Mikhail Kalinin Biography

Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (Russian: Михаи́л Ива́нович Кали́нин; 19 November [O.S. 7 November] 1875 – 3 June 1946), known familiarly by Soviet citizens as "Kalinych", was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Politician. He served as head of state of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1946. From 1926, he was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The former East-Prussian city Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad after Kalinin. The city of Tver was also known as Kalinin until the end of the Soviet Union in 1990.