“Chosen by the Times”

Continued from previous issue

Less than two months have passed since Viktor Chernomyrdin’s death. He was both spectacular and influential as a politician, statesman, and administrator. He spent eight years as Russia’s Ambassador to Ukraine and the Russian president’s special adviser on economic cooperation with CIS countries in his twilight years.

His memoirs Chosen by the Times will be put out by Moscow’s Khudozhestvennaya Literatura Publishers toward the end of December. It is a collection of dialogs with Yevgeny BELOGLAZOV (Ph.D. in History, Chernomyrdin’s long-term trusted aide) and Petr KATERINICHEV (writer, deputy editor-in-chief, Raduga magazine).

Writing the book was easier said than done. Chernomyrdin didn’t like interviews. His schedule was tight and he could hardly find the time for such conversations… At times our discussions started in the evening and ended late at night. He told us about his childhood, youth, the establishment of the USSR and then today’s Russia as a powerful state. He was brief and to the point at first, but later he enlarged on the subjects, adding interesting stories in his special, vivid and precise style.

Chernomyrdin was a self-made man. He was born to a big Cossack family in Chernyi Otrog, a backwater Russian village; he worked as a director of Europe’s largest gas-processing facility, then as a minister of the Soviet Union, and later as the head of the government of the Russian Federation.

Chernomyrdin is the main author of this book, as a skilled and interesting interlocutor. This can be seen in the following excerpts from the book, kindly supplied by Yevgeny Beloglazov.

THE INCIDENT IN PETROVO-DALNEYE

We decided to touch upon this delicate topic in one of our conversations. The matter is as follows. When Boris Yeltsin fell seriously ill and surgery was necessary, all the media talked about it. But nobody knew that Chernomyrdin underwent the same cardiac surgery eight years earlier, and he was operated on by Soviet doctors, in a Soviet hospital. When we asked Viktor Chernomyrdin about it, he became pensive, grim, and then started to speak. As always, sluggishly, and then in details, with the peculiar intonations that only he was capable of.

“In the evenings I started feeling tired, restless. I decided I should quit smoking — and quit.

“My jubilee was approaching, 50 years, April 1988. I thought that now everything would be as always: honors, speeches. I took a leave and left for a spa, to flee from it all. To the sanatorium Krasnye Kamni. Nikolai Baibakov was already staying there; he used to go there for twenty years, he liked it.”

He must be older than you?

“Much older. He died recently, God rest his soul. We had warm, friendly relations with Nikolai; I respected him very much, he was an exceptional person and worker, simply unique. With a lucid and sound mind, and a broad soul.

“He always liked holiday activities, like power-walking. There was a route, it was even called ‘Kosygin’s path.’ Aleksei also liked to relax this way; so we walked down ‘Kosygin’s path’ at 6 in the morning. We began to enjoy it. Nikolai encouraged me:

‘Come on, Viktor, let’s climb up that hill now!’

“We climbed up.

‘Now up that one!’

“At that time Nikolai was already over seventy! Cheerful, quick. Soon I got used to it as well — I lost weight, it became normal, nothing hurt. The leave was not bad. Short though.

“I returned to endless work again. Nevertheless, I always enjoyed it. Work, if you like it, if you get a concrete result — it’s happiness! You do not live in vain.

“On a weekend in August 1988 my son Vitaly came on vacation from Urengoy. We lived at the state dacha in Petrovo-Dalneye. I used to get up early. I woke up, everyone was still sleeping, I got a bicycle and went to the river, to have a bathe. Silence, fog over the river; it was beautiful, it took your breath away. I bathed, swam a little, and then I decided I would swim to the other side… I swam.

“And somewhere halfway — I felt a pain in my chest, it hurt so much that I couldn’t breathe, everything went dark before my eyes. Somehow with one hand, along the current, I paddled to the bank. I was sitting for while. I was still feeling a spasm in the chest, as before; but that was fine, I overcame it, I felt relief.

“I went home by bicycle. And thought: well, things happen. Vitaly woke up and I told him:

‘Let’s have a bathe! The water is wonderful!’

“I did not say anything to him, and felt some stubbornness inside of me. Maybe I decided to test myself or something. We came to the river by bicycle, to the same place, and I said:

‘Let’s swim to the other side!’

“We swam. And again. Pain, it squeezed my chest, I couldn’t breathe.

“Vitaly looked at me and said, frightened:

‘Dad, you’re all pale. Do you feel bad?’

“And I really felt bad. So bad that I could not answer anything.

“We swam to the bank again; Vitaly secured me this time. We went out. He asked:

‘Can you walk? Maybe I should call for a car?’

‘Never mind!’

“And inside there was anger and some grief. For nothing hurt me in life seriously, all my life I was sturdy and worked hard, and now…

“Thoughts flashed and disappeared. And the pain seemed to have passed. We got on the bicycles and went back. And Vitaly, I noticed, glanced at me from time to time. He was worried!

“In the morning on Monday I went to work, and I don’t like unclear situations! I think, maybe I should call on a hospital in Michurinskaya street, where I was registered. I came in to the doctor, Klavdiya Tsukanova, a skilled doctor, and I told her what had happened. She examined my chest, made a cardiogram, she became somber and called Dmitry Nechayev, a cardiologist:

‘Dmitry, come here please, I have a patient, I need your advice.’

“He came, Klavdiya told him something in Latin, he nodded, sat and told me:

‘Tell me what happened?’

“I told him everything. He became serious, and nodded to himself. He exchanged glances with Tsukanova, and concluded:

‘Everything is clear. It’s an axiomatic case. You need urgent hospital treatment in the cardiology department.’

‘How can I stay? I’ve got a job, a ministry! You understand… You can prescribe me some pills and that will suffice.’

‘Do you want to die?’

‘Is it so serious?’

‘More than serious!’

“Honestly, I was at a loss:

‘But I never even went to doctors! Of course, I treated teeth or colds, that’s it.’

‘You have been working too hard. For many years. Nerves, flights, changes of time zones — am I right? You had a cardiac insufficiency! You wore out your heart, Viktor! You can die in a minute! In a day! In a month! I can’t give you any guarantees! And no serious doctor will!’

“He kept silent for a moment and added:

‘Usually we don’t say everything to patients like this, but I see that not only we can tell you, we must do it!’

‘What shall we do with this?’

‘We will tell you the exact diagnosis and necessary treatment after the examination. Do you agree?’

‘Fine,’ I said.

“I called the ministry and said that I would undergo a medical examination for five days. On the whole, I didn’t worry for my ministry. The deputies and heads of departments and divisions were competent. In addition, it is a worthless manager without whom the work of his enterprise — whether it is a plant, a company, or a ministry — will stop working.

“They scheduled an examination. They did a coronagraphy, recorded everything on a cassette, put it in a videocassette recorder and showed it to me on a display. Well, everything became clear to me at once: I work with pipes at Gazprom, the system sometimes becomes cluttered, something could get into the pipeline; productivity falls, while the pressure abruptly increases; we had to immediately stop the work and take drastic measures.

“In this case everything became clear at once: stricture of the main artery. The heart was poorly supplied, one spasm could be the end.

“Renat Achkurin came for a consultation — he is well known now, but at that time he was not. He was one of the first in the USSR to do surgeries with coronary artery bypass grafting. Together with others he underwent a training in the United States with doctor DeBakey, who had elaborated these surgeries.

“And I already knew Achkurin! I happened to be on a business trip to Texas, where I studied the American experience of gas and oil extraction and processing. Our guy from Krasnodar, he lived in the US then, was given me as an interpreter; so, we started talking and he told me that before me he also worked as an interpreter with the Soviet delegation of doctors who were training at the clinic of doctor DeBakey.

‘DeBakey praised our doctors very much,’ he said, ‘especially one Tatar, Achkurin — golden hands, golden head, smart, a talent from God. And a light hand, as surgeons would say!’

“…We were sitting with Nechayev and Achkurin; they said:

‘You need heart surgery.’

‘What if I don’t get it?’

‘Immediate retirement, no overstraining, a regime. But no guarantees. It can appear at any moment.’

“But there was no absolute guarantee that the surgery would be successful either. The guys honestly said that only God could give an absolute guarantee, and they were not gods.

“Here we are. The dog got into a wheel — you must run even if it hurts.

“I started thinking. But I didn’t think for long. I tried to imagine myself as a pensioner with a fishing rod. I couldn’t do it! In addition, without work I would kick the bucket in a month for sure — no other options. I can’t, it’s not for me! Besides…

“I talked to these guys and somehow believed them. I trusted in them as professionals, as in specialists, in people. I listened to the way they talked, what they said; no, they were not soothing, or lulling — everything was honest. All my previous experience told me one could trust such people. I believed them. They would manage.

“I made up my mind! But I didn’t say anything to my wife or children. I thought I wouldn’t tell them anything until the surgery. But here came the scholar Chazov, the head of the fourth department of the Ministry of Health, and the chief surgeon Malinovsky; they said:

‘Viktor, you’ll have to tell them. Your agreement alone is not enough for us. The consent of relatives is obligatory.’

“Just like that.

“They started preparing me for the surgery. And I remembered my long trips in the mountains — maybe I shouldn’t have done it so abruptly? Or maybe on the contrary — I should have. Everything showed itself, otherwise I would live without knowing I was walking on the edge, without guarantees. I had different thoughts.

“And here, literally a day before the surgery, one of our employees comes in, the head of a ministerial division; he was in the same department, in cardiology, with the same problem. He learnt I was there and came to talk to me.

‘Viktor, what happened to you?’

‘Heart. They suggest surgery.’

“We started talking. He said:

‘They suggest the same for me! They are convincing me!’

‘So what? Agree.’

‘Am I an idiot? They don’t understand anything! They just want to cut! No, I’d rather be on medicine. Surgeries. I’ve been here for over a month and I see: every day every second patient is taken to the morgue!’

“In a word, he ‘encouraged’ me very much!”

What was the attitude of your family?

“Valia was very worried. Certainly, I spoke generally, but she got it right away, then she also spoke to the cardiologists. I’m very thankful to her. They relied on her a lot: if something had happened, the children would have been her responsibility; though they were grown up already, for us they were always little.

“I was lying at night, thinking about my life. What I managed to do, and what I didn’t, didn’t have time for, didn’t cope with.

“I underwent a surgery. Then a rehabilitation period, when things were not yet clear. It’s difficult to remember everything precisely.

“But I will repeat once more: I had faith in these guys: Dmitry Nechayev, Renat Achkurin; I am still very thankful to them, as well as to the senior nurse Irina Seleznyova — she was my guardian angel, she pulled me through. Even now, when I meet her, my heart squeezes from memories.

“And my family, children, Valia — they believed very much, supported me. When someone needs you, when without you… you should get up. And win!”

When Yeltsin had a similar problem, did he ask for your advice?

“Yes, I talked to him for a long time. I convinced him. He didn’t even want to hear about any surgery! He did not trust doctors very much, and felt offended by them. I talked to him for hours then. Hours! I told him everything as it was — what would happen later. I told him honestly — if it were not for the doctors… Boris listened to me attentively. Recommendations are one thing, and a living person, one who went through it all, is another. That’s how it was.”

After that you held strong for a long time.

“I was young then, 50 years old, in two months I worked again. I kept to the regular track and moved forward. No procrastination. No slacking. I never knew how to slack and I still don’t know. If you can work — do it; if you can’t, you’re not skilled enough, or it doesn’t work for you, then stay away.”

LAST DAYS OF THE SOVIET UNION

How did you leave the ministry?

“‘The winds of perestroika’ were strong already. What was the situation? I was a minister, I had immense authority, but as a marionette: I couldn’t change the head of a department or a division — all this required the permission or coordination with the Council of Ministers of the USSR. I regretted it, but not for me — for the cause, for people!

“Didn’t I see everything was going in the wrong direction? That the field was declared ‘extensive?’ The currency we earned was taken away, while the production and transport systems needed to be supported and updated all the time, we needed money, big money. We were one of the biggest ministries in terms of capital investment. Nobody drew more money than we did, even the ministry of defense, let alone civic ministries. We were the most powerful, financially speaking. And we realized that the situation in the country was heading toward a dead end.

“In 1988-89 we stalled, we were losing pace. And already at that time it became clear to me: we should change the system of relations in the country. The state plan and state supply couldn’t give anything already. Things were not working out. Work was not as efficient as before, but again, it was not only their fault.

“We also realized that we couldn’t work with customers abroad directly. I started seeing many things in a different way, because I studied attentively the way industrial companies worked abroad. How do their joint stock companies work? What does their system of management look like? How does a private, state, or mixed company function? And many things, of course, became clearer to me — what is the market and market relations in the field, for example.

“We started looking for a way out: How to continue? We had to save the sector. We were thinking with colleagues and made a decision. We entered the government with a proposal to give us a possibility to leave the state ministry structure and switch directly to an economic one, that is to transfer this powerful ministry structure into something based on the ‘Law on Entrepreneurship.’ The ‘Law on Entrepreneurship’ was adopted in the USSR at that time. Now workers and employees could elect directors. Sometimes they chose businesslike ones, but often they elected those who promised a lot, the talkative ones!

“We decided to use this ‘Law on Entrepreneurship’ in our sector, to transform the ministry into a concern.

“My colleagues thought I went crazy:

‘Why do you need this? You’ll have lots of troubles because of it!’

“I repeat once again: we, gas- and energy-field workers, understood as no one else that if we didn’t save the field, we would lose the country.

“The ministry was in good standing, it was profitable, and worked ceaselessly. I was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I personally visited officials, convincing them. At first there was complete denial. No one wanted to understand, or rather undertake responsibility.”

I remember the proverb of that time: “You’ll invent it, do all work yourself, and be punished for doing it bad!”

“We are all people. Whole generations grew up like that: some were frightened, would not do anything without a direction, others were careful. Different. Now young people are not like that, they don’t carry that burden. Perhaps things will go quicker. At that time… it was better to sit quietly, perhaps the danger would pass by. In my opinion, you are a director if you can make decisions. And be responsible for them. It’s better to do something and be mistaken than not to do anything. Sitting, waiting for all to appear on its own? One should act. Move forward.

“We were given a ‘green light.’ And we organized a concern, Gazprom, based on the Ministry of Gas Industry. We formed the board of the concern; the concern belonged entirely to the state; at the meeting of shareholders I was elected to head the board. One could continue working, without hesitation.

“We became a non-ministry institution. We started changing the whole structure: simplifying and remodeling it. We started looking for ways to save money. We lived based on our economic activity. The apparatus of the concern now depended on the results of the work of the entire sector. We started living according to different laws. This means a lot. I was let loose, I didn’t need to ask which departments and divisions I could cut down or reshape. I did everything myself.

“Now everyone knows we were right. Though I was intimidated, prevented from working. We lived alone. This saved us. It saved the sector first of all. I didn’t have come-and-go people in Gazprom. I knew all of them personally.”

And gas for you is…

“It’s my life. Of course, all my conscious life was connected with gas. I’m proud of it. Because I participated in developing the biggest deposits.

“I’m proud of participating in building and developing the gas-chemical complex in Orenburg, in developing some of the world’s biggest deposits, like Urengoyskoye, Yamburgskoye. I not only participated but made decisions, there is a signature: Chernomyrdin. I’m glad that all is stable now.”

The international press coverage of Gazprom is less flattering. Is it because of competition?

“Both then and now — it was always like that. Double standards for Russia in Europe have been used for centuries. They can do it, moreover, trampling on a successful concern. They wrote and talked about all kinds of things.”

So, Gazprom started working…

“Everything was fine with Gazprom, but the country was not doing so great. Decisions were not fulfilled, or sabotaged, endless councils on problems of craft workers and cooperatives were held. They never gathered the Union’s ministers — people who went through fire and water on the way to their posts! Not one time! At least they could ask for advice. But nothing.”

Perestroika failed…

“In my opinion, everything failed because of the inability of the then authorities of the USSR to realize in practice the declared reforms, lead them to a practical realization; having passed the school of political maneuvering in the Komsomol and the party, many of them never acquired any economic experience. And economy is not about maneuvering: it’s a strict and even severe thing, every decision (or its absence) is reflected in the everyday life of people, their profits and welfare. So, the authorities of the country broke one thing and failed to build a new one. And we found ourselves where we did.

“Much later, in the late 1990s, I was on a plane with Gorbachev flying from Paris, from an international conference. He suggested:

‘Viktor, let’s drink to the conversation?’

“I answered:

‘Do you drink?’

“He smiled.

‘No, I won’t. You frightened us so much then, that I’m still a little afraid,’ I said half in jest.

“Then we drank a shot or two, of course. Mikhail told me an joke:

‘There is a line to the wine store, in Tverskaya street, its end is almost near the Kremlin; one guy was standing for an hour, two, three hours. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I can’t stand it anymore: guys, keep my place, I will go kill Gorbachev and will come back.’ Then he returns in an hour. The guys ask him: ‘Well, did you kill him?’ He says: ‘I tried! But the line of those who want to do that is even longer than this one!’

“He told this and got upset. The conversation died down.

“Is the point in wine? In vodka?

“He didn’t develop Russia. He didn’t work on developing Russia. He presided over the collapse of a huge, strong state. Gorbachev is judged based on that.

“If Gorbachev and his colleagues took care of the state properly, the Soviet Union wouldn’t have collapsed. By no means.”

And Gazprom?

“I can state responsibly that when in 1990-91 the USSR was gripped by a serious fever, when governments in the republics started openly sabotaging the resolutions and requirements of the Union’s center, our concern didn’t lose manageability or working capacity! We reliably controlled our enterprises and transport arteries on the whole territory of the

Soviet Union.”

That’s when you met Yeltsin? Or was it earlier, in the Central Committee?

“I first met Yeltsin in 1983. Boris was at that time the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And I was deputy minister of gas industry of the USSR and at the same time I headed Tyumengazprom; my enterprises were not only in Tyumen, but also in the Sverdlovsk and Tomsk regions, in Yakutia.

“The Sverdlovsk region was popular back then. A strong region, the industrial center of the Urals: Uralmash, the Nizhniy Tagil metallurgical industrial complex, Uralvagonzavod, the Kachkanarsk ore-dressing and processing enterprise, the Pervouralsk pipe plant, etc. The Sverdlovsk oblast was the third in the USSR for industrial production.

“When I was appointed, I went there to introduce myself.”

How were your relations? Good?

“Yes, businesslike, friendly. We knew one another well. We met, discussed, held common meetings on launching facilities. Certainly, Moscow set the pitch to all affairs, but such centers as Leningrad and Sverdlovsk were also important. The triangle Moscow – Leningrad – Sverdlovsk always existed.

“In some time, when I was appointed minister, Yeltsin was transferred to Moscow.

“The top officials of Sverdlovsk always joined the ranks of the Central Committee, and almost the top posts at once — secretaries of the Central Committee: for example, Andrei Kirilenko, Yakov Ryabov. Yeltsin was offered a lower post: the head of the building department in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. But he was always a goal-oriented person, he got promoted quickly: became the secretary of the Central Committee, the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Party, a candidate for member of the Politbureau.

“So much was written about the confrontation between Yeltsin and Gorbachev that there is no need to talk about it. One thing should be mentioned: in the late 1980s and early 1990s Yeltsin was not simply popular — he was a national hero.”

Was Yeltsin a charming person?

“I’ll put it the following way: he knew how to make people like him. And he could work — whatever one says about him now — not sparing others or himself. And undertake responsibility.

“People trusted him. Even more — they firmly believed in him.”

What is your attitude to the country’s collapse?

“Of course, I regret. I’ll say more: the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy for the people, for all of us. Such a country, such an economy! If it had happened without withdrawal pains, and the reorganizing had been done quickly, we would have been far better off now! One could have done all this differently, and people wouldn’t have had to endure all that suffering. Political will was needed, but it was not there.

“Indeed, the Soviet Union had lots of good things that we lost, like health pioneer camps for children and the system of trade union resorts, the system of students’ building detachments, and even the Komsomol — the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League: this organization, despite its being ‘too organized,’ trained management personnel.

“Let alone the fact that the country was generally safe. Sometimes a person took his or her passport only to register a marriage: can any Russian now imagine a trip to Moscow without documents? And we traveled so!

“It’s natural that by the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s everything was not so good, and first of all because the governance system was shaken, ruined ‘from above.’ There is nothing to comment on.

“The perestroika ended in a collapse; the global, but poorly understood course, where everything was ‘half’: half-concessions in foreign policy, half-maneuvering, half-privatization, half-democracy, half-truth, etc.

“Then came August of 1991.

“A lot was written about the August of 1991: there are many versions of those events. But I suppose people will learn the truth about the ‘August coup d’etat’ much later.

“Our ‘probable opponents,’ and ‘probable friends,’ and current ‘partners’ celebrated the victory. It’s bad that they continue to celebrate it: regarding Russia as a defeated enemy and being guided by their narrow mercenary interests.

“But this is a topic for another conversation.

“Then came Belavezhskaya Pushcha and the dissolution of the USSR. The big country ceased to exist.

“Legally, the Soviet Union disappeared from world politics when in December 1991 the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk, and the head of the Supreme Council of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevych signed the Belavezha Accords.

“The state concern Gazprom lost a third of its pipelines, a third of its deposits, and a quarter of its compressor stations. But we kept manageability, mobility, and reliable ties with our partners. As well as our integrity.”

That is how our protagonist saw the second half of the 1980s.

INSTEAD OF A CONCLUSION

People would say: “Fools are lucky, and smart ones are guided by God.” Talking to Chernomyrdin about those remote times, we unwillingly lost ourselves in those events — not as outside observers, but as participants. And later, remembering the stories of Chernomyrdin, we came to the conclusion: life, providence, accident or fate really led this person through many hardships. Why? To add knowledge, experience, and skill to his steady Russian character formed in childhood by the Cossacks’ way of life and enriched by peasant and work experience.

All this happened so that he would have the strength and the ability to act when the time came, when his country collapsed: to transform one of the powerful Soviet ministries into a state concern, which owing to his efforts became one of the main state-forming economic structures of Russia.

New times have come. New authorities and managers improve the company, set new goals, make up new plans, but one thing does not change: Gazprom is essential to the national interests of Russia.

The problems of energy and energy security are discussed by analysts and politicians on the highest level. Energy as the foundation of the world economy, and on the whole, of the entire economic world order is now discussed by everyone. And we will repeat that this is a merit of Chernomyrdin. He, knowing how many efforts the country and people invested in creating the unique gas transportation system, managed not only to save it, but to create an example, an impetus for Russia’s revival, to throw a bridge from the Soviet state to the Russian state.

Certainly, we could not include everything we talked about with Chernomyrdin during the long thoughtful evenings. Since ahead, “off-screen,” there was his work as the head of the Russian government in those difficult, extraordinary years, when the economy of the country was hanging by a thread. Russia itself — due to the irresponsible ambitions of now forgotten politicians — was moving to the edge of civic confrontation, even civil war. Russia managed to withstand, it endured and overcame the severe free rein of the “capitalism in the period of the initial accumulation” in the 1990s, and enormous pressure of unfriendly foreign forces, which did everything possible to subdue the ancient state. The experience, power, wisdom, and self-control of the statesman Viktor Chernomyrdin protected the country from many disasters. This is the topic of the next book: Head of Russia’s Government.

Working as an ambassador to Ukraine was yet another chapter in Chernomyrdin’s life. For the eight years as ambassador he became not just one of the most influential figures in Ukrainian politics, but even won the hearts of many Ukrainians! Perhaps no other ambassador in any other state could attract such affection!

What was the most important thing in the life of Viktor Chernomyrdin? It’s difficult to determine it now because the time separating everything he did from the present days is too short. “Big things are seen at a distance,” said a poet. One thing is clear for us: both the topics of following books and many works of historians of far away and future times, all this will again and again open to the readers the “known unknown” pages of our quite recent history.