Former State Duma member Vasily Shandybin dies at 68
MOSCOW. December 31. KAZINFORM Former State Duma member Vasily Shandybin died at the age of 68, a deputy chairman of the Communist Party' s Central Committee, deputy chairman of the State Duma's committee for natural resources management and ecology, Vladimir Kashin, reported, Kazinform refers to Itar-Tass.
"He was an extraordinary personality and his death at the age of 68 has aroused strong emotion among factory and farm workers, intellectuals, and in the Communist Party and the Agro-Industrial Union," Kashin said. "All those who knew Vasily Shandybin - and the range of such people is very wide - are grieving over this loss."
Kashin described Shandybin as "a man with no fear."
Kashin offered condolences to the relatives and friends of the late legislator and promised that the Communist Party would do its utmost to arrange for a decent farewell ceremony and funeral.
"Shandybin has never broken off with the Communist Party and our working class movement department. He always asked us for advice and shared advice with us," the legislator said.
For a long time Shandybin was a State Duma member from the CPRF. In September 2007 he quit the Communist Party to enter the top troika on the election ticket of the Agrarian Party of Russia, which lost the election that followed shortly afterwards, Kazinform cites Itar-Tass. See www.itar-tass.com for full version.