Tuleyev was born to a Kazakh father and a half-Tatar half-Bashkir mother in Krasnovodsk, Turkmen SSR, USSR.

[citation needed] In 1990, he switched to politics and was elected to the Parliament of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from Kuzbas.

[citation needed] In March 1990, Tuleyev was elected chairman of the Kemerovo Regional Soviet.

[6] He particularly hoped to garner votes from miners, a demographic which had developed significant qualms with some of Yeltsin's recent actions in granting concessions to Gorbachev over the issue of Russia's natural resources.

[7] As a candidate, Tuleyev championed local autonomy, incremental economic reform and social defence.

In January 1992, in protest against the policies of Yegor Gaidar Tuleyev offered his resignation from the post of chairman of the Kemerovo Oblast Regional Council.

Generally a hard-liner, he had nonetheless occasionally taken moderate stances, such as seeking tax cuts.

[12] Despite the fact that Tuleyev dropped out of the race before the election, he had already been on the ballot during a portion of the early voting period.

From August 1996 to June 1997, he was a Russian minister responsible for relations with the CIS in Viktor Chernomyrdin's Second Cabinet.

[citation needed] Although he denied being religious at all and claimed that an earlier visit to Mecca was not a pilgrimage, the Islamic Shura of Chechnya, under Sharia law, condemned him to death for apostasy.

In 2000 Tuleyev was opposed to his fellow-Communist Zyuganov (who was running again), and thus was not acting as a "backup candidate" like he had in the previous election.

[14] In fact, it was speculated that Putin's camp had convinced Tuleyev to run for the purpose of siphoning support away from Zyuganov.

[15] Tuleyev served as an attack dog, directly criticizing Zyuganov and the Communist Party.

[citation needed] The person who is claimed to have ordered the assassination, Mikhail Zhivilo (who has since received political asylum in France), had had a business dispute with a Tuleyev ally.

[citation needed] In November 2005, he formally joined the United Russia, one of the last regional governors to do so.

[citation needed] The same year, Vladimir Putin extended Tuleyev's term as governor to 2010.

[18] In April 2018, Tuleyev became the chairman of the Council of People's Deputies (legislative assembly) of Kemerovo oblast.