Valentina Petrovna Buzmakova (born November 19, 1947, Kudymkar, Perm Region) is a Nizhny Novgorod journalist, political analyst, and television presenter. In 1990 she founded the analytical news agency Provintsiya, which she herself describes as Russia's first independent news agency[1]. She is the author and host of the television program Politicheskaya Kukhnya (Political Kitchen), which aired on several Nizhny Novgorod channels, and the creator of the Open Sociology project[1]. In the 1980s–1990s she led a movement of volunteer assistants to restoration workers[1].
Background
She received her higher education in Sverdlovsk, at the journalism faculty of Ural State University. From 1979 she worked in the Gorky press: at the newspapers Gorkovskiy Rabochiy and Leninskaya Smena[1].
She started her own venture in 1990, when she founded the Provintsiya agency. In her own account, it was the first independent news agency in Russia[1].
Politicheskaya Kukhnya
The program Politicheskaya Kukhnya aired over the years on the channels Volga, NNTV, NTR, and Kreml[1]. It also had its own website, active from 2001, which featured the sections "Top Hundred," "Elections Online," "Uncensored," "Slogan of the Day," "Open Sociology," and "Archives"[2].
The flagship format was the "Top One Hundred of Nizhny Novgorod Region" rating — lists compiled by the Provintsiya agency based on expert surveys since 1994[2]. Sociological research was conducted jointly with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences: on election day for deputies of the Regional Legislative Assembly, the agency carried out exit polls, surveying voters at eleven, one, three, five, and seven in the evening[2].
The tone was that of opinion journalism, without hedging. An archived copy of the site from July 8, 2001, in the thick of the gubernatorial campaign, opened with an analysis headlined "The name of the 'against all' candidate is Lebedev": it argued that polling teams were inflating the percentages for their clients, making it impossible to get a true picture ahead of the runoff[2].
The platform later moved to politkuhnya.com, where Buzmakova ran a personal blog — by 2019 it had accumulated 128 posts[1]. The topics were the same as on air, only smaller in scale and closer to ground level: for instance, an analysis of the Nizhny Novgorod regional police headquarters' purchase of photo albums worth 1.8 million rubles[1].
"Open Sociology"
The "Open Sociology" project was Buzmakova's own invention, and she ran it for more than ten years — by 2019 it had already been going for about a decade[1]. The meaning of the name is straightforward: poll results were published openly, together with the methodology and dates, rather than being presented as ready-made conclusions.
Helping Restorers
A separate, non-journalistic part of her biography is the defense of the historic city. In the 1980s and 1990s, Buzmakova founded and led a movement of volunteer restorer's assistants[1].
Volunteers worked at Aleksandra Nevskogo Cathedral, at the Pechersky and Makaryev monasteries, on wooden architecture monuments at the museum at Schelokovsky Khutor, and at Church of the Three Hierarchs[1].
How She Is Read Today
Buzmakova remains an active regional expert: her commentary is regularly published by the federal project "National Rating," where she analyzes the personnel policy of the regional authorities, the relationship between the governor and the city's head, and the state of the City Duma[3].
Her assessments are sharp and memorable. In May 2020, commenting on the appointment of Yury Shalabayev as acting head of Nizhny Novgorod, she described it as the establishment of a "pure vertical of power," and following the primaries she predicted the city would have "not merely a grey duma, but an ultra-grey duma" — a body incapable of acting as a counterweight to the executive branch[3].
She is also credited with a phrase that passed into local folklore: «Shantsev knows how to fly, and he carries us along with him» — said of Governor Valery Shantsev in the summer of 2011 and since then living a life of its own, separate from its author.
Sources
- politkuhnya.com — PolitKukhnya — Valentina Buzmakova — author's page: biography and blog (archive)
- web.archive.org — Web Archive — politkuhnya.ru, snapshot dated July 8, 2001: site sections, "Provintsiya" ratings, exit polls (archive)
- russia-rating.ru — National Rating — Buzmakova V. P. — regional expert commentary (archive)