Saint Petersburg is afederal subject of Russia.[1] The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998.[2]
The superior executive body is theSaint Petersburg City Administration, led by thegovernor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has aunicameral legislature, theSaint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by thePresident of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The former governor,Valentina Matviyenko was approved according to the new system in December 2006; she moved to another job in Moscow and was replaced onGeorgy Poltavchenko in 2011. In 2012, following passage of a new federal law,[3] restoring direct elections of heads of federal subjects, the city charter was again amended to provide for direct elections of governor.[4]
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteenadministrative divisions.
Saint Petersburg is also the administrative center ofLeningrad Oblast, and of theNorthwestern Federal District.[5]
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, despite being different federal subjects, share a number of departments of federal executive agencies, such as courts of arbitration, police,FSB bureaux, postal services, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
As in other large Russian cities, Saint Petersburg experiences fairly high levels ofstreet crime and bribery. In addition, there has been a noticeable increase in racially motivated violence in recent years. On the other hand, unlike in Moscow, there have been no major terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg in recent years.[6]Between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Saint Petersburg became home to a number of gangs, such as theTambov Gang,Malyshev Gang,Kazan gang, and other ethnic criminal groups, who engaged inracketeering,extortion and often violent clashes with each other.[6]
After the sensational assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman Mikhail Manevich (1997),State Duma deputyGalina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed capital of crime in the Russian press.[7][8]
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