CHUVASHIYA

/ Chuvash Republic

Anethnic republicof the Russian Federation. Chuvashiya is a densely populated republic covering 18,300 square kilometers of the heart of European Russia. It is part of theVolga Federal Districtand the Volga-VyatkaEconomic Region. Encompassing part of the Volga valley, the Chuvash plateau is defined by woodedsteppe, low hills, and ravines. The Chuvash Republic is crisscrossed by the Volga, Sura, and Tsivil rivers, while also possessing more than 400 lakes.

The region is both well situated and economically well developed, being a major center for electricity generation,natural gasrefining, metalworking, and chemical manufacturing, as well asagriculturaloutput, particularly hops production for the country’s beer-making industry. It is bordered by the ethnic republics ofTatarstan,Mari El, andMordoviya, as well as theNizhny NovgorodandUlyanovskoblasts. The capital, Cheboksary (pop. 450,000), is situated in the extreme north of the republic, on the right bank of the Volga. Chuvashiya has one of Russia’s highest population densities, ranking fourth among the regions. Out of a population of approximately 1.3 million, the titular majority, theChuvash, account for 68 percent, whileethnic Russiansare about 27 percent of the population;Tatarsare the third-largest ethnic group in the republic.Rare among titular nationalities, Chuvash are demographically dominant in nearly every part of their republic, the exceptions being the Alatyr and Porets districts. Nikolay Fyodorov is the republic’s president; he took office in 1994 and was reelected in 1997 and 2001. He has promoted market reforms and entrepreneurial activity, as well as encouragingforeign trade. The economic fortunes of the republic suffered greatly from thedissolution of the Soviet Union. Competition with foreign producers doomed the local tractor factory, and the region’s cotton mills lay fallow without imports of Uzbek cotton. The Khimprom installation, which produced half of the Soviet Union’s chemical weapons, was forced to retool for a post–Cold Warworld.

A lawyer by training and a former member of Russia’s Ministry of Justice, Fyodorov leftBorisYeltsin’s administration in protest over the comingconstitutional crisis of 1993. An ethnic Chuvash, the president has made ethnic harmony a keystone of his governance, while supporting a resurgence of theRussian Orthodox Church. He gained popularity among ethnic Russians in the region by promising not to pursue the “Tatarstan model” for the republic. While generally maintaining good relations with Moscow, the president clashed with Yeltsin in 1995 over the participation of Chuvash soldiers’ service inChechnyaand served as spokesman for the six republican presidents who opposed the Kremlin’s policy toward the breakaway region. Despite such independent-mindedness, Fyodorov was clearly the establishment candidate in the 1997 elections; federal-level support for his reelection was given byYury LuzhkovandAleksandr Lebedamong others, helping him beat back a wave ofCommunistand radical Chuvash nationalist antipathy. In recent years, Fyodorov has begun to tout his region’s morality, spirituality, and healthy living as a solution to the social problems facing 21st-century Russia.