The elections are as much a contest between personalities, and the power blocs they control,
as a conventional electoral race between parties. Click the names on the right for an at-a-glance
guide to the key figures and political groupings.
Gennady Zyuganov helped to found the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation in
1990, as the Soviet Union began to unravel,
and became its head in 1992. Aged 55, he's a
former mathematics teacher who came second
in the 1996 presidential election, gaining 40% in the second round runoff against Boris Yeltsin.
He is as much a Russian nationalist as a Communist, and
regards Russia's current weakness as a dangerous
development in a world where he says Slavic culture has
traditionally acted as a counterbalance to Western
Certain to be a contender for the presidency in June, his
political ambitions are hampered by a lack of charisma
and a stiff, self-conscious manner.