Andrey Yuryevich Vorobyov (, ; born 14 April 1970) is a Russian politician who is the current governor of Moscow Oblast. He has previously served as the head of United Russia's Central Executive Committee, and one of the deputy chairmen of the State Duma.
Early life Andrey Vorobyov was born on 14 April 1970, in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. His father is Yuri Vorobyov, a founder of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, a close ally of Sergei Shoigu. His younger brother Maksim is a businessman. Andrey Vorobyov is married and has two children.
Education In 1995, Andrey Vorobyov graduated from the North Ossetian K.L. Khetagurov State University, in 1998 the All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade. In 2006, he received his MBA degree in political and business communications at the Higher School of Economics. In 2005, he defended his thesis in economics at the Russian Academy of Public Service under the President of Russia.Vorobyov's dissertation which describes "the development of investment potential in a depressing region" as South Russia has been edited in Moscow, 2004.
Military service From 1988 to 1989, Vorobyov served in the Dzerzhinsky division, participated in operations in Baku (Azerbaijan), Yerevan (Armenia), Kokand and Ferghana (Uzbekistan).
Business career From 1991 to 1998, Vorobyov was engaged in organization and development of his own business. In 1998, he founded the Russian Sea company and directed the construction of the fish-processing plant in the Moscow region.
Political career Vorobyov joined the Russian civil service in 2000, and was an assistant to Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Shoigu. In 2002–2003, he represented the Republic of Adygea in the Federation Council. From 2000, he was a founder and president of the Interregional Public Fund for Support of the majority party United Russia.
In 2003, Vorobyov was elected a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. From 2005 to 2012, he directed the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the United Russia party. In 2007, he was again elected a deputy of the State Duma. In 2011, he was reelected Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. On 11 February 2012, he reported that he left his post. According to him, he resigned from the party post to concentrate on his work in the Duma.
After the appointment of the governor of Moscow Oblast, Sergei Shoigu, as Minister of Defence, Vorobyov was named by President Vladimir Putin as new acting governor of Moscow Oblast on 8 November 2012. He held his post provisionally until the next governors' elections in September 2013.Putin appoints Andrei Vorobyov acting governor of Moscow Region, November 8, 2012 He became a candidate for the office of Moscow Oblast's Governor in Gubernatorial Election and was elected on 8 September 2013, with 78 percent of the votes.Vorobyov has been confirmed as governor of Moscow Oblast by the elections on September 8th, 2013 (in Russian)
Governor of the Moscow Region On November 8, 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Andrei Vorobyov to the post of acting Governor of the Moscow Region.
In June 2013, United Russia nominated Vorobyov as a candidate for governor of the Moscow Region. In July of the same year, Vorobyov took the initiative to seize the property of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Moscow region.
At the end of May 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on local self-government, the order of which the regions regulate independently. Two days after that, the Moscow City Duma received a draft from Governor Andrey Vorobyov, according to which direct elections of mayors with real functions remained only in Reutov. In other cities, mayors will either be elected from among local deputies, or the position of city head will be removed from the executive branch, depriving it of managerial functions. In the latter case, the real power will be in the hands of the heads of districts or heads of administrations (city managers) appointed by the governor. The law also affects the interests of municipalities that do not have city status, where direct elections of their heads have also been abolished.Выборы для бедных // Газета.Ру, 29.05.2014
The law was approved in three readings in 24 hours, and representatives of United Russia refused the initiative to discuss the draft with local authorities. According to representatives of the opposition, the hasty adoption of the law is due to the municipal elections, and the authorities carried out the cutting of districts with the cancellation of the elections for political and economic reasons. Thus, direct elections were eliminated or formalized in the largest cities in terms of population and economic potential. According to political scientist Rostislav Turovsky, by this law the regional authorities refuse to have a dialogue with local elites, building a vertical and imposing centralized management.
In order to restore the forests near Moscow, which suffered from the epidemic of the bark beetle and the subsequent sanitary logging, in September 2014 Vorobyov launched the campaign "Our forest. Plant your tree».Губернатор дал старт акции «Наш лес» , 13.09.2014
In 2014, Vorobyov approved the governor's emergency management program, which provides for the sterilization of female stray dogs and their return to the street for free living in an urban environment. The implementation of this program is planned for the period 2014-2018. A program is being implemented with money from the regional budget by public activists and organizations fighting for animal rights.Воскресенское время — Игорь Боричевский. Про людей, собак, программу ОСВ и не только. Газета «Воскресенское время», 14.12.2015
From October 25, 2014 to April 7, 2015 and from December 21, 2020 — Member of the Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation.
In May 2016, at Vorobyov's initiative, a law was passed according to which the heads of urban districts and municipal districts were no longer elected, but appointed by local representative bodies.
In 2018, he sent a letter to the Minister of Culture, Medinsky, in which, on behalf of the government of the Moscow Region, he proposed amendments to the federal law "On Cultural Heritage Sites (Historical and Cultural Monuments) of the Peoples of the Russian Federation." The government of the Moscow region proposes to abandon the mandatory historical and cultural expertise of lands before the start of their development, and to recognize as objects of such expertise only those territories in which, already during the work, an object was discovered that "possesses the characteristics of an object of cultural heritage, including archaeological." According to Vorobyov, this was done in the interests of "representatives of small businesses, as well as Russian citizens, including pensioners, the disabled and large families." As noted by the Deputy Director for Science of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, A. Engovatova, "over the past 20 years, builders have never contacted the Institute of Archaeology with a message that they had discovered valuable finds during the work.».
On September 9, 2018, he was re-elected governor of the Moscow Region, gaining 62.52% of the vote in the election.
In August 2022, Mediazona announced the decision of the regional authorities to "optimize" municipal newspapers: editorial offices will be closed, employees will be reduced, and regional newspapers will be merged into the regional edition of Podmoskovye Segodnya. The Moscow region newspapers feared losing the jobs of about 800 people, the Union of journalists of the Moscow region reported in an appeal that some of the regional editorial offices had already been liquidated with the dismissal of about 100 people. Journalists also fear that municipal newspapers will turn into template "battle sheets", from which local news will disappear along with reporters from small towns. The editors of the liquidated newspaper Lyuberetskaya Panorama addressed a farewell letter to readers, in which they stressed that they were not sure of the correctness of such a decision by the authorities.
Criticism As the head of the Central Election Commission of United Russia, Vorobyov celebrated the New Year 2009 at the Courchevel ski resort in France. According to Mila Kuzina, a journalist at the Kommersant newspaper, "Andrei Vorobyov, as soon as he realized that he had been recognized, tried to hide." At the same time, Alexey Kuznetsov, the former finance minister of the Moscow region, was in Courchevel, accused of multibillion-dollar embezzlement from the regional budget.
In 2013, Vorobyov visited the city of Zhukovsky several times, where he held meetings with voters. He firmly promised them that there would be no construction of a high-rise housing complex in the square of the central part of the city. At the same time, Vorobyov actively promoted A. P. Voityuk as the head of the city, as a person who would not allow spot construction in the city center. However, on February 24, 2014, Voityuk, already as mayor, signed a construction permit for a 22-storey three-building housing estate in Zhukovsky Square. On March 22, 2014, a rally of construction opponents was held in Zhukovsky, which gathered 2,000 people.
Vorobyov's urban planning activities are also criticized. One of his campaign promises was a "low-rise Moscow region." Andrey Vorobyov has repeatedly stated that he opposes the development of rural areas in the Moscow region. Meanwhile, after his election as governor, massive multi-storey construction continued in the region, in some cases with the approval of the Urban Planning Council of the region headed by him, which provoked protests from a number of public organizations and some residents of the region.
Vorobyov's request to Russian President Vladimir Putin to adopt a law on forest amnesty, announced on August 24, 2016, caused a great public outcry. According to environmentalists, this would make it possible to legalize the seizure of forest lands for development and use, contrary to the provisions of the Russian Forest Code.
In 2016, Vorobyov initiated a reform of local government, in which the two-tier system of government in the region (rural and urban settlements, municipal districts and urban districts) was replaced by the creation of urban districts. This was explained by the intention to reduce officials and expenses. The project was criticized for violating the law on local self-government, depriving the local population of the opportunity to control local government and concentrating resources in the centers of new administrative units. The initiative was criticized by the State Duma Committee on Federal Structure and Local Self-government, members of the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia. By March 2017, 14 municipal districts had been transformed into urban districts. Deputies of Obolensk and Serpukhov district, a number of settlements of Taldomsky district, as well as Selyatino opposed the transformation., Wereya, Aprelevka Naro-Fominsk district refused to consolidate, the population of the region organized rallies.Михаил Соколов. Бунтующее Подмосковье «Радио Свобода», 25.01.2017Андрей Перцев, Наталья Корченкова, Максим Иванов, Наталья Городецкая. Подмосковная реформа получила отрицательный отзыв «Коммерсант», 06.12.2016Лиза Миллер, Андрей Перцев, Максим Иванов. Поодмосковной реформе предложили альтернативу Газета «Коммерсантъ» № 40 от 10.03.2017, стр. 4