Federation Council (Russia)

The Federation Council (Сове́т Федера́ции – Sovet Federacii, common abbreviation: Совфед – Sovfed), or Senate (officially, starting from 1 July 2020) ( Сенат ), is the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Russia (the parliament of the Russian Federation), according to the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation. Each of the 89 federal subjects of Russia (including two annexed in 2014 and four more in 2022, that are not recognized by the international community) – consisting of 24 republics, 48 oblasts, nine krais, three federal cities, four autonomous okrugs, and one autonomous oblast – sends two senators to the Council, for a total membership of 178 Senators. In addition, the Constitution also provides for senators from the Russian Federation, which can be no more than 30 (up to seven of them for life), as well as (optionally) former presidents as life senators ( there are no such life senators). The council holds its sessions within the Main Building on Bolshaya Dmitrovka Street in Moscow, the former home of the Soviet State Building Agency (Gosstroy), with further offices and committee rooms located on Novy Arbat Street. The two houses of the Federal Assembly are physically separated, with the State Duma residing in another part of Moscow on Okhotny Ryad Street. Sessions of the Federation Council take place in Moscow from 25 January to 15 July, and from 16 September to 31 December. Sessions are open to the public, although the location of sessions can change if the Federation Council so desires, and secure closed sessions may be convoked. For purposes of succession, the chairman of the Federation Council is the third-highest position in the Russian Federation, after the president and the prime minister. In the case of incapacity of the President and Prime Minister, the chairman of the Federation Council becomes the Acting President of the Russian Federation. The modern history of the Federation Council begins during the 1993 Constitutional Crisis that pitted President Boris Yeltsin's unpopular neoliberal and governmental structure reforms against the increasingly radical Congress of People's Deputies, the nation's legislature.