Russian Women Leaders

Alexandra Kollontai was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and diplomat. She served as the People's Commissar for Welfare in Lenin’s government. A powerful figure, she became the first woman in history to become an official member of a governing cabinet. She was also one of the few women to play a prominent role during the Russian Revolution. 

The first woman to serve as the governor of the Central Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina has also been an economic advisor to Russian president Vladamir Putin. The daughter of a factory manager mother and a driver father, she made it to the Forbes Power Women 2020 list.

Also known as Vladimir Putin’s right-hand woman, Russian politician Valentina Matviyenko has been the governor and the first female leader of Saint Petersburg. She was also an ambassador to Greece and Malta, and now chairs the Federation Council. Though Ukrainian by birth, she supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Lyubov Sobol is a Russian public and political figure. An influential personality, Sobol serves as a lawyer of a nonprofit organization called the Anti-Corruption Foundation. In 2019, BBC included her in the leadership category of its list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world.

Soviet politician and The New Times editor Valeriya Novodvorskaya, who founded the Democratic Union party, had been a prominent dissident who often clashed with the Soviet authorities. She was once jailed for criticizing the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The self-proclaimed asexual activist lived with her mother and her cat.

Russian revolutionary Vera Figner was a major figure of the Populist (Narodnik) movement. Initially a medical student, she later left her studies midway to devote herself to politics. She also left her husband for her revolutionary cause and became associated with the Zemlya i Volya party.

From being the chief economist of the Russian finance ministry to serving as the deputy prime minister for social policy, Tatyana Golikova has done it all. Known as Miss Budget in popular media, she specializes in labor economics. She was also named Madam Arbidol for her alleged association with Pharmstandard.

Born into a poverty-stricken family of farmers, Fanny Kaplan was home-schooled. Later, while working as a milliner, she joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and thus became part of radical politics. She developed anti-Bolshevik sentiments and attempted to assassinate Lenin. Though Lenin recovered, Kaplan was later executed.

Economist, journalist and politician Yekaterina Dmitriyevna Kuskova of the Russian Empire advocated for social reformism and opposed the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Lenin’s authoritarian policies following the October Revolution. She was a member of the nascent Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDRP) and later became a founding member of the liberal Union of Liberation, which was renamed as the Constitutional-Democratic Party (KDP).