Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of Kemerovo Region, member of the Federation Council
Aman Tuleyev was born on May 13, 1944, in the town of Krasnovodsk (Turkmenia). He is Kazakh.
He has lived in Kemerovo region from 1964, and in 1964-1973 worked on the railway - as an attendant at the Mundybash station, senior assistant to the chief, and then chief of the Mundybash station.
He graduated from the Tikhoretsky railway technical school, then, by correspondence, from the Novosibirsk Institute of Rail Transport Engineers (1973), then from the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee (1989). By his education, he is a communications engineer, specializing in the running of railways.
Following graduation from the Novosibirsk Institute of Rail Transport Engineers in 1973, he was appointed chief of the Mezhdurechensk station of the West-Siberian railway.
From 1978 to 1985 he was deputy chief and then chief of the Novokuznetsk section of the Kemerovo railway. In 1988 he became chief of the Kemerovo railway (which was then one of five largest of the 32 railways of the Soviet Union).
He joined the Communist Party in 1968.
In 1985-1988 he worked as the head of Transportation and communication department of Kemerovo regional CPSU committee.
In 1989 he ran in the elections of people's deputies of the USSR, but he lost out by a small margin to Yury Golik. In his election speeches Tuleyev promised, among other things, to build a metro in Kemerovo. His opponents estimated that honoring Aman Tuleyev's electoral pledges, would have taken 40 million rubles in 1989 prices. Elected to the Supreme Soviet, however, he honored one of his election pledges, namely, opened in the railway's kindergarten specialized groups for children with cerebral paralysis.
In 1990 he was elected a people's deputy of the RSFSR from the Gorno-Shorsky national-territorial district, and a deputy of the Kemerovo regional Soviet.
In May 1990, despite opposition from the Council of worker committees of Kuzbass, he was elected chairman of the regional Soviet (Tuleyev defeated Mikhail Kislyuk, another people's deputy of the RSFSR). From January to August 1991, he also held the chairmanship of the executive committee of the Kemerovo regional council, thus combining both the representative and executive authority in Kuzbass.
At the 3rd Congress of the RSFSR People's Deputies in March 1991, he supported the economic grievances of the striking miners but distanced himself from the demand that the USSR President and government resign.
In June 1991, Tuleyev ran for the RSFSR presidency. His pre-election platform centered on the social safety net as well as independence for Russia's regions. The bulk of his supporters came mainly from pensioners and budget-funded organizations employees, with women constituting a clear majority. Toward the end of the election campaign he criticized Yeltsin more sharply than most other candidates did, urging people not to vote for Yeltsin under any circumstances.
Despite some watchers' forecasts that Tuleyev would end up last, he came in fourth with 6.8 percent of the electoral vote, outpacing more well-known candidates such as Albert Makashov and Vadim Bakatin. In addition, in his Kemerovo region he received more votes than any of his rivals - 44.71 percent. A number of autonomous entities gave him, in comparative terms, quite a few of their votes.
During the coup d'etat attempt on August 19, 1991, Tuleyev interrupted his vacation and flew to Moscow to talk to Gennady Yanayev and Oleg Baklanov, after which he flew to Kemerovo. On August 20, Tuleyev convened a meeting of the regional Soviet presidium where he informed the deputies of his conversations and and argued its was inadmissible to support Yeltsin's call for a strike and then said he agreed with the measures proposed by the GKChP.
The RSFSR Supreme Soviet Commission investigating the causes and circumstances of the coup d'etat in the USSR concluded that Tuleyev supported the GKChP. According to the Commission, a regional "operational team" had been set up at Tuleyev's initiative and under his chairmanship. By its decision, from 6 p.m. on August 19, army units in Kemerovo region were put on a high alert, and street patrols by militia together with the military units began at that time. Later, while admitting he was in agreement with the GKChP program, Tuleyev denied any involvement in its measures.
When in late August 1991 Yeltsin appointed Mikhail Kislyuk, who enjoyed the support of the Soviet of workers' committees of Kuzbass, head of the Kemerovo region administration, Tuleyev, who kept the job of the Soviet's chairman, sharply criticized his actions both at regional Soviet meetings and in the press.
Tuleyev did not take part in restoring the CPSU and the Communist Party of the RSFSR in 1991-1992, and has, from 1991, regarded himself non-affiliated.
In October-December 1991, he issued a number of statements, including at a meeting of regional Soviets chairmen in the RSFSR Supreme Soviet, opposing the extra powers, given by the 5th Congress of RSFSR People's Deputies to the President, and the economic reform plans.
In the Russian parliament he was a member of the deputy group "Communists of Russia", then of the "Industrial Union". In late 1991-1992 he was simultaneously a member of two factions - "Fatherland" and "Smena". From December 1992 till the demise of the Congress in October 1993, he remained a member of the "Fatherland" faction. In April 1992, he became a leader of the opposition bloc "Russian Unity." At the 6th Congress of People's Deputies in December 1992, he accused the Yeltsin-Gaidar government of "conscious, deliberate actions aimed at destroying the economic basis of the state."
In February 1992, he repeatedly offered his resignation but the regional Soviet and its presidium invariably refused to grant it. Simultaneously, the regional Soviet session expressed its lack of confidence in Kislyuk, head of the region's administration.
In the spring of 1992, Tuleyev supported the strikes by employees of budget-funded organizations of Kemerovo region, who demanded higher wages. That brought a negative response from the miners.
Addressing a regional Soviet session in October 1992, Tuleyev accused the law and order authorities, the prosecuting office, the Russian government and the President of corruption and demanded that they be brought to trial and that an independent international commission be established before the trial.
In October 1992 he was elected into the political council of the National Salvation Front (FNS).
Addressing the 9th Congress of People's Deputies in March 1993, he called "the President's closest entourage" as a "collective Rasputin," mentioning S. Filatov, V. Shumeiko, S. Shakhrai, A. Chubais and A. Kozyrev by name. In that speech, he urged the Congress to form a "government of people's confidence" and schedule simultaneous elections of the President and a two-house parliament.
In September 1993, when during the confrontation between the President and parliament, disbanded by Yeltsin's decree, the White House life-supporting systems (electricity, water and telephone communication) were cut off, Tuleyev suggested to the deputies that the Congress of People's Deputies move to Kemerovo. At a meeting of "Siberian agreement" (association of Siberia's regions) in Novosibirsk, he urged uniting, on the basis of non-acceptance of Yeltsin's actions, into a Siberian republic (with powers equal to that of the "sovereign republics within the RF" - former autonomies) and also suggested that Russia's capital be temporarily transferred to Novosibirsk.
At the last session of the Kemerovo regional Soviet on October 14, 1993, after Mikhail Kislyuk's decision to disband the Soviet was read out, Tuleyev issued a protest against the action of the President and the local administration.
At first he declined proposals to take part in the parliamentary election of 1993, saying he would lose his dignity if he "ran for Yeltsin's puppet parliament."
He changed his mind in early November and on December 12, 1993, was elected a deputy of the Council of Federation from Kemerovo region (Kemerovo district No. 42), receiving almost 90 percent of the vote. He was a member of the Committee for Budget, Finance, Currency, Credit, Money Issue, Taxation Policy and Customs Regulation.
In April 1994, Tuleyev was elected deputy and chairman of Kemerovo region's Legislative Assembly.
In the spring of 1995, he established the "Power of the People" regional electoral association in Kuzbass.
In August 1995, he joined the electoral association of the Communist Party of the RF (CPRF), and was third in the list of candidates to the State Duma deputies from the CPRF. On December 17, 1995, he was elected deputy of the State Duma, but declined the mandate and remained chairman of the Kemerovo Soviet and, thus, Federation Council member.
On January 15, 1996, the Central Electoral Commission registered the authorized representatives from the group that nominated Tuleyev to run for Russian presidency. In February 1996, Tuleyev promised to drop out of the race in favor of Gennady Zyuganov even before the first round of elections, using the possibilities stemming from his candidate status for the "common good".
Tuleyev sharply criticizes the government's economic and social policy and its relations with regions, offering in the process his own concept of development. According to Tuleyev, the existing system of transfers to the central budget "is pumping out of regions all that can be pumped out to replenish the treasury." This limits the local budget funds, and in this way regions are excluded from economic reform. Russia's integrity can realistically be preserved only through significant expansion of regions' economic independence balanced by the existence of a politically strong center.
To get the country out of the crisis, Tuleyev suggested keeping the existing forms of economic activity, based on collectivist principles, and developing new forms along with the old, for them to compete. "It is, first, necessary to implement a stabilization program and then to effect a regulated transition to a market economy." He closely links the growth of incomes with production growth, reduction in costs and revamping the production base. In the course of privatization, Tuleyev deems it necessary to honor the priority rights of labor collectives. He proposes to carry out monetary regulation by tightening lending resources of commercial banks and freezing prices and wages. As to agriculture, he regards a "universal farmerization" and placing it on a footing of self-reliance and self-financing to be harmful.
He repeatedly stated that "Gaidar must be brought to trial for the decline in the living standards of the people." He believes that "Zhirinovsky's pranks... can undermine people's confidence in the Duma," but shares "his statements about the plight of Russians abroad, of the Russian Army, and about corruption in the top echelons of power."
In the matter of distribution of economic functions between the Center and the regions, he is a Yavlinsky supporter.
Author of the book "How To Go On Living?" (1993).
Fond of skiing.
Wife - Elvira Fyodorovna, two sons, one of them doing business.