# Valentin Demidov

Valentin Valentinovich Demidov (Russian: Валентин Валентинович Демидов; born on 28 November 1976), is a Russian politician who is currently the 8th head of Belgorod, since 17 January 2023.
He had also served as the 5th head of Simferopol from 2021 to 2022 and as the Minister of Economic Development of the Republic of Crimea from 2015 to 2016.
Prior to his restoration of his Russian citizenship in 2014, Demydov was the Mayor of Armyansk from 2007 to 2015. He had been a member of Armiansk City Council from 2002 to 2010. Since 2014, he has been a member a member of the United Russia party, and from 2005 to 2014, he was a member of the Party of Regions at the time he was a Ukrainian citizen.

## Biography

Valentin Demidov was born on 28 November 1976 in the village of the state farm Petrovsky, in Lipetsk Oblast. In 1986, his parents moved to Armyansk on exchange, where his mother began working in the Bureau of Technical Inventory.
He studied at the Armyansk Secondary School No. 1. In 1994 he entered the Faculty of Law of the Simferopol State University. M. V. Frunze (since 1999 - Taurida National University named after V. I. Vernadsky), where he graduated in 2000 with a degree in jurisprudence.
Demidov began his career in Armyansk in September 1998 as a specialist in the self-supporting group "Planida". Four months later, he moves to the position of chief legal adviser of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Armyansk.
In May 1999, he became an employee of Crimean Titan, the largest producer of titanium dioxide in Eastern Europe. He began working at the enterprise as a legal consultant of the Claims and Contracts Bureau, and in 2011 he began to act as Deputy Head of the Legal Department - Head of the Claims Arbitration Bureau.
In 2002 he was elected a deputy of the Armyansk City Council. Between 2002 and 2007 he was the secretary of the Armyansk City Council. In 2005 he joined the Party of Regions, and in 2006 he was re-elected as a deputy of the City Council. He headed the Armenian cell of the Party of Regions. In 2006 he graduated from the Odesa Regional Institute of Public Administration of the National Academy of Public Administration under the President of Ukraine, where he received the specialty "Master of Public Administration".
In 2007, Demidov was elected mayor of Armyansk. In the 2010 local elections, the city's residents re-elected him as mayor. After the annexation of Crimea to the Russia, he remained in his position and, in the first regional elections in Crimea, under Russian law, became the head of the city administration of the city of Armyansk.
During his city reign, Demidov was criticized for granting privileges to his relatives, regardless of their professional qualities.
On 16 June 2015, Sergey Aksyonov appointed Demidov the Minister of Economic Development of the Republic of Crimea. In December 2016, he wrote a letter of resignation from the post of minister of his own free will.
From January 2017 to September 2019, he was the director of the department for territorial development and interaction with local authorities of Sevastopol.
In September 2020, Demidov became Deputy Head of the Simferopol City Administration. In that position, he dealt with issues of internal information policy and interethnic relations.
On 17 February 2021, the head of Simferopol, Yelena Protsenko, resigned, and Demidov became the acting head of the city. On 29 March 2021, Demidov won the competition to fill the vacant position of the head of the city.
After that, on 4 April 2021, the deputies of the city council of Simferopol elected Demidov as the head of the administration of the city of Simferopol. Demidov became the fifth head of the city in the seven-year period since the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
On 30 December 2021, he left the post of head of the administration of Simferopol at his own request.
On 11 January 2022, the deputies of the city council of Simferopol at an extraordinary session accepted Demidov's resignation.
On 28 February 2022, Demidov was appointed Advisor to the Governor of Belgorod Oblast Vyacheslav Gladkov.
On 12 September 2022, he was appointed Advisor to the Mayor of Belgorod Anton Ivanov.
On 12 October 2022, Demidov was appointed First Deputy Mayor of Belgorod by Ivanov.
On 8 November, Demidov became the acting Mayor of Belgorod. He was sworn into office on 17 January 2023.

## Personal life

He is married, and raises a son and a daughter.
He is an Orthodox Christian.