At this time, Russia was waging the Northern War with Sweden, so the Nizhny Novgorod garrison came under the control of the governor.

It provided for the construction of straight wide streets radiating from the Dmitrievskaya Tower of the Kremlin.

In the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, it was a scarlet deer on a silver shield, bordered by oak leaves with ribbon of Order of St. Andrew and the Great Imperial Crown.

He stood at the origins of the Decembrist movement and prepared the peasant reform in the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate.

The situation in the city and province was complicated by mass strikes of workers and revolutionary movements.

In 1990, there was a sharp decline in the influence of party committees in connection with the abolition on March 14, 1990 of Article 6 of the Constitution of the USSR, which determined the "leading and guiding role" of the CPSU.

However, on June 20, 1990, the First Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR adopted the Decree “On the Mechanism of Democracy in the RSFSR”, which said: “The position of the head of a state authority or government with any other position, including political or public, is not allowed in the RSFSR political organizations.” Thus, the first secretaries who combined the posts of the party and Soviet leaders of the region were presented with a choice: first, between subordination and disobedience to the Russian Congress; secondly, in case of consent to submit, between two posts.

Gennady Khodyrev, like some other first secretaries of the regional committees, decided not to obey and remained in both posts.

On April 21, 1992, the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR approved the renaming of the region by amending Art.

Khodyrev chose to remain the head of the regional committee (however, on November 6, the CPSU was banned for supporting the putsch).

At the beginning of the cardinal changes, the President of Russia had virtually unlimited powers to form the executive branch in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

In August 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin promised that elections would be held as soon as possible, but a new institution was created for the transitional period — the head of the regional administration appointed by the president (administration refers to a regional executive body).

On November 30, 1991, 32-year-old Boris Nemtsov was appointed head of the administration of the Nizhny Novgorod Region by presidential decree.

The Kommersant newspaper wrote that in 1995 Boris Nemtsov “earned the notoriety of a reformer”, whose experience in the restructuring of the economy of a particular region was recommended by the government everywhere.

None of the candidates gained more than 50% of the vote, and the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Ivan Sklyarov (40.95%) and the State Duma deputy from the Communist Party Gennady Khodyrev (37.84%) got into the second round.