Social and Cultural Features of the Career of the Regional Leaders

The article presents a comparative analysis of the characteristics of the regional leaders. The authors offer the comparison of the leaders of the Saratov region of the pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern periods. The characteristics of their biographies, education, political careers are compared in the article. During the pre-revolutionary period the path to the Governor's office came through the public service - military or civilian one, through the work in the management of bodies and judicial structures. In the last decades of the Soviet period the region was headed by managers with an engineering degree, who started their labor activity in industrial enterprises. The local leaders of the post-Soviet period were mostly oriented on the long term being on the relatively unimportant posts and then move to the level of the regional authorities. The conclusion of the article resumes the lack of a current system of formation of the elite personnel.