This chapter presents all basic political, economic, and demographic data on a territorial unit of the Russian Federation, Tomsk Oblast, which lies in the southeast of the West Siberian plain. The development of the territory which belongs to the oblast began in the early 17th century. Tomsk itself was founded in 1604. The oblast borders Krasnoyarsk Krai, and Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk, and Kemerovo oblasts. The governor’s administration decided to focus its energy on further developing the oblast’s timber industry and small businesses in 1999–2000. The Tomsk oblast legislature is dominated by independents, many representing prominent businesses in the region, who won 30 of the legislature’s 42 seats in the December 1997 elections. The region’s economy is closely associated with the fate of the Eastern Oil Company, the oblast’s largest tax payer. Viktor Kress strongly supports small business. He describes Russia’s system as oligarch capitalism in which a handful of financial-industrial groups control the economy.