During this period he oversaw the establishment of the republic's post-Soviet laws and structures, and a number of important economic developments.

Mikhail Semyonov was born on 26 November 1938 in the village of Korsungai [ru], in Nukutsky District, Irkutsk Oblast.

[1][2] He was one of the eight children, and four sons, of Innokenty Maraktayevich, a machine operator, and Anfisa Andreevna, a party member and activist.

[4] In 1965 he moved to Buryatia to work at the Dzhidinsky tungsten-molybdenum plant, where over a 28-year period he rose from the position of mining foreman to the head of the enterprise in 1980.

[4] These were particularly significant terms, as it was during the first and second convocations of the Khural that many of the basic laws and state structures of the Republic were codified and enacted.

[5] Other industrial and economic developments included the construction of the Tugnuysky coal mine, the LEP-500 main power transmission line between Irkutsk and Gusinoozyorsk, 150 km of paved road between Mondy and Orlik, and a new telephone exchange in Ulan-Ude.

He had been awarded the degree of candidate of legal sciences, and had the honorary title of "Honoured Engineer of the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic".