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Ufa is the Russian city near Ural mountain chain, about 2000 km to the east from Moscow.
The city was founded as a fortress during Ivan IV the Terrible ruling in XVI century.
In 1922 the city together with surrounded area was attached to Bashkirian Autonomic Republic (Bashkir name «Bashkortostan») and became its capital.
Now the population of the Ufa is more than 1 million, more then half of them are ethnic Russian, about 30% Tatar, about 10% Bashkir.
Ufa has no local (municipal) selfgovernment, contrary to the Constitution of Russia.
The head of city administration is appointed by the president of Bashkiria Murtaza Rakhimov personally, and always becomes the head of city council, as well as in the other cities and districts of Bashkiria.
Deputies of city council usually are managers of large enterprises or officials of city administration.
The most part of economic in Ufa is property of Bashkirian government. The most important businesses are managed by president Rakhimov through his relatives. Widely known examples are his son Ural Rakhimov managing all oil-processing industry in the republic, and another president's relative Azat Kurmanaev managing Ural-Sibirian Bank (ex BashKreditBank, maintains budget accounts of Bashkirian government).
President Rakhimov uses funds of such state-run enterpreises to supply his controversial projects (like the Umaguzino Dam) without even symbolic control from republican state council (parliament).
Political opposition in the Ufa is under strong supression. Local state media provide official point of view only, private media evade political issues usually. Few opposition newspapers (like «Otechestvo») are printed outside the republic. The only independent radiostation «Titan» was closed in 1998 during Rahimov's «self-election».
