Yavlinsky, Grigory Alekseevich (1952– )

Ukrainian-born politician; leader of the Russian political party Yabloko. An economist, he became an economics minister in one of Yeltsin's governments when Russia was still part of the USSR but refused all posts once the USSR collapsed, concentrating on building up Yabloko (Russian for ‘apple’). The party remained the only consistently reformist party in the Duma (lower house), and Yavlinsky continued to be a potentially powerful player on the political stage.

In many ways Yavlinsky was the most successful leading liberal politician in Russia – but one who, at least in Yeltsin's time, never succeed in achieving power. He was a free marketeer, but a constant and often loud critic of Yegor Gaidar and his successors, claiming that reform had not really started and that corruption had cancelled out all hope of progress under Yeltsin. He ran as a presidential candidate, but received a low vote; many of the liberals disliked him for his criticism of Gaidar while the anti-reformists disliked him for his espousal of reform.