Moscow, August 7 (RIA Novosti) - Mikhail Yevdokimov, governor of the eastern Russian region of Altai, has been killed in a car crash, the Federal Emergencies Ministry reported Sunday. The man was 48.
The ministry's press officer, Irina Andrianova, said the accident had occurred at 9:20 am, Moscow time, this morning, on the Biisk-Barnaul highway, 20 kilometers away from Biisk. The Mercedes car in which Yevdokimov was riding along with his wife and his bodyguard hit a tree as it turned abruptly to avoid collision with an oncoming automobile that had swerved into the wrong lane, she reported. The driver and the bodyguard also died in the crash, but Yevdokimov's wife survived.
Yevdokimov, who became a household name in Russia in the 1990s as a standby comedian, was elected Governor of the Altai Region in last April's ballot. But his governorship was not as spectacular as his stage performances and he faced a no-confidence vote from the local legislature after just one year in office.
