Boris Nemtsov was born October, 9 1959 in Sochi (a Russian city on the coast of the Black Sea). In 1967, his family moved to Nizhny Novgorod (at that time called Gorky).
Having graduated from the Faculty of Radiophysics at the Lobachevsky State University in Gorky in 1981, Boris Nemtsov started his professional career as a scientist at the Radiophysical Research Institute (NIRFI) in Gorky. In 1985, he obtained a Ph.D. in Physics. Boris Nemtsov is the author of more than 60 research papers and several innovations in physics.
From 1987 to 1990, Boris Nemtsov took an active part in the protests against the construction of the nuclear heating plant in the city of Gorky.
In 1990-1993, Nemtsov served as Member of the Russian Parliament, representing the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
In the autumn of 1991, he was delegated to the Russian Supreme Soviet, where he served on the Legislative Committee.
In September 1991, Nemtsov was appointed as the presidential representative in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, and in December 1991, as Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
On December 17, 1995, Boris Nemtsov was elected Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, with 58 percent of the vote.
From March 1997 to August 1998, Nemtsov served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation (simultaneously serving as Minister of Fuel and Energy from April to November 1997).
In August 1999, together with Sergey Kiriyenko and Irina Khakamada, Boris Nemtsov co-founded the Union of Right Forces, a liberal political party in Russia.
On December 19, 1999, the Union of Right Forces successfully contested the Russian parliamentary election, passing the threshold required for representation in the State Duma, and Nemtsov himself won in his singe-member district in Nizhny Novgorod. In the Duma, he served as Deputy Speaker, and later as leader of the Union of Right Forces parliamentary caucus.
In January 2004, Nemtsov became a co-founder of the 2008 Free Choice Committee, an umbrella group of the democratic opposition.
In 2004-2005, he chaired the board of directors of the Neftyanoy Group of Companies.
In 2005-2006, Nemtsov acted as an advisor to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
In 2007, Boris Nemtsov ran in the parliamentary election as one of the leaders of the Union of Right Forces. He was nominated as the party’s candidate for President of Russia, but withdrew in favor of Mikhail Kasyanov.
In 2008, Nemtsov left the Union of Right Forces because of the party’s drift away from democratic principles. That same year, he became a member of the bureau of the Russian United Democratic Movement “Solidarity,” which he co-founded together with Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Bukovsky, and other pro-democracy figures.
In 2010, Boris Nemtsov became a co-founder of the People’s Freedom Party.
In 2012, he was elected co-chairman of the Republican Party of Russia — People’s Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS), a party formed after a merger between two liberal political organizations.
In September 2013, Boris Nemtsov was elected as a Member of the Yaroslavl Regional Duma at the head of the RPR-PARNAS list.
Boris Nemtsov is the author of several investigative anticorruption reports on Vladimir Putin’s regime. Probably the best known among them was his report on the Winter Olympics in Sochi, where he revealed corruption on an unprecedented scale.
Boris Nemtsov was awarded several state honors, including Russia’s Order of Merit for the Fatherland (II Class), Ukraine’s Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, and the Order of Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was posthumously awarded one of Ukraine’s highest state honors, the Order of Liberty.
He was shot dead on the evening of February 27, 2015, on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge near the Kremlin walls.
