Ilya Zaslavskiy

Since then, Zaslavskiy has spent most of his time as an entrepreneur, expert, and business consultant, mostly in Russia and, since 2014, also in Germany.

After the dismissal of the entire cabinet of ministers by Yeltsin in March 1998, Zaslavskiy was appointed deputy minister for the Russian Ministry of Land Policy, Construction, Housing and Utilities (Минземстроя РФ) under Ilya Yushanov, and after that, deputy chairman of the Federal Agency for Construction and Housing and Utilities (Госстрой РФ) under Anvar Shamuzarov. He was dismissed from this position in 2003 and headed the board of directors for the OAO Mosmetrostroy, which built the Moscow Metro.

Zaslavskiy stood again as a candidate in the 1995 elections, this time for the bloc Democratic Choice of Russia – United Democrats. The bloc's personnel was essentially identical to Russia's Choice, including the leader Yegor Gaidar. The United Democrats' results, however, fell short of the electoral threshold on national level, and gained only nine direct mandates on district level due to strong competition by the liberal party Yabloko. Zaslavskiy did not achieve a seat in the parliament.

On December 12, 1993, the first national elections in the Russian Federation, legal successor to the Soviet Union, took place. Ilya Zaslavskiy ran for the bloc Russia's Choice, a coalition of conservative and liberal parties. Russia's Choice became the second strongest force, and achieved 15.51% of votes as well as 64 seats, one of which was taken by Zaslavskiy. Political aims of the bloc were the creation of a lean government and good conditions for entrepreneurial growth, as well as protecting private ownership and democratic freedoms – in short: "Freedom, Ownership, Legality".

As a member of the World Committee for the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons, which lasted from 1982 to 1993, Zaslavskiy worked out the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities, which were resolved on December 20, 1993, and that constituted the precursor of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted in 2006.

From August 19–21, 1991, an attempted coup d'état took place when conservative functionaries and orthodox communists tried to take power in Moscow by force of arms, taking into detention the incumbent president Gorbatchev at his Crimea dacha. The coup failed, and Gorbatchev stayed in power de jure. De facto, however, he lost control over the Soviet Union: The recently elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Boris Yeltsin, came out against the plotters and in favor of Gorbatchev, and barricaded up in the White House. At the same time, he seized local power regardless, and later had the CPSU banned (which was Gorbatchev's and the putschists' party at the same time). Days later, on August 24, 1991, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic declared itself independent from the Soviet Union.

In one last try to keep the Soviet States in a union, Mikhail Gorbatchev resigned as General Secretary of the CPSU on August 24, 1991, and asked the hastily summoned 5th Congress of People's Deputies to suspend the central government and constitution of the Soviet Union, as well as to dissolve itself. His aim was to stabilise the situation by shifting power to the local executive powers. However, he was not able to organise the required majority for this undertaking. Ilya Zaslavskiy, who was known for his informal conduct at the time (see also section Trivia), commented on the entrenched situation as follows: "It's not correct to say Congress was put on its knees. This Congress was never off its knees in the first place". In allusion to the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks in 1918 ("The guard is tired"), he stated that "it's not the guards who are tired, it's the people".

On September 5, 1991, the Congress of the Soviet Union adjourned itself. Zaslavskiy, who in this season was a member of the Supreme Council, continued his parliamentary work past that date, until the Congress was finally dissolved on December 26, 1991. This marked his last day as a People's Deputy, since in the successor organisation, the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian SFSR, Zaslavskiy did not occupy a seat. This Congress was replaced with the State Duma by referendum after Boris Yeltsin had dissolved the chamber unconstitutionally during the 1993 constitutional crisis.

Despite such rhetorical acts of resistance, the leading members of the democratic opposition in the Soviet Union (organised in the countrywide movement Democratic Russia (Демократическая Россия)) were mostly powerless with regards to the national parliament. They focused, therefore, on local elections to gain influence. Zaslavskiy, one of the most commonly known and influential members of Democratic Russia, ran for election to his home district Oktyabrsky's council in 1990. As a proven entrepreneur, he promised to "build capitalism in one district" – a clear provocation to the state doctrine of "Socialism in one country".

According to Zaslavskiy, Ronald Reagan had been a co-author of Perestroika, the process of modernising Soviet society generally credited to Mikhail Gorbachev alone. Reagan's tough approach had provoked changes to the communist system, such as Gorbatchev's electoral reform, for example. The emergence of strong opposition in the Baltic states, as well as Russia, in democratic elections had made restructuring the Soviet Union, as proposed by Gorbachev during the 28th party convention of the CPSU in July 1990 in form of the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics, inevitable. Although broad sections of the communist party opposed the reforms, these reforms had been absolutely necessary – a new phenomenon for the Soviet society. This fact, combined with the economic need for quick decisionmaking, had enabled Boris Yeltsin to activate the internal opposition within the CPSU, and to force the party to decide between Gorbachev's totalitarian and Yeltsin's democratic approach.

The draft developed under his guidance in the Committee for Veterans and Disabled of the Supreme Soviet was adopted in 1990 as the law On the Basic Principles of Social Protection of Disabled Persons in the USSR by the Congress. Although the Dissolution of the Soviet Union delayed the implementation, progress did not stop, and the law moved back to attention named On Social Protection of Disabled Persons in the Russian Federation in 1995, adopted by the State Duma, again with Zaslavskiy's vote. Its guidelines were amended by the Federal List of Rehabilitation Measures, Technical Means of Rehabilitation and Services Provided to Persons with Disabilities in 2005.

Despite opposition by communist and nationalist forces, his demands – especially for recognition and inclusion of disabled people – and rhetoric appealed to a broad audience. He gathered prominent support, for instance by cosmonaut Georgy Grechko and human rights defender Andrei Sakharov, and at the election on March 26, 1989, Zaslavskiy took victory over the candidate of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, TV host and anti-Semite Alexander Krutov.

During the first People's Deputies Congress, Zaslavskiy proposed a comprehensive programme of measures to improve the life situation of disabled people within the USSR. Because of his support for radical economic reforms in opposition to the communist majority, he was not elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, but made vice chairman of the adjunct Committee for Veterans and Disabled instead, which was composed of Supreme Soviet members and regular People's Deputies in equal shares. From there, he was able to introduce and put into practice his demands (see also section Disability rights). During the course of 1989, he organised a trip of a Russian disabled skiers' team to Breckenridge in the United States.

His election to People's Deputies Congress had been received with great interest in America: The founder and chairman of the US National Organization on Disability, Alan A. Reich, had congratulated Ilya Zaslavskiy via phone call in April 1989; shortly after, Senator Bob Dole – himself a war-disabled veteran of WWII – invited the young people's deputy to Washington D.C. On September 7, 1989, Zaslavskiy, Reich, Dole, and Edward Kennedy, who had sponsored the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States Senate, met to discuss disability rights at the Capitol. Subsequently, Zaslavskiy was appointed to the World Committee for the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons.

When back in Moscow, Ilya Zaslavskiy poisitioned himself as an opponent to the one-party rule of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. David Remnick, for example, describes being witness to a scene on December 15, 1989, at the State Kremlin Palace, where Zaslavskiy literally stood up to Gorbatchev and "the fury in Gorbatchev's eyes" to demand a day of remembrance for Andrei Sakharov, a dissident who had died the day before.

After reading in a newspaper about Mikhail Gorbachev's constitutional revision of December 1, 1988 making democratic elections possible for the first time, Zaslavskiy decided to pursue a political career.

In 1988, Zaslavskiy was nominated to run for the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union by the local Association of Disabled People in Moscow's Oktyabrsky district. The nomination of an independent candidate attracted public attention.

Zaslavskiy is currently married in his second marriage. His first wife Alevtina Nikitina, member of the Moscow City Duma, gave birth to daughter Anastasia (* 1987). With his second wife Alla Kossova, director of a Gosstroy enterprise, he had daughter Antonina (* 2003).

Contrary to the common practice of the period in the Soviet Union (as well as today's Russian Federation) to keep disabled persons in involuntary commitment at specialised boarding homes (Психоневрологический интернат, ПНИ), Zaslavskiy was able to study, acquiring the academic degree equivalent to a PhD (Candidate of Sciences) in 1985. As a researcher, he published more than 30 scientific works, including one book.

Ilya Iosifovich Zaslavskiy (Russian Илья Иосифович Заславский; born January 31, 1960) is a Russian politician of the Perestroika era, activist and specialist for the rights of disabled people, and entrepreneur. He has held seats in the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union, State Duma of the Russian Federation, acted as deputy minister for the Russian Ministry of Land Policy, Construction, Housing and Utilities, and worked on the World Committee for the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons.

Ilya Zaslavskiy was born on January 31, 1960, to Jewish parents Joseph and Emilia Zaslavskiy in Moscow. Due to a severe childhood illness, he could make only partial use of his legs and was unable to go to school. Instead, teachers came to teach Zaslavskiy at his home.

Zaslavskiy's assessment of the situation at the 28th party convention of the CPSU was shared especially by German political observers of the time. His statement about Reagan as a co-author of Perestroika is often quoted in the US American press. Once asked about the long journey to a personal meeting with Reagan, Zaslavskiy said: "I would travel a week, a month, just to shake his hand".