Our Home – Russia
우리 집 러시아
A centre-right political movement in the Russian Federation formed in May 1995 by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to support President Boris Yeltsin’s course. Backed by officials and big business, it was called “the party of power” and formed a parliamentary faction after the 1995 Duma election. After losing most of its seats in 1999 it joined Unity in 2000, and its registration was cancelled and it was liquidated in 2006.
In depth
According to the Russian-language source, on 25 April 1995 Yeltsin, preparing for the coming parliamentary election, instructed Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and Duma Chairman Ivan Rybkin to create centre-right and centre-left blocs respectively, and on the same day Chernomyrdin announced that he would form and lead a centre-right electoral bloc. The founding congress was held at the Kinotsentr on Krasnaya Presnya in Moscow on 12 May 1995, and the movement was registered with the Ministry of Justice on 22 May. Until the 2001 law on political parties its legal name was the All-Russian Socio-Political Movement “Our Home – Russia”.
The English-language source describes it as a liberal, centrist movement for rallying technocratic-reformist government supporters, backed by the Association of Russian Banks and companies such as Gazprom, and nicknamed “the party of power” and “the party of the Oligarchs”. The Russian-language source characterises it as a party of the “nomenklatura centre” representing the administrative and economic nomenklatura formed in the 1990s and partly the regional elite. In the State Duma election of 17 December 1995 it won 10.13%, taking 45 list seats and 10 single-member seats and forming a faction. Although critical of the war in Chechnya, it played a central role in Yeltsin’s 1996 re-election campaign.
In spring 1998 Yeltsin dismissed Chernomyrdin as prime minister, and in 1999 the Kremlin backed the newly formed Unity instead of Our Home – Russia. In the election of 19 December 1999 the movement won 1.19% and no list seats; the English-language source says it won 8 seats, while the Russian-language source counts 9 deputies elected in single-member districts. On 26 May 2000 its 8th Congress decided to end the movement and join Unity, but it was not legally dissolved because about a fifth of its members refused to join the new party. Its regional organisations, largely inactive, remained until its registration was cancelled on 26 May 2006, and it was liquidated by court decision on 23 October 2006. The English-language source dates the movement from 1995 to the mid-2000s, while the Russian-language source’s introduction gives 1995–2000.