This chapter presents all basic political, economic, and demographic data on a territorial unit of the Russian Federation, Ivanovo Oblast. The industry’s collapse threw the region into an economic depression that continued throughout the 1990s. In 1996 the unemployment rate in Ivanovo was double the national average, placing Ivanovo, along with its neighbors, Vladimir and Yaroslavl, among the regions with the highest unemployment rates. Machine building is another significant regional industry. Ivanovo enterprises manufacture equipment for the textile industry and others as well. The regional chemical industry produces dyes and acids for the local textile manufacturers. Tikhomirov invited Lebed to visit the oblast in spring of 1996, during which Lebed asked about the political situation in the oblast and requested that Ivanovo show support for the families of those who had been killed in the Chechen conflict.