Ruslan Khasbulatov

Ruslan Khasbulatov, (1947 - ), is a politician who has worked with Boris Yeltsin from 1987 and became speaker of the Russian parliament after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was born in Chechnya.

During the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, which was triggered when President Boris Yeltsin tried to dissolve the parliament on September 21, Khasbulatov led the parliament in the power struggle with the president. The parliament responded by declaring Yeltsin's presidency unconstitutional and appointing Aleksandr Rutskoy acting president.

Khasbulatov was arrested along with the other leaders of the parliament, but pardoned in 1994. Since then he has resumed his earlier career as a teacher of economics as founder and head of the Department of International Economy at the Russian Economic Academy.