The last of the titans who have dominated Alrosa, Russia’s diamond monopoly, since its founding in 1993 has handed in his resignation, and had it accepted by the Kremlin.

Vyacheslav Shtirov has left for “personal reasons”, announced an aide to President Dmitri Medvedev. The reasons are his health and his family, claimed a high-level Sakha diamantaire.

Ararat Evoyan, head of the Russian Diamond Manufacturers Association, said he also believed Shtirov’s resignation is strictly personal. “There would be no point in making Shtirov resign now when the situation in Yakutia has very much improved,” Evoyan told PolishedPrices. “If the government wanted to remove him, they would’ve done that several years ago. But evidently he left the post on his own. He certainly did a lot for Yakutia. He is a brilliant manager.”

To those who suspect that Shtirov was removed by Kudrin and other federal government officials, who want a politically weaker, personally more pliant figure in the Sakha presidency, as Alrosa tries to overcome local resistance to privatization and IPO, Evoyan is categorical: “To my mind, Alsosa shouldn’t go public now - it’s the wrong time. The management will not reach the expected effect.”

Candidates for the post include Shtirov’s interim successor, Yegor Borisov, the republic prime minister; and Vasily Kolmogorov, a former senior prosecutor, who is also a Yakut.

Shtirov, 57, was born in Yakutia, but he was from ethnic Russian stock, rather than from the indigenous Yakut majority.

A construction engineer, then economist by training, he served in ministerial posts in the Sakha republic government from 1991, rising to the vice presidency under the dominant Yakut politician during the 1990s, Mikhail Nikolaev.

In 1996, Nikolaev dispatched Shtirov to run Alrosa in Moscow. But when Nikolaev fell foul of the incoming federal president, Vladimir Putin, Shtirov was ordered from Moscow back to Yakutsk, taking the presidency, and preventing Nikolaev from serving a third term. That was in 2002.

Since then, Shtirov has balanced the growing federal government pressure on the Sakha republic to release its financial and managerial hold over Alrosa, with the demands of local constituencies to retain control over Alrosa’s cashflows and diamond pipeline.

As the regional boss, and for a time deputy chairman of the Alrosa Supervisory Council, Shtirov was the de facto controller of Alrosa, along with Otar Marganya, a Finance Ministry advisor and banking executive, who played go-between and fixer between Shtirov, the Alrosa chief executive, and the federal Finance Minister, Alexei Kudrin; Kudrin was also chairman of the Alrosa board.