title: Developments in Russian Federal-Regional Relations since 2012
abstract: Many features of the federal structure within the Russian Federation originate in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In principle, the Soviet system was highly centralized from its creation in 1922, with the Moscow-centred ruling party, the Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza, retaining practical and symbolic supremacy across the land. Following the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, held a significant public profile,