Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia)

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD; Министерство внутренних дел [МВД], Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del) is the interior ministry of Russia. The MVD is responsible for law enforcement in Russia through its agencies the Police of Russia, Migration Affairs, Drugs Control, Traffic Safety, the Centre for Combating Extremism, and the Investigative Department. The MVD is headquartered in Zhitnaya Street 16 in Yakimanka, Moscow. The MVD claims ancestry from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire founded in 1802 by Tsar Alexander I which became the interior ministry of the Russian Republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and the Soviet Union. The MVD was dissolved and reformed several times during the Stalin era until being established as the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in 1946. The current MVD was formed in 1990 from the Russian branch of the MVD of the USSR shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Kolokoltsev has been the Minister of Internal Affairs since 21 May 2012. Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire The first interior ministry in Russia was created by Tsar Alexander I on 28 March 1802 in the process of government reforms to replace the aging collegia of Peter the Great. The MVD was one of the most powerful governmental bodies of the Empire, responsible for the police forces and Internal Guards and the supervision of gubernial administrations. Its initial responsibilities also included penitentiaries, firefighting, state enterprises, the state postal system, state property, construction, roads, medicine, clergy, natural resources, and nobility; most of them were transferred to other ministries and government bodies by the mid-19th century. As the central government began to further partition the countryside, the ispravniks were distributed among the sections. Serving under them in their principal localities were commissaries (stanovoi pristav).