Valentin Yumashev was appointed adviser to the Russian president on a voluntary basis. The corresponding order of the head of state was published on Friday on the Kremlin's website.

Valentin Yumashev is a presidential adviser on a voluntary basis "for 15 years, if not more," Yumashev's acquaintance told RBC. The old decree on the appointment of Yumashev counselor had no time limits, RBC's interlocutor added. Publicly that Yumashev is an adviser to the president, was not previously reported.

Yumashev all this time had his own office in the Old Square, said a source close to the presidential administration. He gave RBC a photo of Yumashev's office.

President's press secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed to RBC that Yumashev has been advising the president for 18 years. According to him, the decrees on the reassignment of Yumashev "were before". On the clarifying question, why they were not published and whether the publication of the current decree was the result of a technical error (this was reported by the Russian service of the BBC), Peskov did not answer.

Valentin Yumashev was born in 1957 in Perm and in his teens with his mother moved to the suburbs. He worked as a janitor at the dacha of Korney Chukovsky, studied for a journalist, and after the army in the 1970s and 1980s worked in the newspapers Moskovsky Komsomolets, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Izvestia, and Ogonek magazine. In the 1990's he was deputy editor-in-chief and chief editor of the magazine Ogonek, general director of ZAO Ogonyok.

Back in 1989 Yumashev met Boris Yeltsin. In the first half of the 1990s, he acted as his literary assistant, and before the election in 1996, he was a member of his campaign headquarters. After the victory, Yeltsin took the post of presidential adviser on issues of interaction with the media, and in the spring of 1997 headed the presidential administration. At the end of 1998, he was replaced by Nikolai Bordyuzha, and Yumashev was appointed presidential adviser on a voluntary basis.

After Yeltsin's resignation, Yumashev in 2000 became co-founder of the Foundation of the First President of Russia. He was also a co-author of Yeltsin when creating the books Confession on a Given Topic and Notes of the President.

Since 2002, the politician is married to the second marriage to daughter of Boris Yeltsin Tatyana Dyachenko. In an interview in late 2015, she told me that since 2011 most of her time, she and her husband were devoted to the Boris Yeltsin Museum in Yekaterinburg. At the grand opening of the museum there was no politics, but Vladimir Putin especially noted the role in the creation of the museum of Yumashev and his wife. "But I would mention two people, especially Tatyana Borisovna and Valentin Borisovich Yumashev. If not for their efforts, the Center would not have been accurate, "Putin said then.

In 2016, the media reported that Yumashev in the US is being treated for cancer. It was reported that doctors expect a successful outcome of treatment.

In February 2018, the politician acted as the guarantor of the world between shareholders of Norilsk Nickel Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin. He also helped to resolve the company's conflict in the company in 2012.

Daughter Yumashev from his first marriage Pauline is married to businessman Oleg Deripaska. Since 2017, it owns 6.9% in the company En +. In addition, she heads the board of directors of the publishing house Forward Media Group (editions of Furfur, The Village, Wonderzine, etc.).

According to media reports, Yumashev owned a stake in City (a company that manages the Moscow International Business Center Moscow City), but Tatyana Yumasheva denied this in an interview with RBC.