Vladimir Gruzdev

Vladimir Sergeyevich Grusdew (Russian: Владимир Сергеевич Груздев, scientific transliteration Vladimir Sergejevič Gruzdev; born February 6, 1967 in Bolshevo, Moscow Oblast ) is a Russian politician and businessman.

Grusdew was born in 1967 as the son of an officer and a teacher, studied as a cadet at a military institute and thereafter translator at the Russian foreign intelligence service.

In 1993 he finished his military career and founded a year later, The Seventh Continent, which he developed in the following years to one of the largest retail chains in Russia. On this success also be justified million fortune.

Grusdew is a member of the United Russia party. In 2000 he was elected deputy to the Moscow City Duma and 2003 in the Russian Duma.

Grusdew took part in the Russian Arktika 2007, a deep-sea research mission to the North Pole.

In April 2007 Grusdew announced that he plans to be the first Russian space tourist. About the company Space Adventures he had applied for a short-term flight to the International Space Station. The next available flight in October 2008, however, Richard Garriott has been given preference. First Grusdews flight was postponed to October 2009, but on 14 October 2008, this possibility was rejected, to allow a cosmonaut from Kazakhstan a flight.

On 29 July 2011 Grusdew was appointed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as acting governor of the Tula Oblast. On August 18, Grusdew was confirmed by the Duma of the Oblast Tula as governor and was then sworn.

Vladimir Grusdew is married and has three children.