A popular joke making the rounds in the Sverdlovsk Oblast begins " Putin and Caligula have a lot in common.
Caligula appointed his horse Incitatus as a senator and
Putin made obscure tank factory foreman Igor Kholmanskikh his special envoy to the Urals region.
Next in line for a top state post is Putin's black Labrador Koni."
Igor Kholmanskikh
On 18 May 2012 Vladimir Putin proposed that Uralvagonzavod assembly shop manager Igor Kholmanskikh become Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Urals Federal District. The previous plenipotentiary envoy, Yevgeny Kuyvashev, was recently appointed acting governor of Sverdlovsk Region. The post of presidential envoy would allow Kholmanskikh to have control over the activities of local law enforcement officials. Kholmanskikh was the first person with no prior government or political experience to hold such an office.
Putin said : "The presidential envoy’s job gives the chance to help shape the work of the various administrative organisations and law enforcement agencies, monitor their activity, and make adjustments and corrections if needed. I think that in this context, you, as someone who has spent your working life in industry and knows how ordinary people live, would be the right person for this job and will be able to defend people’s interests."
The envoy’s office lacks the clout that it had when Putin formed the eight federal districts to bring wayward governors under Kremlin control in 2000. But the Kremlin continues to rely on the envoys, many of whom are current or former political heavyweights, to serve as powerbrokers with the regional elite.
Sending a clear signal that loyalty will outrank experience in making government appointments, Putin’s move showed he was determined to make political decisions single-handedly, regardless of appointees’ qualifications. Mikhail Vinogradov, an analyst at the Petersburg Politics Foundation, a think tank, told Kommersant “The unpredictability of nominations has become a goal in of itself”.
Putin's appointment of the 42-year-old Igor Kholmanskikh as the Kremlin's representative to the economically crucial mining region in Sverdlovsk Oblast came with a seat on Russia's powerful Security Council. Kholmanskikh was virtually unknown in the region. On the surface, the appointment appeared to be a reward to the blue-collar voters in the Russian heartland who provided the backbone of Putin's support in the March presidential election.
The campaign used Putin's tough man-of-the-people image to appeal to workers like Kholmanskikh at a time when the urban professional classes were abandoning him in droves. Kholmanskikh, a foreman at the UralVagonZavod tank factory in Niznhy Tagil, contributed to this narrative in December 2011 when, during one of Putin's live television broadcasts with voters, he offered to travel to Moscow "with the guys" to put an end to mass opposition protests breaking out in the capital.
Analysts said Putin used the appointment to send a message that he values loyalty above all. "Putin is demonstrating to everyone -- the political elite, the business elite, his own circle -- that he scorns and does not wish to consider himself subject to any new laws or norms," says Sergei Moshkin, another Yekaterinburg-based political analyst. "For him there are no political traditions. Henceforth, the only decision maker is him -- for him this is allowed and it must not be discussed."
Kholmanskikh was born to factory workers in Nizhny Tagil 29 June 1969 and served in the military as a driving instructor in a BMP-1 amphibious tracked tanks in the late 1980s. In 1994, he earned a degree in mechanics, specializing in wheel and track vehicles, and took a job at UralVagonZavod, which is named after Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet Union's secret police. Kholmanskikh is married and has three children.
He slowly worked his way up the ranks of the plant, where his parents had been employed for more than three decades and which relies entirely on government contracts. In 1994 - 2006 he was the chief of section, deputy head of the assembly department #? 1 "Uralvagonzavod". In 2006 - 2011 years - deputy director of the assembly plant for the production, deputy chief of the mechanical assembly production. He worked for six years as deputy manager of assembly and was finally promoted to chief assembly manager of the assembly shop "Uralvagonzavod" in August 2011.
In December 2011 Putin purred with delight as the factory worker took the microphone on national television amid mass antigovernment protests and told millions of Russians how far he was prepared to fight to protect "stability" -- the jewel of Putin’s political lexicon. He offered to come "with the men / with some guys" to Moscow and to disperse opposition rallies, do not agree with the results of the elections to the State Duma. Shortly after the broadcast, Kholmanskikh began organizing pro-Putin rallies in the region.
In February 2012 he was elected co-chairman of the movement "in defense of the working man." On May 10, 2012 Putin visited the Urals, his first trip after his second inauguration on May 7. Before departing for Yekaterinburg, Putin invited Kholmanskikh to join him on his plane and discuss the working and living conditions of the plant’s employees.
On 18 May 2012, Putin repaid that loyalty -- and sparked headlines in Russia and beyond -- by appointing him special envoy to the Urals Federal District, which includes Sverdlovsk Oblast. "As a man who has spent his entire life in manufacturing, I think you know how simple people, simple citizens, live and how to use this position properly," Putin told the mechanic. "You will be able to stand up for the interests of the people." Kremlin-friendly media outlets praised Kholmanskikh as, among other things, a "model family man," an avid sportsman, and "master of checkers."
“I saw you get actively involved in critical public activism,” Putin told him. “Moreover, you’ve even created an entire public movement and are now in the process of establishing a public organization, In Defense of the Working Man.... I would like to make you an offer: I’m offering you the position of the president’s authorized representative to the Urals Federal District,” Putin said.
Leonid Volkov, an opposition figure in Sverdlovsk Oblast, said Kholmanskikh's promotion to foreman in August -- just as the Kremlin was forming the All-Russian Popular Front to attract working-class support and three months before he spoke out on national television -- was suspicious. He suggested that the whole thing was scripted from the start. "The idea to use this political tactic clearly came after the idea of the People's Front," Volkov says. "The idea to counterpose hipsters with the real working class was clearly established in the summer and by autumn it was already in action. The whole Kholmanskikh-Putin phone-in was just the realization of this strategy."
Others dismissed the conspiracies and maintain that the Kremlin simply saw an opportunity in Kholmanskikh and exploited it. "This is a man who accidentally found himself at the summit of power during a time of political turmoil," Yekaterinburg-based political analyst Sergei Moshkin said. "It had nothing to do with him personally -- it was that particular type of person who turned out to be needed by the country's president."
Semen Novoprudsky wrote in April 2016 that "Putin could nominate any successor he likes. Russia is preoccupied by guesswork regarding the subject on an ongoing basis. Possible nominees for the post of the fifth President of Russia (given that realistically, since the collapse of the USSR only two people have ruled the country – namely Yeltsin and Putin), include: Igor Kholmanskikh, who was suddenly appointed the presidential envoy in the Urals... "
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