Viktor Chernomyrdin is one of the most famous Russian political figures of the past. His name is known to everyone who found perestroika. Moreover, many Russians remember him as a very gifted politician, capable of creating an unsurpassed aphorism in one simple phrase.
So let's turn back and remember who Viktor Chernomyrdin was for us. What was his life path? And what contribution did he make to the development of modern Russia?
Viktor Chernomyrdin: biography of early years
The future politician was born in the small village of Black Otrog, which is located in the Orenburg region. It happened on April 9, 1938 in a family of ordinary workers. In addition to him, Stepan Makarevich and Martha Petrovna had four more children.
Viktor Chernomyrdin received his first specialty at the Orsk Technical School. Immediately after graduation, in 1957, he got a job at the Orsk refinery. Here he was considered a simple locksmith serving machine compressors and pumps.
In 1966 he received higher education at the Kuibyshev Polytechnic Institute. The diploma of a process engineer allowed Viktor Chernomyrdin to get the position of deputy head of the CPSU city committee.
The future politician received his second higher education in 1972, having graduated from the All-Union Correspondence Polytechnic Institute. This time Chernomyrdin mastered the profession of an engineer-economist.
From 1973 to 1978, Viktor Chernomyrdin headed the Orenburg gas production plant.
Political career
In 1984, Viktor Chernomyrdin became a deputy of the Supreme Council of the country. A year later, he was elected Minister of the Gas Industry of the Soviet Union. In 1992, he assumed the post of Deputy Prime Minister. And soon he was promoted to the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation.
In December 1995, his party Our Home - Russia won the election. But Viktor Chernomyrdin himself renounced his parliamentary powers and remained in the post of chairman of the Russian government.
In the period from 2001 to 2009, he served as the specially authorized ambassador to Ukraine. In June 2009, Dmitry Medvedev appointed Viktor Chernomyrdin as adviser to the President of Russia.
However, on November 3, 2010, a great politician dies in a ward of a metropolitan hospital. The diagnosis is myocardial infarction.
Biggest feat
In June 1995, terrorists captured the central hospital in Budennovsk, in the Stavropol Territory. More than 2,000 innocent people were held hostage. The role of the main negotiator was assumed by Viktor Chernomyrdin.
Thanks to his diplomatic skills, he managed to free most of the captured people. And although the militants ultimately managed to escape, the number of victims was minimized. This feat of Viktor Chernomyrdin will forever remain in the hearts of the people he saved.