Russia’s Yamal-Nenets gets a new governor

Dmitry Artyukhov is 30 years old and holds a MBA from the Singapore Management University.

By Atle Staalesen, The Independent Barents Observer May 30, 2018
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Dmitry Artyukhov is the new acting governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and is expected to be permanently confirmed to the position in September. (Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug government via The Independent Barents Observer)

Dmitry Artyukhov officially took over the reigns of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Russia’s Arctic region as acting governor after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

He takes over the post from Dmitry Kobylkin, who last week was appointed federal Minister of Natural Resources.

“I am grateful to the Head of State for this show of trust, I will do all I can to meet his expectations,” the new governor says in a statement.

“Everything that has been planned, will be made reality,” he added, with reference to the many initiatives taken by his predecessor Kobylkin.

The new Yamal-Nenets governor was born in 1988 in Novy Urengoy, the regional oil town. Over the last five years, he has served as adviser to Kobylkin.

In a comment, the former governor says that Artyukhov represents a “new generation of managers, which is excellently educated and has results and experiences from practical work in the most complicated parts of state government.”

According to Kobylkin, the new regional leader is a key person behind the Northern Latitudinal Passage, the grand new infrastructure project in the region.

Artyukhov has a MBA from the Singapore Management University and has been deputy Govenror for the last 2.5 years. He has been leading the Yamal-Nenets government negotiations with leading national oil companies, among them Novatek, Rosneft, Gazprom and Lukoil.

He will serve as acting regional leader until early September when the regional legislative assembly is likely to approve his official instatement as governor.

The Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, which in size is 50 percent bigger than France, was originally inhabited by the indigenous Nenets people. However, the reindeer herders were quickly outnumbered by settlers as vast natural resources were discovered in course of the 20th century.

The Yamal-Nenets region today accounts for about 90 percent of Russia’s natural gas production and an increasing share also of oil extraction. Regional per capita GDP has grown to the second highest in Russia, a level more than twice as high as capital Moscow.