Sawt Falasteen - Russia's Stalin-admiring provincial leader waging an ultra-conservative crusade

Accused of authoritarianism and trampling women's rights, Filimonov will represent the ruling United Russia party in this month's tightly-controlled parliamentary elections.

Some 450 kilometres (280 miles) north-west of Moscow, the 45-year-old nationalistic regional leader has built up a reputation for his outspoken views and made national headlines.

In the historic city of Vologda, 31-year-old worker Artyom told AFP a joke was circulating in the neighbouring Yaroslavl region: "When people from Vologda come to us, it's for alcohol, petrol or to get an abortion."

Filimonov has run the region since 2023, one of the social conservative officials promoted by the Kremlin during its more than four-year war in Ukraine.

The 46-year-old bespectacled former kickboxing champion, with the build of a weightlifter, speaks Spanish and French and likes mixing with intellectuals.

Russia, Filimonov said in June during a discussion with far-right ideologue Alexander Dugin, faces the double threat of "depopulation" and "alcohol genocide... orchestrated by our former foreign partners".

For Russia's decades-long struggle with high levels of alcohol-related deaths, he blamed the West, which Moscow says is de-facto at war with Russia.

- 'Abortion tourism' -

His rhetoric echoes Putin, who lambasts the "decadent" West and warns of its "deleterious" influence on Russia -- a "besieged" fortress where birth rates are at their lowest in 200 years.

Filimonov hopes his hardline arguments will be enough to convince the region's one million or so residents to join his conservative crusade.

In his three years managing the region, to the alarm of women's rights groups, he has severely restricted abortion access.

Human Rights Watch calls it a "de-facto ban".

"There is no decree" banning abortion in Vologda, Irina Fainman, of the independent Emergency Contraceptive Stockpile Fund, told AFP.

"It is being carried out by non-legislative means and through some sort of illegal measures," Fainman added.

"The governor's administration is putting pressure on the region's healthcare facilities," she said, calling the measures "authoritarian and regressive".

While authorities say the ban is meant to improve birthrates, in reality it "only leads to abortion tourism", Fainman said, with women travelling to other regions.

Filimonov, however, has remained defiant, declaring at the start of the year that Vologda had "overcome depopulation".

Those most directly affected by his policies, however, find them hard to accept.

Oksana -- whose name has been changed -- said she believed abortion should be a "personal matter".

Filimonov refused AFP's request for an interview.

- 'Tonnes of bottles' -

The hardline governor has made fighting alcoholism the other pillar of his agenda.

Unlike his campaign on abortion, the anti-alcohol drive is regulated by local law, with a ban on shops selling alcoholic drinks outside a two-hour window of 12:00-14:00 on weekdays.

The restrictions have irked locals.

AFP saw Nadezhda, 52, filling her shopping basket with bottles of "Chateau Rouge" -- a Russian wine -- in a supermarket in Vologda's city centre.

"Everyone is against" it, she said.

The result? "We buy tonnes of bottles in a single go."

Some have questioned whether Filimonov's extravagant measures are a show.

But British historian James Pearce, who lives in Russia and edited a contribution by the governor to an anthology, said Filimonov "actually believes the things he says."

"It is not an act... He is a conservative person," he told AFP.

In 2024, Filimonov erected a statue of Joseph Stalin in Vologda, heralding the Soviet dictator -- responsible for widespread mass-killings and atrocities during his rule -- as an "extraordinary personality".

While Filimonov's style has worried even Putin supporters, the Kremlin has voiced no public objections.

Moscow followed Vologda last year by also inaugurating a statue of Stalin in the capital's metro.

In this month's parliamentary elections, Filimonov -- like other Kremlin-backed officials -- is guaranteed an easy victory, in the absence of any meaningful opposition.

He is unlikely, however, to relinquish his control of Vologda for a seat in the State Duma -- a popular practice known as the "locomotive", when well-known candidates top the ballot paper, only to step aside in favour of a less famous colleague.

N.Shalabi--SF-PST