Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, known familiarly by Soviet citizens as "Kalinych", was an Old Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician. He served as head of state of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1946. From 1926, he was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Born to a peasant family, Kalinin worked as a metal worker in Saint Petersburg and took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution as an early member of the Bolsheviks. During and after the October Revolution, he served as mayor of Petrograd. After the revolution, Kalinin became the head of the new Soviet state, as well as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Politburo.
Kalinin remained the titular head of state of the Soviet Union after the rise of Joseph Stalin, but held little real power or influence. He retired in 1946 and died in the same year. The former East Prussian city of Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad after him. The city of Tver was also known as Kalinin until 1990, one year before the fall of the Soviet Union.