20 January 2003 17:44 RUSSIA: OPPOSITION IN KALUGA CLEARS OUT Kaluga Oblast Governor Anatolii Artamonov lost his chief political opponent this week when the head of the Kaluga
branch of Sberbank, Aleksei Demichev, resigned his post, regions.ru reported on 16 January. The report did not say why
Demichev resigned or what his plans are. Demichev ran against Artamonov in the 2000 gubernatorial elections. After his
loss in that race, according to the website, Sberbank began to "sponsor" the local newspaper "Kaluzhskie
gubernskie vedomosti," which regularly criticized Artamonov and his policies. JAC Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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