Former Supreme Soviet chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov dies at 80

Moscow [Russia], January 4 : Former Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic), Ruslan Khasbulatov, has died at the age of 80, TASS reported citing Shamsail Saraliyev, a member of the State Duma from Chechnya.
Saraliyev said, "Ruslan Khasbulatov has passed away in his country house near Moscow." Meanwhile, Khasbulatov's relative said that his funeral will take place in Grozny on January 5.
Ruslan Khasbulatov was born in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (now Russia's Chechen Republic) on November 22, 1942.
In the late 1980s, Khasbulatov began to work closely with then President Boris Yeltsin. He was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian SFSR in 1990.
Khasbulatov was elected chairman of the parliament in October 1991 and kept the job after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of the year, Reuters reported.
Relations between Yeltsin and Khasbulatov strained after the Soviet breakup in December 1991.
He served as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR from 1991 to 1993. In recent years, he chaired the Department of World Economics at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. Since 2009, he headed a scientific laboratory at the university. He was awarded the Medal for Labor Valor (1986), and he was also an Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation (2008), according to TASS.