Vasily Chernov, last leader of the Socialist Republic, dies in Moscow

TALAS — Vasily Chernov, the last First Secretary of the Communist Party of Irad and the only President of the Socialist Republic of Irad, died in Moscow on Wednesday. He was 76. His family said he would be buried at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery. The ISEZ government has made no official comment.

Born in Kobozev, now Nurzhan, on 14 March 1935, the son of a railway locomotive mechanic, Chernov trained as a chemical engineer in Leningrad and spent sixteen years at the city's refinery, rising to chief engineer before moving into party work in 1974. He became First Secretary in November 1986 and, on 9 October 1991, declared the republic independent as the Socialist Republic of Irad, with himself as President.

His government's emergency decrees of November 1991 and the economic collapse that followed provoked the Winter Uprising. On 3 February 1992 riot police opened fire on demonstrators on Central Square in Talas. A commission of the Territorial Legislature documented 27 deaths in 2002 but could not establish whether Chernov had personally authorized the use of live ammunition, and in his memoir he denied giving such an order. From 10 April his forces besieged Talas until the siege was broken in June after the American intervention. After the surrender of 18 August 1992 he was given safe conduct to Russia. In 1995 the territorial attorney general requested his extradition. Russia declined, citing his citizenship, and the case never came to trial.

In Nurzhan, where many residents worked for the SRI state, some older people remember him as a capable industrial manager. A group of former SRI officials said they would hold a memorial gathering in the city.