ABSTRACT
This chapter provides all basic political, economic, and demographic data on a territorial unit of the Russian Federation, the Replubic of Khakassia, which is located in the south of West Siberia, on the left bank of the Yenisei River. Until 1991 it was an autonomous oblast within Krasnoyarsk Krai. While in the beginning of the century the Khakas made up over two-thirds of the population, their current share is just over 10 percent, and the vast majority of the republic’s population is Russian. Khakassia’s population is the country’s 10th poorest in terms of real per capita income, which in 1997 was only 9.47 percent of its 1991 level. Although Aleksei Lebed may be best known as the younger brother of Krasnoyarsk Governor and former Russian Security Council Secretary Aleksandr Lebed, he has had a successful military and political career in his own right.
