This chapter provides all basic political, economic, and demographic data on every territorial unit of the Russian Federation, its local government structure, regional politics and electoral history through the spring 2000 elections and the summer 2000 reorganization of the Nizhnii Novgorod Oblast. Nizhnii Novgorod Oblast lies in European Russia occupying a territory of 74,800 sq km on both banks of the Middle Volga River and borders Kostroma, Kirov, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Ivanovo oblasts, and the republics of Marii El, Chuvashia, and Mordovia. Ivan Sklyarov, formerly mayor of Nizhnii Novgorod, succeeded Boris Nemtsov as governor of Nizhnii Novgorod Oblast in 1997. The association brings together the republics of Tatarstan, Mordovia, Chuvashia, and Marii El, and Astrakhan, Volgograd, Nizhnii Novgorod, Penza, Samara, Saratov, and Ulyanovsk oblasts. On 19 April the oblast administration and Avangard-Knauf signed an agreement on social-economic cooperation according to which the authorities are even willing to provide some tax breaks to the plant.