Ravil Faritovich Geniatulin was born on December 20, 1955, in Chita. From 1974 to 1976, he served in the Transbaikal Military District, in the Automotive Troops. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology at the Chita State Pedagogical Institute. He worked at the Department of History at the Chita State Pedagogical Institute, and later in the city committees of the Komsomol and Communist Party, and in the city executive committee. From 1991 to 1996, he served as the head of the Chita City Administration. By February 1996, he became the head of the Chita Region administration. He is a member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. - Ravil Faritovich, you are a historian by training, so it is logical to start our conversation with a brief overview of your region's past. - Until the 17th century, the territory of modern-day Chita Oblast, or, as it is also known, Transbaikalia, was a sparsely populated area of harsh and wild nature. It wasn't until 1653 that Peter Beketov's Cossack explorers established the Nelyudsky (Nerchinsky) and, later, the Irgensky and Chitinsky fortresses near the mouth of the Nerch River. This marked the beginning of the region's history. By the end of the century, several more settlements had been established here: Telembinsky, Yeravninsky, Argunsky, Sretensky, and later other settlements, some of which will forever be remembered by the people as places of exile for the Decembrists in the 19th century: S.P. Trubetskoy, S.G. Volkonsky, N.M. Muravyov, and their comrades who participated in the uprising on Senate Square in St. Petersburg. In 1851, a Cossack army was established in Transbaikalia to protect the Russian borders. It chose Chita, a small village at the time, as its capital, and Chita was granted city status and became the center of the Transbaikal region. In the current century, our region has changed its name and administrative status several times: in 1920-1922, it was part of the ... Read more