December 30, 2011, 09:31 / Management

The ex-governor of the Tula region Vasily Starodubtsev has died

The former governor of the Tula region, Vasily Starodubtsev, has died, said the current governor of the region, Vladimir Gruzdev. “Tonight, State Duma deputy from the Tula region, honorary citizen of the region Vasily Starodubtsev died. Sincere condolences to his family and friends,” Gruzdev wrote on his microblog on Twitter. Later, the regional government clarified that Vasily Starodubtsev died at 4.30 Moscow time in the Novomoskovsk city hospital, where he was hospitalized the day before with a heart attack.

Starodubtsev, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, was the second governor of Tula after 1991, holding this post from 1997 to 2005. He entered Russian history by participating in the GKChP putsch in 1991, was arrested, sat in “Matrosskaya Tishina”, a year later was released.

Starodubtsev was born in 1931 into a peasant family in the village. Volovchik, Volovsky district, Lipetsk region. His entire career is connected with agriculture - after working in a mine from 1955 to 1959, he entered the Voronezh Agricultural Institute, in 1964 he was elected chairman of the most lagging collective farm in the Novomoskovsk region and in a short time brought the collective farm to the forefront. On the basis of this collective farm, the Novomoskovskoe agro-industrial association was created, which Starodubtsev headed for 10 years.

Candidate of Agricultural Sciences, corresponding member of VASKhNIL (now Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences). Starodutsev headed the Peasant Union of the USSR, was repeatedly elected chairman of the Agro-Industrial Union of Russia, and was a people's deputy of the USSR. After participating in the State Emergency Committee and being released from prison in December 1993, he was elected to the Federation Council of the first convocation, and from 1997 to 2000 he was a member of the Federation Council ex officio. In March 1997, Starodubtsev became governor of the Tula region and was re-elected for a second term in 2001.