Anton Bakov

Anton Bakov
Born	December 29, 1965(1965-12-29) Sverdlovsk, USSR
Occupation	The Vice-Chairman of the Party Action

Anton Alekseevich Bakov (Russian: Антон Алексеевич Баков;) was a Member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from 2003 to 2007. He is a well-known Russian businessman, politician, traveller, writer and human rights activist. He is the Vice-Chairman of the Federal Political Council of the Party Action.^[1]

Biography

Bakov was born on 29 December 1965 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in a family of engineers at the Uralmash machine building plant. He graduated from the Ural Polytechnic Institute (now the Ural State Technical University) in 1988. He was a Lenin grant-aided student and graduated with honours. While a student he became an activist in the anti-communist movement. He organized several political activities including the public boycott of uncontested elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1984, the founding of a public movement aimed at re-opening churches closed down by the communists and the saving of the memorials of national history in Verkhoturye in 1987. In 1988 he also initiated the removal of the plates with the names of Joseph Stalin’s executioners from city streets.

Later he became a professional traveller, one of the few Russians to visit Tibet, Eritrea and other far-away corners of the planet. Bakov still takes an active part in environmental projects. He finances a project to increase the trout population in the rivers of the Northern Urals. He organizes rallies and other political actions for the protection of forests and lakes in the Urals and fights against the dumping of nuclear waste on the territory of Russia.

1990s

In 1994, Anton Bakov was elected a Serov county deputy of Sverdlovsk Oblast Parliament - Sverdlovsk Oblast Duma and the Chairman of the Duma Legislative Committee. His first actions as a deputy were aimed against the federal appointments of city mayors and regional governors. He and his like-minded team succeeded in holding the executive government elections in 1995-1996. At the same time Bakov created and supported the so-called Social Ambulance – a system of social control. In 1994 he became an active member of Duma's Chairman Eduard Rossel's team, he was appointed a political coordinator of the "Urals Transfiguration" ( political party campaigning for the independence of Urals from the Russia). He was a member of the pre-election committee for E. Rossel in 1995, a good year for Rossel as he won the election. Bakov participated in the Yekaterinburg mayor elections in 1995, and came second behind the current mayor, Arkady Mikhailovich Chernetsky. In 1996 he was elected the Vice-Chairman of Sverdlovsk Regional Duma, and then was nominated for the post of the Governor of Kurgan region, but his candidature was not registered.

2000s

In 2000 Anton Bakov was elected to the House of Representatives (the upper chamber) of the Legislative Assembly of Sverdlovsk oblast (from Serov single-mandate electoral district). He fought against corruption (organized "Anti-Mafia" public movement, which opposed the criminal organisation "Uralmash”) and against the propriety redistribution process.

In order to increase the wellbeing of the population, Bakov was involved in educational activities, created consumer and credit cooperatives, councils of local public self-governing bodies and condominiums.

As an MP, Bakov proposed to increase the size of the allowances for children and the introduction of regional additional payments to state pensions.

Governor elections

In 2003, Bakov participated in the elections of the Governor of Sverdlovsk region. He accused Eduard Rossel of having links with the criminal organisation “Uralmash”. In the second round Anton Bakov lost, gaining 330,000 votes against the more than 600,000 obtained by Eduard Rossel.

In 2003 he was elected to the State Duma from single-mandate Serovskiy electoral district № 167. After the election, he joined the party “the Union of Right Forces”. He supervised all the successful election campaigns of the party in all the regions, except for Chechnya, in 2004-2007.

The Union of Right Forces

In December 2006, Bakov was elected the Secretary of the electoral work of the “Union of Right Forces”. He is considered to be the one who proposed abandoning traditional right-wing party liberal rhetoric and populist slogans such as raising pensions and supporting the poor.

Because of the defeat of the Union of Right Forces in the Russian legislative election, 2007 and the abolition of single-mandate electoral districts, Anton Bakov did not get into the State Duma for the next term.

Business

Bakov is one of the first legal businessmen in Russia. In 1987, 4 months after the permission to set up the first independent cooperative societies in the USSR and while still at university, Bakov established the private tourist agency "Cedar", the first such agency in the country. In 1991 on the basis of this agency, he established the company "East Line".

In 1997-2000 Bakov became the General Director of the city-forming enterprise - Serovskiy Metallurgical Plant (9000 employees). This experience became very important for his future career.

Since 2002 Bakov has been engaged in buying land, and now is one of the largest landowners of the Urals. As a developer, Bakov actively started building country houses for sale. In addition, he is actively involved in political consulting. In recent years he specialized in the development of Internet, media and political social networks, including those which are aimed at mobilizing people to fight corruption.

The Party Action

On October 14, 2010, Bakov was elected the Vice-Chairman of the Federal Political Council of the Party Action.

Personal information

Anton Bakov is the author of the books The Christian History of the Urals, Civilization of the Mediterranean and Which Russia do I serve.

He is a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and has 20 patents for inventions. He is married and has four children and three grandchildren.

Political views

He is an anti-communist. He stands for a social market economy and maximum autonomy of the Urals from Moscow. In addition, he is interested in oceanology, opposes marine pollution and calls for the preservation of the natural heritage of our planet.

In October 2011, Bakov claimed to have purchased the atoll of Suwarrow from the Cook Islands and declared it the capital of a new Russian Empire.^[2]

References

External links

• Governor elections 2003
• Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia 2004
• Radio Free Europe
• RIANOVOSTI