There were personnel changes in the apparatus of the State Duma

State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin made personnel changes in the apparatus of the lower house. Two interlocutors on Okhotny Ryad told Vedomosti about this. Olga Portnova, who previously held the post of deputy head of this department, became the head of the department (so far with the prefix acting) of the press service and information of the State Duma apparatus. And Lilia Kondratyeva, who previously headed this department, moved to the post of head of the library collections department (Parliamentary Library), replacing Irina Andreeva in this post.

Portnova from 2007 to 2017 was the press secretary of the United Russia faction in the State Duma. After joining the State Duma in 2016 as speaker Volodin and changing the secretary of the United Russia General Council from Sergei Neverov to Andrei Turchak, she moved to the State Duma apparatus, where until recently she held the post of deputy head of the press service and information department.

There will also be changes inside the press service management in the future, says the Duma interlocutor of Vedomosti. According to him, this will affect the department that was engaged in television broadcasts of plenary sessions, committees, press approaches: “New approaches will be introduced that are related to video filming, editing, etc.”

Kondratyeva also worked in the Central Executive Committee of the United Russia party, then, when Volodin was the first deputy head of the presidential administration, she worked in the presidential department for domestic policy (UVP). And after Volodin came to the lower house, Kondratiev also moved to the State Duma. Volodin, having come to the State Duma, carried out large-scale changes in the apparatus. For example, Olga Sitnikova, who had worked with him for many years (Kondratyeva’s boss at the UVP), was appointed head of the public relations department of the apparatus, combining this position with the post of deputy head of the Duma apparatus.

In 2017, the department of public relations was headed by the deputy head of the department, Konstantin Tarasov, who had worked in the State Duma since the time of speaker Boris Gryzlov. Later, the name of the unit was changed to the press service and information department. In June 2020, Tarasov moved to the post of Deputy Head of the State Duma Staff, in charge of the Press Service Department, the Expert Analytical Department and the Parliamentary Library (in September 2022, he left this post and became Volodin’s adviser, and in July 2023 he left State Duma after almost 20 years of work there).

And Kondratieva became the head of the press service department in 2020. Now he is supervised by the press service department, the library collections department and the expert and analytical department of the deputy head of the apparatus, Sergei Pushkin, former director and editor-in-chief of Duma.TV.

The parliamentary library, and then the administration, was headed by Andreeva from the very beginning. Now she has retired.

The historical information on the library’s website says that the decision to establish it in 1991 was made by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR after a group of Russian deputies visited the US Library of Congress. In 1991–1992 the structure and staffing of the parliamentary library were developed and approved. In 2005, as part of the reorganization of the apparatus of the State Duma, the library received the status of the Library Collections Administration (Parliamentary Library). Now the library is preparing dossiers for parliamentary hearings, round tables and preparing materials for government hours. For deputies and factions, the library staff prepares various reference information.

The leadership of the Parliamentary Library will be faced with the task of finding new formats of work, says an interlocutor in the Duma: “Now its main task is to help deputies and employees of committees to improve the legislative framework.” In 2021, a building appeared near the library on Vernadsky Avenue. “But there was a pandemic, and as a result, those new areas of work that were planned did not start. Therefore, such a task has been set now,” the interlocutor said.

“The ideological continuity is preserved: the official information policy of the State Duma is carried out by people from United Russia. If Kondratieva worked for many years in the Central Election Commission of the party, then Portnova has extensive experience in the Duma faction of United Russia, ”says Pavel Sklyanchuk, a member of the political technologies committee of the RASO.

“At the beginning of 2021, the Parliamentary Library moved to a new larger building on Vernadsky Ave. With this in mind, some events can be held there more often,” he points out. So far, the library performs archival and museum functions, for example, it stores all transcripts of plenary sessions and official paraphernalia, and at the same time prepares media digests and thematic bibliography for parliamentary hearings, he notes.