Putin awarded Matviyenko the title of Hero of Labor for his 75th birthday

Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the title of Hero of Labor to the Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko. The decree on this is published on the portal of legal acts. It says that the title was awarded “for special labor services to the state and the people.”

Matvyenko turns 75 today. High awards are presented for anniversaries – a Soviet tradition that is also supported in modern Russia. For her 70th birthday, Matviyenko was awarded the highest Order of Andrei the First-Called. She is also a full knight of the Order for Merit to the Fatherland.

Matviyenko began to receive awards even in Soviet times, in 1976, when she was 27 years old, she was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor (Putin has the same order), and then the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. Matviyenko was then the secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

She has headed the Federation Council since 2011, and under her leadership, the upper house of the parliament invariably approves the government’s initiatives. Twice, in 2014 and 2022, the Federation Council approved the introduction of Russian troops into Ukraine.

The title of Hero of Labor, continuing the tradition of the Soviet title “Hero of Socialist Labor”, was introduced by Putin in 2013, since then it has been awarded to about 100 people, among whom, for example, director Nikita Mikhalkov, a member of the State Duma, who won a little more in the recent presidential elections 4% of votes, Nikolai Kharitonov, now deceased former Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov.