Sergey Mikhalyov

Sergey Alexandrovich Mikhalyov, first deputy chairman of the Legislative Assembly of Rostov Oblast and a United Russia deputy who rose from the Donbass coalfields into regional politics, died on 3 October 2026. He was 73. The regional parliament's press service announced his death, and Russian outlets including Kommersant and local Rostov media published tributes the same day.

Born on 4 August 1953 in Semikarakorsk, Rostov Oblast, then part of the Russian SFSR, Mikhalyov trained as a mining engineer at what is now the South Russian State Polytechnic University in Novocherkassk. He spent much of his working life in the coal industry of the Eastern Donbass, advancing from mine shift supervisor (gorny master) to senior management of a large coal-producing association. Colleagues and official obituaries stress that path from the pit to industrial leadership as the core of his public identity.

In October 2003 he played a central organisational role after water broke into the Zapadnaya-Kapitalnaya mine and trapped dozens of miners underground. As a senior figure linked to mine restructuring and the Eastern Donbass branch of the state agency dealing with coalfield reorganisation, he helped direct the drive of a connecting roadway (sboika) between Zapadnaya-Kapitalnaya and the neighbouring Komsomolskaya Pravda mine. The operation helped bring forty-six trapped miners to safety. For that and related service he received the Order of Courage, the Miner's Glory badge in all three degrees, and later the medal of the Order For Merit to Rostov Oblast.

Mikhalyov also served as a minister in the Rostov Oblast government before entering the regional legislature. On 23 September 2013 he became a member of the Legislative Assembly of Rostov Oblast. He was returned for three convocations, chaired the committee on construction, housing and utilities, energy, transport and communications, and rose to first deputy speaker of the assembly. Assembly chairman Alexander Ishchenko remembered him as someone who could be entrusted with any task and as a tactful, kind husband, father and grandfather.

He remained in office until his death on 3 October 2026. English Wikipedia records him as Sergey Mikhalyov (politician); Russian sources commonly write Сергей Александрович Михалёв. Official notices underlined that he remained first deputy speaker and committee chair until the end, linking his late parliamentary work on housing, energy and transport to the industrial experience that shaped his earlier career. Regional mourning coverage treated him as a Don parliamentarian whose authority rested on both coalfield service and steady committee leadership inside the United Russia majority. He is remembered in Rostov as a mining engineer-turned-legislator whose public reputation rested on coalfield rescue work as much as on parliamentary committee leadership.