Igor Shchyogolev

Igor Olegovich Shchyogolev (Russian: И́горь Оле́гович Щёголев; born November 10, 1965) is a Russian politician. Since May 2008 and until 20 May 2012, he has served as the Russian Minister of Telecommunications.

Shchyogolev was born in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, and went to the Moscow State Linguistic University (1982–1984) and the University of Leipzig (1984–1988), graduating as a philologist. From university, he joined the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (later, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia or ITAR-TASS) in their American office until 1993. He then moved to Paris as a foreign correspondent, and in 1997 moved back to Russia as deputy editor-in-chief and political correspondent of ITAR-TASS's main news service.

In 1998 Shchyogolev left ITAR-TASS to work for the Russian government, initially as deputy head of the government corps of press officer staff, then briefly as Yevgeniy Primakov's press secretary before returning to head up the press officer corps. In early 2000, he was appointed as press secretary for Vladimir Putin, then acting President of Russia, where he stayed until the end of 2001 when he became head of Presidential Protocol, co-ordinating presidential trips overseas and at home; in 2004 his job was expanded to be head of Kremlin Protocol, where he stayed until he was appointed "Minister of Communications and Mass Media" as part of Putin's second cabinet on 12 May 2008, replacing Leonid Reiman.

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