Nikolay Vasilyevich Fyodorov (, , Fyodorow Nikolay Wasilyewich; born 9 May 1958) is the First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council. He is also the former President of the Chuvash Republic in Russia. Early life Nikolai Fyodorov was born in 1958 in the village of Chyodino, Mariinsko-Posadsky District of the Chuvash ASSR (now part of Novocheboksarsk), into a large family of a WWII veteran. In 1980, after graduating from the law faculty of Kazan State University, he came to Cheboksary and taught the disciplines "Soviet law" and "Scientific communism" in 1980–82 and 1985–89 at the Chuvash State University. Career Federal minister In 1989 he was elected People's Deputy of the USSR. He was one of the leaders of the committee on legislation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was the Justice Minister of Russia from 14 July 1990 to 24 March 1993. In December 1991, Fyodorov stated that the 79-year-old former leader of the GDR Erich Honecker, who was in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, must leave the USSR territory (six months later, in July 1992, Honecker was extradited to Berlin). In March 1993, during the power struggle between the reformist cabinet and anti-reform legislature Fyodorov resigned protesting against the unconstitutional introduction of a "special procedure for governing" by Boris Yeltsin. Fyodorov critically assessed the dispersal of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of Russia in October 1993. President of Chuvashia In December 1993, he ran simultaneously to the 1st State Duma and for the president of Chuvashia, his home region. Fyodorov was elected to the State Duma on the list of the Democratic Party of Russia, became a member of the Defense Committee. In the Chuvash presidential elections, none of the candidates received the required 25% of the vote. Fyodorov with 24.9%, and Lev Kurakov, the rector of the Chuvash University, who gained 21.9%, entered the second round. On December 26, Fyodorov won the majority of the vote. On 21 January 1994, he took office as president of the Chuvash Republic, and in February he resigned as a State Duma deputy. He was reelected in 1997 and 2001, and appointed by president Putin in 2005. As a head of the region, he was a member of the second Federation Council from 1996 to 2001. In December 2000, Fyodorov was the only senator who voted against the new law on the National Anthem of Russia,