiest man.

HOST - So you agree.

B. NEMTSOV - Yes, on this question. First of all, Putin is a responsible man. Secondly, he is not afraid to take decisions that are difficult for him, because decisions about the unity of Russia, about restoring order in the Caucasus, about fighting terrorism - these are responsible decisions. He will have to answer for them if, God forbid, something happens. And something may happen - you know what bombings are going on now. But he is not afraid of that. Third: he is a young man, he is 47. He is healthy. Fourth: in my view he is an honest man, and we need an honest man as president. That is why I support Putin.[18]
 »


Return visits to Nizhny Novgorod

After leaving power Nemtsov twice came to the meetings of the Nizhny Novgorod Press Club, a discussion forum of journalists and media professionals that met in the conference hall of the Oktyabrskaya Hotel on the Upper Volga Embankment (Верхне-Волжская набережная).[21]

The first visit was on 7 September 2010, under the heading "Post-crisis Russia: what next?"; according to the club's report, the participants did not reach agreement. During the same visit Nemtsov presented in the city his report "Putin. The Results. 10 Years".[22]

The second visit, on 13 January 2012, was titled "Russia. The Lessons of December" and dealt with the State Duma election of 4 December 2011 and the protest rallies that followed it. The conversation turned to local matters as well — independent media, roads, electricity tariffs and plans to raise the level of the reservoir on the Volga; the guest's sharp remarks about the Communist Party led to an argument with Nizhny Novgorod communists in the hall.[21] A recording of the talk has been preserved on the club's channel.

Death

Nemtsov was shot in the back at about 11:30 p.m. on 27 February 2015 while walking across the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge beside the Kremlin, and died at the scene.[2][3][4] He was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.[20]

The killing drew condemnation abroad. On the night of the murder the White House called on the Russian government "to conduct a prompt, impartial, and transparent investigation", and President Barack Obama recalled meeting Nemtsov in Moscow in 2009.[35] The British Prime Minister David Cameron, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Ilkka Kanerva, also condemned the murder and called for those responsible to be brought to justice.[36][37][38] On 10 March 2015 the United States Senate unanimously adopted a resolution calling for an investigation using the mechanisms of the OSCE or the Council of Europe.[39]

On 29 June 2017 the Moscow District Military Court found five ethnic Chechens guilty of carrying out the murder, and on 13 July 2017 sentenced them: Zaur Dadayev, who fired the shots, received 20 years, and the others from 11 to 19 years in prison.[2][4][40][41] The question of who had ordered the killing remained open. In 2019 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in a resolution that introduced Nemtsov as, among other things, "former Regional Governor of Nizhny Novgorod", noted that the case against the alleged organiser had been severed from the main case and did not seem to have been actively pursued, and called on the Russian authorities to reopen the investigation.[42]

Memory

In Nizhny Novgorod

Nemtsov's name remains part of the city's self-image. At a 2009 discussion of the project "City Brand. The New Nizhny", experts and ordinary residents alike named him as an important part of the brand of Nizhny Novgorod, associating with him the slogans "The Capital of Reforms", ""Pocket of Russia"" and "Russian Detroit".[16]

« The expert, academic, political and media communities of Nizhny Novgorod and the region took part in another business breakfast devoted to the project "City Brand. The New Nizhny". The Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of Solidarnost was represented by two co-chairs of the regional political council: Konstantin Borisovich Baranovsky and Svetlana Sumina.

As the discussion showed, the name and personality of Boris Nemtsov are named as an important part of the city's brand not only by experts and political analysts, but also by ordinary residents of Nizhny Novgorod. Moreover, in the minds of ordinary townspeople Boris Nemtsov holds one of the leading places. Experts associate with him not only the slogans "The Capital of Reforms", ""Pocket of Russia"", "Russian Detroit (Nizhny Novgorod)", "Kazan, Russia's Third Capital", but also the real positive dynamics of the development of the city and the region, including in the difficult conditions of the early nineties.

"Much of Nemtsov's legacy still works for the region today. True, something has been lost, and something has been taken over without any mention of its author. For instance, the programme to encourage the people of Nizhny Novgorod to buy cars made by the Gorky automobile plant, including state orders, was first proposed by Nemtsov. He was ridiculed. And now it is one of GAZ's hopes of climbing out of its pre-bankruptcy state. And across the country as a whole the federal centre has proposed stimulating purchases of cars produced in Russia," comments Konstantin Baranovsky. The Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of Solidarnost will go on taking part in the project "City Brand. The New Nizhny", not least because this is a private civic initiative aimed at developing civil society and consolidating potential for the benefit of the residents of Nizhny Novgorod.[16]
 »


On 27 February 2019, the fourth anniversary of his death, a memorial plaque to the former governor was unveiled on the apartment building on Agronomicheskaya Street (Агрономическая улица) in Nizhny Novgorod where Nemtsov had lived and where his mother was then living. The city duma had supported the plaque more than two years earlier; it is based on a photograph of Nemtsov taken during the trials of a vessel built by Nizhny Novgorod shipbuilders, and about sixty people, among them current and former deputies of the city duma and the regional legislature, attended the unveiling.[55]

A local civic group held memorial "Nemtsov Readings" in the city and in 2016 began setting up a centre devoted to his memory.[56] On the first anniversary of his death a memorial march went along Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street (Большая Покровская улица), the city's main pedestrian street, to Teatralnaya Square (Театральная площадь), where participants laid flowers at a people's memorial.[57] In 2021, after the city administration had declined to approve the traditional march, the regional governor Gleb Nikitin allowed a memorial gathering on Teatralnaya Square, explaining that for the people of Nizhny Novgorod Nemtsov had been much more than a politician: "He was a symbol of a new time. He faced a difficult task — developing and promoting a territory that had been closed only the day before. And the Nizhny Novgorod region then received the necessary impulse for development."[32][58]

In local folklore

In the 1990s a cycle of absurdist miniatures about the governor circulated in Nizhny Novgorod. Their author is believed to be Vadim Demidov, leader of the Nizhny Novgorod rock band Khronop, who back in 1986 invented the "kharmsinka" — an absurdist miniature in the manner of the Russian avant-garde writer Daniil Kharms.[19] The "Nemtsov" series is dated to late October 1994; it is prefaced by a note that the author intended no connection with real people.

The series consists of about twenty-five short scenes. In them the governor reads Dostoevsky, plays the piano, treats to vodka the barge haulers who have hauled a barge to Nizhny, stands in a fur coat on the embankment above the frozen Volga beside the mayor and Maxim Gorky, sits in the Kremlin in a setting like Lenin's study and tries the fairy tale of Sivka-Burka on himself; Andrei Sakharov and Yelena Bonner, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Margaret Thatcher and Boris Yeltsin appear alongside him. The tone is set by the very first miniature: "Nemtsov is reading Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and muttering impatiently: 'Come on, Fedya, don't drag it out, come on!..'"

Abroad

From 2018 onwards several cities abroad named places in front of or near Russian diplomatic missions after Nemtsov.

  • Washington, D.C. The Council of the District of Columbia designated the 2600 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW, in front of the Russian Embassy, as Boris Nemtsov Plaza; the sign was unveiled on 27 February 2018, the third anniversary of the killing.[43][44] An earlier bill in the US Senate, which would also have changed the embassy's address to "1 Boris Nemtsov Plaza", did not become law.[45] A Senate resolution of 2019 on the investigation of his murder recalls that Nemtsov had served as "Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region".[41]
  • Vilnius. A small square outside the Russian Embassy in the Žvėrynas district was named in May 2018 and officially opened on 24 August 2018; Lithuanian officials said Vilnius was the second city after Washington to take such a step.[46]
  • Kyiv. On 15 November 2018 the city council named a square at the corner of Povitroflotskyi Avenue and Surykova Street, near the Russian Embassy, after Nemtsov; it was opened with a memorial plaque on 15 March 2019.[47][48]
  • Prague. On 24 February 2020 the city council renamed the square Pod Kaštany in front of the Russian Embassy in Prague 6 as Boris Nemtsov Square (náměstí Borise Němcova), and on 27 February 2020 Mayor Zdeněk Hřib unveiled the new sign. In April 2020 the embassy chose to use the address of its consular building as its official address instead.[49][50][51]
  • Bratislava. At the end of March 2022 the city council renamed the street in front of the Russian Embassy Boris Nemtsov Street (Ulica Borisa Nemcova); the new sign was put up on 25 May 2022.[52]
  • London. On 14 November 2022 the London Borough of Camden named a junction in Highgate "Boris Nemtsov Place", the first such name in the United Kingdom.[54]

Official website

Nemtsov's analytical papers

See also

Zhanna Nemtsova has been entered into the register of foreign agents by decision of the Ministry of Justice of Russia dated 2 October 2026, under Article 7 of Federal Law No. 255-FZ of 14 July 2022 "On control over the activities of persons under foreign influence"[59].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Boris Nemtsov, personal website — "Biography", a chronology of his life and posts from 1959 to 2006 (in Russian) (archive)
  2. Open Nizhny — "The first governor: what the people of Nizhny Novgorod remember Boris Nemtsov for", 27 February 2025 (in Russian) (archive)
  3. Kommersant — "The man on the bridge", on the killing of Boris Nemtsov on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge at 23:31 on 27 February 2015, 2 March 2015 (in Russian) (archive)
  4. Kommersant — "The verdict on Boris Nemtsov's killers united the participants of the trial", on the verdict of the Moscow District Military Court: five men convicted of murder for hire (Part 2 of Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code), 14 July 2017 (in Russian) (archive)
  5. nemtsov-most.org — Nemtsov Most — "What he did for Russia", a biographical essay: academic degree, scientific papers, governorship, awards (in Russian) (archive)
  6. Kommersant — "Court to examine whether a deal with a Seychelles offshore company in a 6 million dollar dispute with the Nizhny Novgorod Fair was real", on the erroneous Bank of New York transfer to the Nizhegorodets bank and the criminal case (in Russian) (archive)
  7. Kommersant — "The Nemtsov–Klimentyev case in Nizhny Novgorod", on the sentences of Andrei Klimentyev and Alexander Kislyakov and the testimony of the witness Boris Nemtsov, 22 April 1997 (in Russian) (archive)
  8. Nezavisimaya Gazeta — Sergei Anisimov, "'Brothers' will not make it into the leadership", 26 January 2000 (in Russian) (archive)
  9. web.archive.org — Promyshlennye Vedomosti — Moisei Gelman, "The model of regional oligarchy according to Nemtsov. The Nizhny Novgorod Brevnoviad: 'The Navashino millions'", reprint, 23 April 2009 (in Russian) (archive)
  10. Kommersant — Kommersant-Vlast — on Andrei Klimentyev before the Nizhny Novgorod mayoral election: the case of the hard-currency loan to the Oka shipyard, the verdicts of 1997 and 1998, 16 July 2002 (in Russian) (archive)
  11. Kommersant — "A gangster story", on Nizhny Novgorod criminal cases of the late 1990s, 25 July 1998 (in Russian) (archive)
  12. web.archive.org — Alexander Prudnik, Oleg Maslov, "Boris Nemtsov as a symbol of deferred Russian democracy", 1 March 2004 (in Russian) (archive)
  13. Kommersant — "Nemtsov's team in the government", on Boris Brevnov and the Nizhny Novgorod Bankers' House, 20 May 1997 (in Russian) (archive)
  14. Kommersant — "Boris Brevnov dismissed", on the dismissal of the chairman of the management board of RAO UES of Russia, 28 January 1998 (in Russian) (archive)
  15. politstudies.ru — Polis. Political Studies — S. V. Borisov, "The current political regime in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast: its formation in the 1990s", 1999, No. 1, p. 98 (in Russian) (archive)
  16. rusolidarnost.ru — Solidarnost — "Boris Nemtsov was named part of the brand of Nizhny Novgorod", 1 October 2009 (in Russian)
  17. V gorode N — "Archive photos of the construction of the Kanavinskaya and Burnakovskaya metro stations published", on the opening of the stations in December 1993, 21 December 2023 (in Russian) (archive)
  18. web.archive.org — Ekho Moskvy — live debate between Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, transcript, 27 November 1999 (in Russian) (archive)
  19. bigbook.ru — Big Book National Literary Award — Vadim Demidov (in Russian) (archive)
  20. Vedomosti — "Boris Nemtsov buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery", 3 March 2015 (in Russian) (archive)
  21. nemtsov-most.org — Nemtsov Most — "Expert discussion with Boris Nemtsov", on the meeting of the Nizhny Novgorod Press Club on 13 January 2012, 29 October 2019 (in Russian) (archive)
  22. nemtsov-most.org — Nemtsov Most — on Boris Nemtsov's appearance at the Nizhny Novgorod Press Club on 7 September 2010 and the report "Putin. The Results. 10 Years", 15 September 2019 (in Russian) (archive)
  23. The Christian Science Monitor — Justin Burke, "Russian City Starts Model Program", 6 April 1992 (archive)
  24. The Christian Science Monitor — "On the Ramparts of Russian Reform", on the voucher auction of lorries in Nizhny Novgorod, 4 November 1992 (archive)
  25. The Christian Science Monitor — Justin Burke, "The Volga Basin's Merchant Capital Is New Russia's Economic Showcase", 2 September 1993 (archive)
  26. International Finance Corporation — Press Release No. 95/82, "Russian newsprint paper mill to get IFC financing — investment for Russia's post-privatization phase", 1 March 1995 (archive)
  27. Yeltsin Center — archive record "Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Region (Nemtsov B.): invitation to an open auction of lorries", 31 October 1992 (in Russian) (archive)
  28. Net-Film — archive footage catalogue — "Margaret Thatcher's visit to Nizhny Novgorod (1993)", scene list (archive)
  29. The Philadelphia Inquirer — Michael Sklaroff, "Russian reformer had Philadelphia ties", 8 March 2015
  30. CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs) — Roberto Ortiz de Zárate, "Borís Nemtsov", political biography, updated 15 March 2015 (in Spanish) (archive)
  31. Argumenty i Fakty — "The life of Boris Nemtsov in photographs", 28 February 2015 (in Russian) (archive)
  32. Rambler News — "Eight years since his death: what Boris Nemtsov is remembered for", 27 February 2023 (in Russian)
  33. NobelPrize.org — "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2003": Alexei Abrikosov, Vitaly L. Ginzburg, Anthony J. Leggett (archive)
  34. PULPAPERnews — "Russian Volga to expand its flagship paper mill in Nizhny Novgorod region", on the JSC Volga site in Balakhna, 6 April 2021 (archive)
  35. The White House — Office of the Press Secretary, "Statement by the President on the Murder of Boris Nemtsov", 27 February 2015 (archive)
  36. GOV.UK — Prime Minister's Office, "PM statement on the murder of Boris Nemtsov", 28 February 2015 (archive)
  37. United Nations — "Ban voices shock, condemnation at Russian politician's 'brutal killing'", February 2015 (archive)
  38. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly — "OSCE PA President expresses outrage, calls for justice following murder of Boris Nemtsov", 28 February 2015 (archive)
  39. U.S. Government Publishing Office — S.Res. 93 (114th Congress), resolution on the murder of Boris Nemtsov, agreed to in the Senate on 10 March 2015 (archive)
  40. The Guardian — "Man convicted of Boris Nemtsov murder jailed for 20 years", 13 July 2017
  41. U.S. Government Publishing Office — S.Res. 81 (116th Congress), "A resolution calling for accountability and justice for the assassination of Boris Nemtsov", agreed to in the Senate on 10 June 2019
  42. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe — Resolution 2297 (2019), "Shedding light on the murder of Boris Nemtsov", adopted on 27 June 2019 (archive)
  43. Council of the District of Columbia — D.C. Law 22-92, "Boris Nemtsov Plaza Designation Act of 2018", effective 5 May 2018 (archive)
  44. FOX 5 DC — Associated Press, "Russian Embassy in DC now located on Boris Nemtsov Plaza", 27 February 2018 (archive)
  45. U.S. Government Publishing Office — S. 459 (115th Congress), bill to designate the area in front of the Russian Embassy as "Boris Nemtsov Plaza", reported in the Senate on 26 June 2017 (archive)
  46. The Baltic Times — "Vilnius opens square named after slain Russian opposition leader Nemtsov", 25 August 2018 (archive)
  47. Kyiv Post — Interfax-Ukraine, "Square near Russian Embassy in Kyiv named after Nemtsov", 15 November 2018 (archive)
  48. Interfax-Ukraine — on the opening of the Boris Nemtsov square in Kyiv by Mayor Vitali Klitschko, 15 March 2019 (in Ukrainian) (archive)
  49. Echo24 — ČTK, "The square in front of the Russian embassy in Prague will bear the name of the murdered Nemtsov", 24 February 2020 (in Czech) (archive)
  50. WSLS 10 — Associated Press, "Prague square named after Russian opposition figure Nemtsov", 27 February 2020 (archive)
  51. The Guardian — "Russia avoids 'Boris Nemtsov Square' address for its Prague embassy", 20 April 2020
  52. ORF — "Bratislava renames the street in front of the Russian embassy", 26 May 2022 (in German) (archive)
  53. London Borough of Camden — "Camden becomes first place in UK to commemorate Russian pro-democracy campaigner Boris Nemtsov", 14 November 2022
  54. Kommersant — Andrei Repin, "'This is needed not by Boris but by the people of Nizhny Novgorod'", on the memorial plaque on Agronomicheskaya Street, 27 February 2019 (in Russian) (archive)
  55. Kommersant — "A Boris Nemtsov memory centre is being created in Nizhny Novgorod", 4 May 2016 (in Russian) (archive)
  56. Yabloko — Nizhny Novgorod branch of the party, on the march in memory of Boris Nemtsov in Nizhny Novgorod on 27 February 2016, 29 February 2016 (in Russian) (archive)
  57. Kommersant — photo gallery "Events in memory of Boris Nemtsov", including Nizhny Novgorod, 27 February 2021 (in Russian) (archive)
  58. minjust.gov.ru — Register of Foreign Agents, Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, entry No. 1271