Sponsors of aid to Russia found the perfect salesman in the 33- year-old governor of Nizhny Novgorod, a large region 250 miles from Moscow. It used to be known as Gorki, the town that was synonymous with the Soviet Union. It was closed to foreigners for 70 years and the scene of Andrei Sakharov's bitter exile.

Boris Nemtsov is tall, dark and handsome, but that's only the beginning: he has a PhD in theoretical physics, drive, humor - and luck. His first political patron was Sakharov, his ally in a campaign to keep a nuclear power plant out of the region; he arrived in Moscow in 1991 just in time for the August coup, and ended up in the Kremlin White House with Boris Yeltsin, who appointed him governor of the former Gorki.

Nemtsov was a luncheon guest of House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) - a champion of Russian aid and chairman of a bipartisan delegation to Russia this winter.