Holder of four world champion titles in weightlifting
He was born on December 5, 1935 in the town of Makeyevka, Donetsk region (Ukraine). An ethnic Russian. His father, Pyotr Parfenovich Vlasov (Vladimirov), was a prominent specialist on the Orient, as well as a Soviet diplomat and intelligence agent in China, where we worked as a TASS correspondent and was a representative of the Comintern at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (died in 1952). Yury Vlasov's mother, Mariya Danilovna, hails from the Lymar family of Kuban Cossacks. In 1936 the family moved to Shchukino, a military settlement in Moscow region.
In 1953 Yury Vlasov graduated with honors from the Suvorov Military School in Saratov and then enrolled at the radio engineering department of the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. He graduated in 1959.
He served in the Soviet Army in 1959 and 1960. On orders of the CPSU Central Committee in 1960 he was transferred to a special sports team to train for the Olympics.
He was a member of the Soviet national weightlifting team from 1957 to 1967, won the USSR championship in the heavyweight division five times (in 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963). He was world champion in the heavyweight division four times (1959, 1961, 1962 and 1963) and six times European champion (1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964). He won a gold medal in the heavyweight division at the Olympic Games in Rome (1960) and a silver medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo (1964). He set world records 28 times, including in the sum total of three events - 580 kg, the press - 199 kg, the snatch - 172.5 kg and the clean and jerk - 215.5 kg.
In 1987 and 1988 he was chairman of the Federation of Athletic Gymnastics of the USSR.
In 1968 he resigned his commission in the army and became a lieutenant in the reserve.
Vlasov took up writing in 1967, using the pen-name "Vladimirov". His best-known book "Special Area in China" (about his father's work as a journalist and representative of the Comintern in China) was published under this assumed name.
When perestroika began, Vlasov's contributions to the print and electronic media earned him the reputation of a firm exponent of democratic change in the country. He withdrew from the CPSU in 1989.
In the spring of 1989 he was elected a People's Deputy of the USSR (territorial constituency No. 15 in Moscow), defeating the chairman of the Moscow City Executive Committee Saikin. The local authorities went out of their way to ensure Saikin's victory and initially refused to register Vlasov as a candidate.
Vlasov was a member of the Inter-Regional Group of Deputies (MDG).
In a speech at the 1st Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR in June 1989 he sharply criticized the KGB. In the summer and autumn of 1989 he repeatedly claimed (including in an appearance on Radio Liberty) that the KGB was trying to gradually poison him.
When the August 1991 state coup was attempted by GKChP, Vlasov took part in the defense of the White House. Addressing a victory meeting from the balcony of the White House Vlasov exclaimed "Glory to Yeltsin!"
From the end of 1991 he aligned himself first with the radical democratic opposition to President Yeltsin and since 1992 with the left-wing and national-patriotic opposition. In March 1992 in his article "Twilight of Democracy" in the newspaper Kuranty he stated that "new people" should appear at the head of the country "because the present leadership is leading the country to a national catastrophe, to a disintegration and demise of Russia".
n June 1992 Vlasov attended the congress of Aleksandr Sterligov's Russian National Sobor (RNS), but did not join it and did not hold any posts in it, contrary to what was contended by the press (a man with the same surname, Mikhail Vlasov, was a member of the Duma and later member of the RNA Executive Committee. In the official list of the RNA leadership, published in the newspaper Russky Sobor, his first name was erroneously given as "Yury").
In January 1993 a meeting of the labor collective of the industrial plant Krasnyi Proletariy nominated Vlasov as a candidate for the post of mayor of Moscow (the elections were called off).
In November 1993 he was placed first in the list of candidates to the State Duma from the Russian Christian Democratic Movement (the leader of the movement Viktor Aksiuchits was listed second) but the list failed to get the required number of signatures to qualify for participation in the elections. Vlasov was nominated by an independent group of voters and elected to the State Duma on December 12, 1993 from the North-Western constituency in Moscow (Constituency No. 200).
On January 13, 1994 Sergei Baburin nominated Vlasov's candidature for the post of Chairman of the State Duma. In the course of a vote on January 13, 1994 when candidates had to be rated Vlasov with 200 votes placed second among six candidates behind Ivan Rybkin, who got 233 votes. In the runoff elections on January 14 Vlasov urged his supporters to vote for Rybkin but did not withdraw his candidature in order to prevent the inclusion in the ballot of the candidate of the democratic bloc Vladimir Lukin, who placed third in the rating vote.
From January to July 1994 he was a member of the unregistered group Russian Path and till May 1994 was a co-chairman of the group (the two other co-chairmen were Sergei Baburin and Vladimir Tikhonov). In July he announced his withdrawal from the group in protest against Baburin's contacts with Zhirinovsky, but continued to attend the group's meetings.
From January 1994 to December 1995 Vlasov was a member of the State Duma Security Committee.
In December 1995 elections to the State Duma lost to Konstantin Borovoy in Tushinsky constituency No.200 of Moscow (Vlasov got 12%, Borovoy 14.65%).
In 1993 and 1994 he announced that he could run for the presidency of the country if this were needed to rid the country of the rule of 'the democrats'.
On January 14, 1996 the Central Electoral Commission registered the authorized representatives of the group that nominated Vlasov as a candidate for President. Vlasov's candidature was supported by the Coordinating Council of radical Russian nationalists headed by Eduard Limonov who initially planned to vote for Yeltsin.
From 1990 to 1991 Vlasov headed the Fund for the Social Protection of Muscovites.
He is President of the Pushkin Academy.
Vlasov is the author of the books: "Red Jacks", "To Overcome Oneself", "The Right of Might", "White Instance", "To Believe", "Salt Joys", "Fiery Cross" (an epic novel in three volumes) and "Who Runs the Show" (a collection of articles, 1983).
He is a contributor to the newspapers Pravda, Sovetskaya Rossiya, Literaturnaya Rossiya, Zavtra. In articles written for Zavtra he raises the issue about the role of Jews in politics.
Vlasov categorically objects to the handing over of the South Kuril Islands to Japan, believing that this will be followed by territorial claims from Germany (Koenigsberg), Finland (Karelia), etc.
Holder of the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Badge of Honor, and a number of medals.
He is married to Larisa Sergeevna (nee Kostina) Vlasova. They have children.