Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
The Republic of Buryatia, along with 12 other former Soviet states during the same year, had declared its sovereignty no later than 8 October 1990. This did not actually mean a declaration of independence. Rather, this step was taken to urge the central government to acknowledge Buryatia as a free and equal partner at the political level. Boris Yeltsin, during his time as Russian president, did much to support this claim by propagating a vision of a post-Soviet Russia as a union of free peoples with equal rights. The central government in Moscow therefore recognized the existence of relatively autonomous regions. This was also done to respond to the interests of the different ethnic groups, which became increasingly important in the political sphere.