Starovoytova, Galina Vasilyevna

(1946–1998)

   Politician. Born in Chelyabinsk, Galina Starovoytova achieved national recognition as an ethnographer before entering politics. Her fieldwork took her to Nagorno-Karabakh and other zones of ethnic violence. She became an advocate for minority rights and was elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989, representing Armenia. After the constitutional crisis of 1993 and abolition of the Congress of People’s Deputies, she worked in a number of nongovernmental organizations before returning to parliament as a member of the State Duma in 1995. She was highly critical of Boris Yeltsin’s conduct of the first Chechen War, dubbing him “Boris, the Bloody,” as well as Yury Luzhkov’s anti-immigrant policies as mayor of Moscow. In 1998, as members of the security services were ascendant in Yeltsin’s government, she was gunned down in the entryway of her apartment building. In 2005, Yury Kolchin and Vitaly Akishin were convicted of the murder; however, the case remains under investigation.