Oleg Zubarev
Oleg Zubarev (born 1964) is an Iradi engineer and politician from Nurzhan, the runner-up in the 2023 Iradi gubernatorial election. Born in Kobozev, he graduated as a heat-power engineer from the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute in 1987 and worked for the city's district-heating enterprise, Nurzhanteploset, from that year, as its chief engineer from 2006 to 2015. He has sat on the Nurzhan city council for a Russo civic list since 2015 and backed the heating workers in their strike of January 2016. Standing as an independent in 2023, he won 4.61 percent, and a little over 11 percent in Nurzhan, campaigning on heating mains, the pensions of Soviet-era industrial workers, Russian-language schooling and lower export duties. He is regarded as dry and competent ("the man who knows where the pipes are"), while critics in Talas note his halting Iradi. The civic lists favor him for a joint Russo ticket in 2027 (see Civic Union (Irad)); he has not declared.[1][2]
References
- ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Russos in Municipal Politics: Nurzhan since 1992.' Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 77–96.
- ^ Talas Herald (October 2026). 'Nurzhan lists and unions open talks on a "Civic Union" ticket.' Talas.