The first legal millionaire of the USSR: the life and death of Artem Tarasov. The first legal Soviet millionaire The first millionaire of the USSR
In the USSR, people did not attach as much importance to money as they do today. One could live on a small wage without denying oneself anything. Especially if there were acquaintances, for example, in the field of trade. As Raikin said: “You come to me, I got a shortage through the store manager, through the store manager, through the merchandiser, through the back porch!” Nevertheless, in the country of developed socialism there were really rich people. Even millionaires.
The whole country knew one official millionaire - this is Sergey Mikhalkov, - says the famous film director Alexander Stefanovich. - I was lucky to write several scripts with him. After the war, film directors and other artists had their fees cut. But writers (Mikhalkov and, say, another Soviet millionaire, the “red” Count Alexei Tolstoy) ensured that this did not apply to screenwriters. And circulation in Soviet times were huge.
There was even a bike that Mikhalkov had so much money that he had an “open” account in the bank - that is, he could take any amount without restrictions. Once I asked: is it true? Mikhalkov said - nonsense. But once, walking with him around St. Petersburg, I jokingly asked, pointing to a four-story Art Nouveau mansion: “Sergey Vladimirovich, can you buy it?” He glanced at the building and, with a characteristic stutter, said seriously, “P-perhaps I can. But I won't!"
Deficit on the table in the USSR was the main sign of prosperity
precious baby
People of art, who did not irritate the Soviet authorities, lived really at ease. Nevertheless, not everyone managed to accumulate a million. For example, Stefanovich himself received a six-figure fee for a film shot in France, already at the end of the USSR, during a period of inflation. The most popular satirist Mikhail Zadornov also failed to do this.
In Soviet times, I had about 800 thousand rubles in my account, ”he admitted to Express Gazeta. - But since there was no point in saving then, I rented and spent all the time.
How Mikhail Nikolaevich looked into the water! By 1990, 369 billion rubles, still far from wooden, lay on the accounts of citizens, which irrevocably “burned out” after the Yeltsinoids seized power.
Anyone who had 50 thousand rubles in the seventies was already considered a rich man, - the writer Mikhail Veller recalls those times. - One of the few categories of official Soviet millionaires were songwriters. When Vladimir Voinovich, who was not yet a dissident, composed the poems “Let's, guys, let's smoke before the start,” in which, however, vile prudes replaced “light up” with “sing”, he secured years of prosperity for himself. Now the old, forgotten, mendicant poet Alexei Olgin, the author of poems for Maya Kristalinskaya's hit "Top-top, the baby is stomping," received eight to ten thousand a month. What could he spend it on? The choice is small. I bought a Volga, had a three-room apartment in the center, vacationed in Pitsunda, Gagra, Sochi, giving fantastic tips, and wore the most expensive sheepskin coat.
Vladimir Semyonovich with prospector TUMANOV
Georgian moneybag
And there were also currency millionaires in the USSR!
Once Georgy Pavlov, Brezhnev's manager, purchased foreign furniture for the patron's residence for as much as a million dollars. But the Secretary General did not appreciate the zeal. “What am I to you, Arab sheikh?!” - Leonid Ilyich was indignant. And he demanded to place an order with domestic producers, - Stefanovich shared his story. - Pavlov was charged, but the question arose - what to do with the furniture purchased for the people's currency? At one of the meetings of the Politburo, Eduard Shevardnadze took the floor: “I have a person in mind. Sculptor, laureate of the Lenin Prize, young guy Zurab Tsereteli. His relative, the architect Posokhin, builds Soviet embassies all over the world, and Tsereteli designs them. He has been living abroad for years, taking private orders and may well solve our problem.”
Tsereteli was summoned to the Central Committee of the CPSU. “Zurab Konstantinovich,” they told him, “there is a party task. We know that you have a mansion in Georgia, where you plan to create your own museum. You must purchase furnishings for it from us. For a million American dollars!” Tsereteli smiled: “Actually, I am non-partisan. But, of course, I will fulfill the request of such a respected organization.” Officially, the dollar then cost 60 kopecks. But on the black market it sold one to four. By the way, Tsereteli was not even 30 at that time.
Owner of Gorky Street
Far 1976. Alla Pugacheva, whose song "Harlekino" was already heard by the whole country, was returning by train from a tour from Odessa with her husband Alexander Stefanovich. There was a gentle knock on the door.
A typical middle-aged Odessa citizen very politely said that he did not want to be imposed, but since the dining car would not open until two hours later, he invites you to have a bite to eat in the next compartment, Stefanovich recalls. - We, having taken a bottle of cognac, went to visit. And there everything is littered to the ceiling with boxes! Instead of the traditional road chicken, the owner began to throw scarce balyks, kilogram cans of caviar and other delicacies onto the table. It turned out that the man is the director of the legendary Privoz, and “people gave him boxes on the road.” Under cognac, Alla told a pleasant interlocutor that she received only 8 rubles for a concert. He goggled his eyes: “Frankness for frankness. I earn several million times more.”
He was on his way to his son's 18th birthday, whom he hired at MGIMO, "despite our nationality." I brought a kilo as a gift gold medal, on which the inscription "Monya, 18 years old" shone.
And he wasn't the only trading millionaire knocking on our door. Once, in the absence of Alla, a bell rang in the apartment at 37 Gorky Street. A respectable man with a box stood on the threshold. Strangers were not allowed in the entrance, our neighbors were the famous ballerina Semenyaka, the director Mark Zakharov lived downstairs.
A stranger - you can immediately see a decent person. He introduced himself as a great admirer of Pugacheva and brought a gift - a spectacular floor lamp in the form of a ball. I asked what his name was. "Sokolov," he answered simply. "What are you doing?" - I ask. The guest looked at me as if I were crazy: "I am the owner of Gorky Street." It was the legendary director of the Eliseevsky grocery store, a front-line soldier, who was subsequently shot.
Let's add on our own: even the executioner who executed the sentence sincerely regretted the death of this man. Although the state accused him of causing damage of three million rubles.
By selling paintings in the apartment of Ilya Ehrenburg, it was possible to build another Tverskaya street on which he lived.
Buy the head of the KGB
Weller has a book "Legends of Nevsky Prospekt". It bred the Leningrad Jew Fima Blyayshits, the founder of the Soviet fartsovka:
“Maids and porters in hotels, prostitutes, taxi drivers and guides, policemen - all made up the base of Fimin's pyramid. The clothes exchanged with foreign tourists were handed over to the commission, and the money flowed like water. However, Fima far-sightedly invested most of it in business and, in a fit of pride, thought of taking on the support of the head of the Leningrad department of the KGB.
According to Weller, the legendary Fima is a real person who was shot in 1970. And at its core, the book is true. But Mikhail Iosifovich emphasizes that Blaishitz is an exception:
Usually fartsa did not rise like that. There were no underground millionaires in Leningrad. They lived in the Caucasus or in Central Asia. Asia - registry and trade. In the Caucasus - guilds. And these are already real super-rich people who, for example, could afford a white Mercedes. It's like buying a rover now.
In the Slavic republics, underground merchants were forced to behave more modestly. We drove a maximum of "Volga". But somewhere you have to invest innumerable earnings! It came to curiosities. In the late 60s, they arrested the Simferopol owner of an underground clothing factory, whom everyone called Uncle Zero or Tsekhovik. Among other things, they seized from him ... the front door of the car, made of gold. It never opened, allegedly due to a breakdown.
Although the king of Moscow currency traders Yan Rokotov dined every day at the Aragvi restaurant, he lived in a communal apartment with his aunt, walked in the same shabby suit, in which he appeared in court. Valuables worth $1.5 million were confiscated from him.
The author of the illustrations of the "Wizard ..." provided for himself for life
A masterpiece in the toilet of Ehrenburg
Refined people invested in paintings and antiques. Like, for example, the director of a car service on Varshavskoe Shosse, who showed Stefanovich his unique collection.
But the most amazing private art gallery, which the Hermitage would envy, I saw not at the workshop, speculator or merchant, but in the apartment of the legendary writer Ilya Ehrenburg, who lived opposite the Moscow City Council, the film director admits. - All the walls were hung with originals of Chagall, Modigliani, Chaim Satin, Picasso, Kandinsky - these were his friends. He even had a toilet like a museum. Above the toilet and on the door hung the work of the artist Fernand Léger. He did not get a place, poor fellow, among the artists of the first row ... Now a meter-long painting by Léger costs an average of 10 million euros.
Director of the Eliseevsky grocery store Yuri SOKOLOV...
Instead of an epilogue
To mention all the Soviet underground magnates, you need to write a book. This is the guild worker Shah Shaverman, who set up a sewing workshop ... in a psychiatric dispensary, where he was the director. And Kharkiv "Uncle Borya", who flooded the country with his products: from shorts and galoshes to fake crystal chandeliers. And the Azerbaijani Teymur Akhmedov, who was shot on the personal orders of Aliyev. Among them, of course, there were dishonest businessmen - deceivers, informers, scammers. But there were also many hard-working smart people who were simply unlucky to be born 30-40 years later.
... the little daughter did not refuse anything
"Golden" Mists
Amazingly, private enterprise officially existed in the USSR. After the Great Patriotic War, the country's economy lay in ruins. The authorities turned a blind eye to the emergence of a class of small handicraftsmen who sewed clothes and produced various household trifles. In the late 50s, there were 150 thousand artels in the Union. But not everyone wanted to swim shallowly. The fate of the legendary Vadim Tumanov is proof of this.
A sailor, a young boxer of the Pacific Fleet team, ended up in camps under the "political 58th article" - for his love for Yesenin. He served eight years, tried to escape several times. How he survived, only God knows. The film "Lucky" with Vladimir Epifantsev in leading role according to the book by Vladimir Vysotsky and Leonid Manchinsky "Black Candle" - this is about Tumanov.
After his release, he organized a dozen and a half of the largest prospecting artels in the Union, prototypes of future cooperatives that mined 500 tons of gold for the country. His people received salaries more than the members of the Politburo - an average of two thousand rubles!
Here is how the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote about him:
“Our legal Soviet millionaire waved to the porter through the glass of the door with a lilac quarter. When a gap appeared in the door, Tumanov immediately put a quarter-piece into the gap, and it disappeared, as in the hand of a fakir. The porter was small, majestic slightly resembling Napoleon<…>Suddenly something happened to his face: it crawled simultaneously in several different directions.
Tumanov? Vadim Ivanovich?
Captain Ponomarev? Ivan Arsentievich?
It turned out that the Kolyma legend met her former overseer. The meeting, oddly enough, turned out to be cordial.
DROPPED
* Superstars of the level of Raymond Pauls or Yuri Antonov earned about 12 - 15 thousand rubles a month only on copyright. And yet they were getting paid. The creator of "The roof of his house" in the early 80s carried cash not in a wallet, but in a suitcase.
* Mikhail Sholokhov "dripped" legal millions both from publications in the USSR and from translations.
* Playwright Anatoly Baryanov received 920,700 rubles in interest for the public performance of his play "On the Other Side" in 1949.
* The artist Leonid Vladimirsky, having made the famous illustrations for the fairy tale "The Magician emerald city”, I didn’t draw anything else - it was enough for a lifetime!
* The great chess player Anatoly Karpov says without embarrassment: “Was I a legal Soviet millionaire? Yes".
The popular opinion is that in Soviet times all people were equal – at least until the heyday of the shadow economy in the 1970s. Citizens earned about the same, and the maximum that they could afford was a small cooperative apartment or a small car of domestic production. Of course, there were also exceptions, such as the writer Mikhail Sholokhov, to whom the rumor attributed fabulous wealth, or the journalist Victor Louis, who owned a solid fleet of Bentleys and Mercedes. But in fact, it turns out that not only shadow workers or celebrities in the capital, but also quite ordinary people - collective farmers, production workers and just resourceful people who knew how to earn money without breaking the law.
At the dawn of perestroika, the story of how Artyom Tarasov, who headed the Tekhnika cooperative at that time, paid party dues and a tax on childlessness from the salary he received in January 1989, made a lot of noise. Party contributions in the amount of 3% of wages amounted to 90 thousand rubles, and the tax on childlessness - about 180 thousand. And it turned out that the monthly salary of the cooperator reached 3 million. In Soviet society, this story caused a real shock. And this is strange: either the majority of the inhabitants of the country by that time had forgotten their recent history, or ... they simply did not know about it. Indeed, less than half a century before Artyom Tarasov, Soviet collective farmers, miners, fishermen and craftsmen not only earned a lot of money, but also shared it in full with their compatriots who fought, buying combat aircraft, tanks and cars for the army.
Collective farmers collected their millions in apiaries and invested them in victory
A collective farmer from the village of Stepnoy, Saratov Region, Ferapont Golovaty, worked in an apiary. Note: he did not keep his personal apiary, from which he had additional income, but was a simple hard worker. True, he worked a lot - it was through his efforts that the collective farm apiary became almost the largest in the region. Together with Ferapont, his entire large family also worked. When the war began, Golovaty barely exchanged half a century. He was not called to the front - two sons and three sons-in-law left to fight. And the beekeeper remained to work on the collective farm, along with nine grandchildren. And he worked, as they say, in good conscience: in December 1942, he contributed 100 thousand rubles for the construction of the Yak-1 fighter aircraft for the needs of the front. That is how much one such fighter cost in those days - two and a half times cheaper than the American Airacobra supplied under Lend-Lease.
It would seem, where does the beekeeper get such huge money from? So law enforcement agencies initially asked this question. Checked. It turned out it really worked. Everything was on the bookshelf. In addition to collective farm hives, the enterprising Ferapont was allowed to start his own. And then a year later Golovaty bought another fighter for the front - the Yak-3. Meanwhile, the initiative of the Saratov beekeeper was picked up by other peasants. Beekeeper Anna Selivanova, a neighbor of Ferapont from the collective farm named after the 7th Congress of Soviets, bought an American Airacobra for the front, and then two more combat aircraft. Chuvashia followed the Saratov region - collective farmers Sarskov and Koshechkin bought planes for the army, and Mikhail Dubrovin, chairman of the Krasny Pakhar collective farm, bought a Pe-2 twin-engine bomber for his son Stepan! For distinction in battles, Senior Lieutenant Dubrovin was twice awarded the Order of the Red Banner of War, and after the war, the pilot continued his army service on an airplane bought by his father.
In total, Soviet citizens donated about 145 billion rubles for the construction of aircraft and tanks for the Red Army - half of this money was the so-called "personal contributions of citizens." Soviet millionaires such as Ferapont Golovaty.
An enterprising builder was shot, but the arrested millions were returned to his wife
Millions were turned over not only by collective farmers, but simply by enterprising hard workers, such as Nikolai Pavlenko. He had not only golden hands, but also a truly bright head. Pavlenko met the Great Patriotic War in the rank of military technician of the first rank. He retreated with the corps to Vyazma itself, from where he was seconded to the airfield construction department of the Air Force Western front. And this is where the story diverges, as they say, in two. Some sources claim that Pavlenko allegedly defected in order to capitalize on the military confusion. Others insist that the assistant engineer of the rifle corps, starley Pavlenko, just carried out the order of the leadership - he went to Kalinin near Moscow to organize a military construction artel - "Military construction work section No. 5 of the Kalinin Front."
The second version is supported by the fact that if Pavlenko had acted independently, he would not have seen large contracts for the construction of roads and facilities. Not only that, the front command could not remain ignorant of the presence of the 5th UVSR under his command - Pavlenko and his fighters were regularly assigned regular military ranks and they were given awards. The command of the soul doted on the resourceful and executive Pavlenko - he was even allowed to buy for personal use two German executive cars - the Horch and the Adler. Together with his repair and construction unit, Colonel Pavlenko reached Berlin. The monthly budget of his UVSR-5, in which 300 people served, by the end of the war reached
3 million rubles. When it came time to leave Germany, it took a trainload of 30 railway cars to remove the property of UVSR-5!
Pavlenko's enterprise worked until the autumn of 1952. But then something went wrong. They say that the builder did not get along with the Deputy Minister of State Security of the Moldavian SSR Semyon Tsvigun, the future general of the army, the first deputy chairman of the KGB. Tsvigun presented the case in such a way that Pavlenko was allegedly engaged in illegal business, but since he failed to obtain sanctions for the arrest of the colonel under such a muddy sauce, other charges were used - anti-Soviet agitation, sabotage and participation in a counter-revolutionary organization. Pavlenko was arrested, and with him about 400 employees of his structure. In the apartment of the honored builder, several suitcases with money were found - the protocols contain an astronomical amount of 34 million rubles for those times! Later, the enterprising builder was sentenced to death, which is noteworthy, he was acquitted on charges of anti-Soviet agitation. But, what is even more remarkable, a significant part of the seized money was later returned to Pavlenko's wife, while recognizing that the builder amassed his millions in a completely legal way.
Kyrgyz guild workers lost their love for luxury
If Ferapont Golovaty and Nikolai Pavlenko enriched themselves either by legal or semi-legal methods, then Siegfried Gasenfranz and Isaac Singer from Soviet Kyrgyzstan earned their millions of capital, according to Soviet ideas, completely illegally. Singer and Gasenfranz were pioneers of guild production - the first worked as an assistant to the master of a knitting factory, and the second - a master of a sewing artel. They bought obsolete equipment from the directors of three sewing cooperatives, equipped a weaving factory in abandoned military sheds, and hired tailors from local Jewish communities. The thing went. The Hasenfranz family bought a huge house and hired servants. In one of the Moscow diplomatic missions, the shopkeeper bought a used Rolls-Royce - a little later, the same car, only completely new, British Queen Elizabeth II will give the "solar clown" Oleg Popov.
The "Kyrgyz" burned down precisely on exorbitant spending and defiant purchases. Luxurious foreign cars were acquired not only by Singer and Gasenfranz, but also by several of the most hardworking tailors. In January 1962, the Kyrgyz KGB arrested 150 people in the "knitting case". 21 defendants were sentenced to death, and one of the defendants, the head of the industry department of the Council of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Yuliy Osherovich, committed suicide during the investigation.
On Sunday, July 23, Artem Tarasov, the first legal millionaire in the USSR, died. He was 67 years old.
Artem Tarasov was born in 1950 in Moscow and gained fame in the USSR and abroad as the first legal Soviet millionaire who was paid a salary of 3 million rubles for January 1989 by the decision of the Tekhnika cooperative headed by him from the profits of this cooperative. All taxes from this salary were paid - only the tax for childlessness amounted to 6 percent for Tarasov, or 180,000 rubles. Tarasov's deputy for the cooperative, who also received a salary of 3 million rubles as a member of the CPSU, paid membership fees to the party in the amount of 3 percent of the salary - 90,000 rubles. This caused a shock in Soviet society and a wave of discussions in the USSR.
Artem Tarasov was elected a people's deputy of the RSFSR and a deputy of the State Duma of the first convocation. He was nominated as a candidate for the presidency of Russia in the 1996 elections, but was not registered by the election commission and did not take part in the elections.
Until the last moment, he worked as chairman of the board of directors of the Innovation Institute LLC he created. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Yabloko party. In the elections to the State Duma in 2016, he headed the regional list of "Yabloko" in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, he was also nominated as a candidate in a single-mandate constituency.
Radio Liberty publishes a conversation between columnist Mikhail Sokolov and Artem Tarasov dedicated to the release of the book of Tarasov's memoirs "Millionaire". This program, in which a State Duma deputy also took part, was first heard on Radio Liberty in September 2004.
Mikhail Sokolov: Artem, let's start with your book. That's how difficult it is to write candidly about the 90s? After all, many of those people you write about are alive, healthy, occupy various, high positions. Well, for example, the same Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov, whom you actually recommended to Gavriil Popov as vice-mayor. Here are all these stories... There are no complaints about you now from those who actually became the heroes of your book?
Artem Tarasov: Well, Mikhail, I would like to start with the fact that I am not a writer, and I never was, and I won’t be, and I don’t consider myself. And so everything that happened like this - this book was born, this misunderstanding, it seems to me, in itself. I started to write the first lines in 1997. That is, you can imagine, 7 years, with long breaks, sometimes one and a half, two years - that's how this thing was written.
I am not writing about people in this book. It seems to you that I am writing there about Luzhkov and about some other person ...
Mikhail Sokolov: About Gaidar, for example.
Artem Tarasov: It seems to you too. I am writing about that trace ... the trace that remained in my life when I came into contact with these people. This is very easy to prove. These are the people who are dead, whose fate I also describe in the book, they are no longer there, and the trace, it remained until my very last days. And if I write that a person is a bandit, he really was a bandit in my life, he left me such an impression and such scars on my heart or somewhere else. Maybe he is a decent person, maybe he loves his grandmother, maybe he keeps an orphanage - I don’t know, I can’t write a characterization of this person. So let these people not be offended. Here are the traces that they inherited in my biography, in life, in fate, they are exactly the same as I described - and nothing more.
If I write that a person is a thug, he really was a thug in my life
Mikhail Sokolov: I'll just note that your book, in a sense, is such a... well, not exactly an encyclopedia of corruption, but a reference book of easy swindle from this crazy time of the 90s.
And I want to tell our listeners that we have been joined by a deputy of the State Duma of Russia, a columnist for the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, Alexander Khinshtein, who writes a lot about the problems of corruption, about the problems of special services and is a member of the Security Committee.
In general, we have two deputies in the studio: one is a former deputy of the State Duma, the other is a current one. And there is something to talk about.
I would turn to Mr. Khinshtein. Moskovsky Komsomolets also published your article "Getting rid of the KGB" in September with the subtitle "For what they fought for, they ran into it." And the author, that is, you, prove that we, that is, the people, are to blame for destroying the best intelligence services in the world.
So you are worried that the most efficient people of the middle level, above the middle level, have left, and you are calling on all these KGB officers to return and protect the Motherland from terrorism.
Are you serious at all?
Absolutely seriously. Well, not exactly, I'm not calling them to go back and defend their homeland. I just expressed my assumption that the president should address them with such an appeal, as Supreme Commander like, after all, their former colleague. Because, otherwise, the people who today, for the most part, are arranged quite well, of course, will not go back.
As for the responsibility of society for the collapse of the special services and for the consequences of this collapse, which we are unfortunately witnessing today, yes, I am absolutely convinced that society, and primarily its most thinking and progressive part in the form of the intelligentsia, that is us, is most directly responsible for what happened.
Mikhail Sokolov: So you think that the KGB needs to be restored right in the form it was?
No no. I don't want any extremes, and I'm not talking about extremes here. In general, it is always necessary to approach such global issues very carefully and very carefully. I'm talking about something else. I'm talking about the fact that when the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1991, it collapsed, by the way, I should note, not through the fault of the KGB, because all the processes that are taking place today in the Caucasus are analysts and specialists of the KGB, in particular, the Fifth Directorate of the KGB USSR, they predicted back then, in the late 80s, and, unfortunately ...
Mikhail Sokolov: And clients of the Fifth Department also predicted. Andrei Amalrik, for example.
Predicted. Well, unfortunately, there was no reaction to those notes that were written to the Central Committee of the Party and to other leading bodies of the state.
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, and on the books of dissidents ... Here Amalrik wrote a book that "Will the Soviet Union survive until 1984." Well, he lived until 1991. This is true.
So, I'll continue. At that time, indeed, the KGB was probably one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world. And then the events that began to take place in the country, of course, led to the erosion of the service, led to the erosion of the structure. I don't want to sing the praises of the KGB now and say that everything that happened within the walls of this building was very good. In the same way, I shy away from any sweeping criticism that everything that happened behind these walls was bad, wild and disgusting. I urge you to just really find some kind of middle ground. The society is obliged to have and protect its special services. And, look, in our society, I mean, first of all, the thinking part, the intelligentsia, some kind of relationship with the special services, so to speak, not just closeness, but if you are a writer, and you write about intelligence officers and counterintelligence officers, or journalist, then the attitude towards you is appropriate. They look at you as a paid agent or as an undercover employee, and this is considered bad manners.
The society is obliged to have and protect its special services
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, it's such a special relationship, right? They don't let anyone in.
Oh sure. But why, say, in America, those specialists who, say, write about the history of the CIA, exist absolutely normally among their own kind, I mean representatives of the elite, representatives of the intelligentsia, and it never occurs to anyone to throw stones at them and say: here they come - paid mercenaries of the CIA, or paid mercenaries of the FBI?
Mikhail Sokolov: I can answer your question.
Let's.
Mikhail Sokolov: Because if we look at the experience of Western intelligence agencies, to a greater or lesser extent, with certain exceptions, they, in general, defended democracy. And what did the KGB, the Cheka and so on protect?
OGPU?
Mikhail Sokolov: But we know perfectly well that we are not children... a criminal regime.
OGPU - it was a very long time ago.
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, so what, what a long time ...
And we are by the same criterion with you ...
Artem Tarasov: I'm sorry I got in. You have come to a very important definition that is being asked right now. In fact, any strong power strong country, and even more so great country, which Russia wants to be, must have a strong organization, special services and so on. And that's not the fear.
It's scary when the secret services run errands or at the mercy of the authorities, when the authorities use the special services to achieve their personal interests: selfish, political, whatever you want, strengthening itself, suppressing the initiative of people - that's what's scary. That is why the KGB was scary in the Soviet Union.
Sorry for interrupting you now. This is not a question for the special services, and not for the KGB, and not for the FSB.
Artem Tarasov: Correctly.
This is a question for the government.
Artem Tarasov: By themselves, they perform it professionally, because they are in the service.
Of course. This is a question for the government. The special services are exactly the same state tools as the Ministry of Health or, relatively speaking, postal workers.
Special services are exactly the same tools of the state as the Ministry of Health
Artem Tarasov: Absolutely agree. Moreover, they are more disciplined.
Mikhail Sokolov: Alexander, you say that the basis is healthy, that is, the KGB, on this basis it is possible to build new special services. Other people believe that the basis is absolutely rotten, and we must do ... as in Eastern Europe.
From East Germany, the Stasi agents, very professional, probably, in their part, were not hired by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Do you understand?
Absolutely fair. I will answer your questions. Quite rightly, they were not taken to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is abbreviated as BFV, because this department existed in West Germany.
And the German authorities did not need to create any new agency.
Here you have given such, as it seems to me, a very revealing and very significant thesis. You say that in America it is normal to praise the CIA, because the entire history of Western intelligence agencies is one continuous defense of democracy...
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, with a few exceptions.
No, well, that's what you said... But in Russia it's not quite like that. I want to point out to you that, on the contrary, the entire history of the Western intelligence services is one continuous history of absolutely anti-democratic, since the vast majority of terrorist events, conspiracies of some kind, putschs, uprisings, in all countries of the world took place with the direct participation of the CIA.
Today, when all these ideological blinkers have been cast aside and there are no stereotypes of the Soviet era, we can talk about it calmly and say that, yes, bin Laden...
Mikhail Sokolov: And you want to say that there was never a communist threat to the world, right?
I want to say that in order to avoid one crime, it is not enough to commit another crime. Evil for evil - this, excuse me, is completely undemocratic. And as for bin Laden, whom the Americans are now hunting for, for the sake of which they have already seized two sovereign, let's say, states, this bin Laden did not appear yesterday, this bin Laden did not fall from the moon, this is the product of American special services. I don't want to burden you and the listeners with a list of all those...
Artem Tarasov: Alexander, you see what you are coming to, and in America the special services are a kind of maintenance, service team in the current government.
Yes Yes.
Artem Tarasov: And that's what's scary, the only thing that makes me afraid. I am not a revolutionary, not a politician. I was also on the Security Committee in the State Duma, oddly enough, even the first State Duma was. But today, this worries me just as a citizen. Is the government today able to say with all responsibility that the use of the special services, which they are reviving, which they will still revive, and, obviously, will call everyone back and pay good salaries, is the government today able to tell the people, and can it believe our people that this special service will not, contrary to the interests of the people, simply serve the top of power? If it does, then some kind of seizure of countries may await us - we, too, are fighting terrorism. Basayev will leave for Turkey, and we will capture it.
Mikhail Sokolov: You know, there is still a problem. So you said again about the United States and so on, but what you know about what happened in the American intelligence services is connected primarily with the work of a mass of commissions, parliamentary control, this activity of the CIA has been repeatedly reviewed, investigated, and so on, then There is parliamentary control in one way or another, to a greater extent recently, say, in the 80s, in the 90s, to a lesser extent - earlier, but it has always existed.
In the Soviet Union, there was no control, sorry, except for control by the Central Committee of the CPSU.
And in the 1990s, I generally suspect that there was no control on the part of the presidential power either.
By the way, in the book of Artem Mikhailovich there are details when employees of the same state security or structures close to it, they solved their personal problems.
Yes, and you wrote about this, in my opinion, many times, how they solved their personal problems of enrichment or, so to speak, career problems with the help of this cherished certificate with the inscription "FSB" or some other, "FAPSI", you have a lot was written on the subject.
Yes.
Mikhail Sokolov: And parliamentary control, in general, was brilliantly absent. And I suspect he still hasn't shown up. Truth?
No, he didn't show up.
Mikhail Sokolov: Here you see.
Let's connect some listener so that we don't have a conversation for three.
Artem Tarasov: From the former bodies, please, someone call.
Mikhail Sokolov: I suspect they probably will.
Boris is calling us from St. Petersburg. Please, your question to our guests.
Listener: I would like to ask both guests in the studio. What do you think, was there an alternative, perhaps, I will put it too roughly, criminal privatization of property? Thank you.
Mikhail Sokolov: Artem, did you participate in privatizations?
Artem Tarasov: Well, still, of course. It was and, of course, it should have been. And, in principle, there was a time that really passed as if before my eyes and even with my participation. At one time I was a member of the Council under President Yeltsin, he was not the president, but the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, and there were quite respected people there. There was a writer Granin, there was a director Zakharov, Grigory Yavlinsky, Burbulis. And we got together, drank cognac, of course, three-star brandy, and discussed what to do with the country and how to solve issues, including privatization. Galya Starovoitova was there then. After all, why did they choose the voucher system of privatization, why did they choose it then? Because, as it seemed then, it was very successful in Czechoslovakia. The first vouchers appeared there through this system. But there were also alternatives. There were many things proposed. In particular, here we are ... I say "we", I was a representative of the emerging bourgeoisie, it was a class of so-called cooperators. We already had a lot of people, 5 million people worked, 300 thousand enterprises. I was vice-president of the USSR Union of Cooperatives. We suggested another way to Yeltsin: let's take a territory, and make a zone of free cooperation on this territory, and see what comes of it, but don't spread it all over the country at once. Because we realized that the cooperative, which appeared at some enterprise, pulled out the best personnel, paid more money. Naturally, shadow money also went to the cooperative. I say: well, fence us, I don't know, with barbed wire, create a Hong Kong zone, and we'll see what happens. And we asked for any territory. And then there were not governors, but also secretaries of the regional party committees, who themselves offered Gorbachev more ... By the way, I can’t help but recall Yuri Spiridonov, in the Komi Republic they wanted to create a zone of free cooperation. And if it had gone this way, well, there would have been privatization errors somewhere in one territory, then they would have been distributed in a different way. So here's an alternative. But they chose this way.
I've already left. Chubais appeared after. And so it all happened.
I was a representative of the emerging bourgeoisie, it was a class of cooperators of the so-called
I want to say that, probably, if the idea that Artem Tarasov proposed to Yeltsin was to take everyone and protect them behind barbed wire in the Komi Republic, all this company that you listed, together with Yavlinsky, Starovoitova, probably, a different model would have developed really in Russia.
Seriously speaking, the way the privatization was carried out raises and will continue to raise a lot of questions. Unfortunately, we will probably not get answers to them soon. Because in all normal countries privatization takes a long time. In England, let's say, it lasted almost 100 years, 80 years. And we privatized and sold property... let's say we sold the fleet at the price of one vessel. We were selling ports for the price of one crane. We sold factories for the price of one machine.
Artem Tarasov: Yes, it was scary, Alexander. But most importantly, there were many other mistakes. It is impossible to start privatization at all without liquidating the monopoly.
Mikhail Sokolov: You agree with Yavlinsky.
Artem Tarasov: See how interesting. And with Gregory, I agree, although I did not know about it.
But this is actually written in Western economics textbooks.
Mikhail Sokolov: He talked about it all the time.
Artem Tarasov: Privatization starts after the introduction of antimonopoly legislation, and so on. There were many of these things. And I'm writing about it. I remember this historical thing, I describe it in a book. Koch spoke in the State Duma, he was then the chairman of the State Property Committee. This is just when the loans-for-shares auctions appeared, and the very same Nickel, Yukos and everything else was mortgaged for 9 billion rubles. And I asked him a question: "Tell me, please, how do you pledge such a property that costs, well, at least $ 9 billion, for 9 billion rubles to Russian commercial banks, knowing that you will not buy it out next year?" And Kokh, without blinking, on a white eye, I don’t know, on a blue one, answered: “You know, Artem Mikhailovich, we have a“ hole ”in this year’s budget, we must close it. We figured out how to do it. This money will go to closing the budget "hole" in 1995".
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, they were just getting ready for the presidential election. Here is some money.
Sergei is calling us from St. Petersburg. Please, your question. Hello.
Listener: You here urged the former employees of special services to call. But I, as a lover of special services, would like to ask a question.
"Amateur of special services" is the new kind sexy, right?
Listener: Yes. Here in our family is a very popular book by Viktor Suvorov "Aquarium", and, of course, here, for example, Alexei Konstantinov "Traitor". And, comparing these two books, we can say that during all this time the KGB has been reorganized three times, five times, ten times. It probably needs to be restored. But the "aquarium" remained unshakable. And even judging by all the operations, he is thriving. Here's how a former KGB officer would comment on how much this affects, how good or bad it is, the safety of the "aquarium"?
Mikhail Sokolov: GRU means the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. I explain.
To be more precise, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. It is not very clear to me, however, the appeal to former KGB officers. I don't know which of the three of us is meant here.
You know, Artem Mikhailovich, we have a "hole" in this year's budget, we must close
Mikhail Sokolov: Hint.
They hint, right? I will answer. Well, to be honest, I don’t know in what recent operations that make people say and say that the GRU has not changed, but these operations are unknown to me, and, probably, to the majority of the general public.
As for Suvorov's book, well, there is probably no need to analyze it in detail now. I think that the majority of people who can read and understand understand that this is a fairly well-cooked and well-made agitation, this is a purely propaganda book, written not without the help of the British and with their active participation. Well, you can recall the most probably "delicious", as journalists say, example from this book that Penkovsky, a spy who worked for British and American intelligence, instead of being executed by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, was burned alive in stove. Then, for a long time, these shots of the charred Penkovsky were shown as a warning to future fighters of the invisible front.
I do not know to what extent the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff has been reformed or how it is being reformed. Today it is practically not engaged in work on the territory of the country, it performs tasks that, first of all, need to be performed abroad. Well, not counting, of course, the situation connected with Chechnya and the North Caucasus region.
Mikhail Sokolov: So you write about the elimination of Yandarbiev, Baraev and Khattab - they should be proud of, these classic operations.
The GRU had nothing to do with this.
Mikhail Sokolov: So I think maybe you military secret issued when you write that the liquidation of Yandarbiyev is, so to speak, the work of the authorities.
Maybe someone was even framed.
I do not think. I think that this is actually an open secret, this is again clear to everyone.
Artem Tarasov: For me, it's really surprising that I got into such a topic - the KGB. You didn't tell me what it was about.
And they didn't tell me.
Artem Tarasov: But you know what I can say. All this objectively happened - the destruction of the KGB. At some point, they were left without the task that the authorities set before them. Power has disappeared, tasks have disappeared. And what is the saddest thing for them, at the same moment the funding disappeared. Indeed, KGB generals also came to work and said: we want to work, we want to earn money.
I describe this case in the book when I spoke on the radio ... I’m afraid that you, Mikhail, I don’t remember, no, probably not with you, and said that the anti-Soviet people had already disappeared, there was no one to catch, but since such a huge team, let us, as the Union of Cooperatives, help, pay and train all KGB workers in management - they will return as managers and raise the economy. And then the head of the KGB of Moscow spoke, just some general, in the press, and said: these moneybags, they are still ...
What year was this?
Artem Tarasov: It was 1990.
Then there was, probably, the head of the KGB of Moscow - Prilukov Vitaly Nikolaevich.
Artem Tarasov: Exactly. But that's how it ended, Alexander. I received a letter with more than 40 signatures, starting ... there were colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors: “After your speech, Artem Mikhailovich, we held a large meeting. The whole meeting accepted your point of view. We want to go to study as managers. There's nothing else for us to do." Do you understand? Here's how it happened. I think that the GRU also ran out of money at some point.
Mikhail Sokolov: Went to study for managers.
By the way, so that they don’t reproach me for not reading messages from a pager, I’ll read something good. "Why are you giving the stage to Khinshtein? This is the mouthpiece of these same special services. And I even suspect that the employee is." I don't read any further, Varvara Alexandrovna, it's impolite.
Alexander, so are you an employee or not?
Well, the fact is that, according to the current legislation, a person after he is elected a deputy of the State Duma or appointed a member of the Federation Council ...
Mikhail Sokolov: Dossier destroyed?
No, no, the dossier is not destroyed. He cannot hold any other position.
Mikhail Sokolov: But can he do journalism?
He can write, he can practice creative activity, teaching and research.
Mikhail Sokolov: But another comrade, Sergey, writes: "Thank you for a good article glorifying the FSB officers. I would like these bodies to help strengthen the state and fight international terrorism."
Well, this is what many would like them to do, and not something else, like criminal showdowns and protection rackets.
I just want to say, you see, we exist and live in captivity of certain stereotypes. And we are not even trying to destroy these stereotypes somehow. So we say: these are the organs... That is, you came across an unscrupulous, bad FSB officer or a police officer, and the person is so arranged, he begins to say: they are all like that there.
Mikhail Sokolov: Very much.
Agreed. But at the same time, yes, of course, today, especially with the money they are paid, but who will we recruit there? A lot of people with higher, university education, lawyers go to the same militia today? Go and invite today a young man, 23-24 years old, to be paid 3-4 rubles a month.
Artem Tarasov: Alexander, Kudrin said that in recent years the budget for law enforcement agencies has tripled.
I honestly...
Mikhail Sokolov: And it is still growing, and will continue to grow.
I understand. I am ready to tell you with full responsibility that this is not true. The budget for 2005 has not yet been adopted. It's closed... well, like my colleague in the recent past...
Mikhail Sokolov: Too bad it's closed.
Well, this is a normal practice, it is exactly the same in all countries of the world.
Mikhail Sokolov: No, the rubricator is completely different.
No. There is a single figure, after adoption it becomes open - how much money is allocated for each department, and then the distribution of this money, it, of course, is closed.
Mikhail Sokolov: Read any Western budget, including the defense budget, where the detail goes much deeper.
May be.
Mikhail Sokolov: You are being swindled, probably in the Duma, because of your youth.
It's clear. But I want to say that yesterday we just had a closed meeting of the Security Committee, at which we considered the draft budget, specifically related to the budget of law enforcement agencies. Yesterday, the committee did not accept, did not agree that this budget should be sent further for approval, because, in fact, the government does not allocate additional money. And all the talk about the fact that the budget is increasing, that some additional money is being given, all this remains just talk. On average, the increase is somewhere, as they wrote, of the order of 20 percent. But if we have inflation of 12 percent, well, then what do we leave, what other money can there be.
And when, for example, Kudrin says that the budget of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has grown from 80 billion to 100-something billion, but at the same time bashfully omits that they transferred money that had not previously appeared anywhere at all, in any federal reports that were developed by Private security is more than 38 billion rubles, they were transferred to the Treasury today, they went, this is the same money from the same pocket, but now not 80, but 120 billion.
So, just to end this topic, I want to say that there is more speculation and more demagogy than there really is. Unfortunately deep, the budget of special services does not increase seriously. Unfortunately, the state does not seriously think about this topic.
Artem Tarasov: Alexander, I would like to say this. When I was a deputy, I ran into the respected Economic Department of the Kremlin, then they were engaged in reconstruction ...
Mikhail Sokolov: Pavel Pavlovich Borodin, known to everyone.
Artem Tarasov: Well, I don't want to name names...
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, I called.
Artem Tarasov: He called his last name. So we talked to this person. And he says to me: "Do you know how much money I have for this year?" I say: "How much, Pavel Pavlovich?"
You yourself have now called.
Artem Tarasov: Well, what to do. "3 billion dollars". I say: "Forgive me, Pavel Pavlovich, but we only adopted the budget, there are only 200 million for your entire Economic Department." "Well," he says, "we trade a few more million tons of oil, so that there are, as it were, extrabudgetary sources." He bought doors for 11 thousand dollars, the door was installed in the Kremlin. Well, the reconstruction of the Duma with whitewashing from the Turks turned out to be a price of 45 million dollars.
Reconstruction of the Duma with whitewash from the Turks turned out to be a price of 45 million dollars
Therefore, you understand, the budget of the special services is understandable, but there is also a resource economy that can, as it were, support this budget a little.
It is easier for the administration of presidential affairs than for the secret services, because they can create unitary enterprises, they can create subsidiary structures, and, frankly, I can hardly see the unitary enterprises of the FSB.
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, to be honest, you know, everything is complicated with the Office of Affairs. Because there is still the Federal Security Service, which has its own budget, dachas, facilities ...
The Federal Security Service and the Office of the President have nothing in common.
Mikhail Sokolov: I mean that there are these special objects and there are expenses, and it's all so mixed up that I'm afraid that if you arrange some kind of commission in the Duma, you won't figure it out soon.
Let's hear another question. Vladimir Georgievich from Moscow, please. Hello.
Listener: Good afternoon, colleagues. I am very pleased to hear from you. And in general, interesting programs, Mikhail, you are hosting. Therefore, I have a question for you, or rather, mainly for Alexander Khinshtein, and partly for you. Such an opinion and such a question.
Opinion first. From October 1917 to this day, the authorities have been waging war on their own people. And he is waging this war with the hands of the NKVD. Unfortunately, this service existed and exists to this day. And all these upheavals that are happening now, well, I don’t know, they are for the better or for the worse. But, in any case, that a lot of people left, maybe that's not bad either. As they say, old blood changes.
Therefore, I have a question. Well, under the current regime, of course, there will be no changes in the special services - this is quite obvious. And in the next three years we will have what we have today. But if suddenly there are some shifts in the top leadership of the country or something changes in the political course, will there be in the bowels of the special services, our NKVD, forces that can turn this service in a completely different direction, change what has been happening for the past 80 years ? Here is a question. Thank you.
Change for the better or for the worse? Sorry, I have a counter question.
Listener: Well, I think that today the NKVD is as it has been since 1917 ...
Mikhail Sokolov: That is, an anti-people institution?
Listener: Completely anti-people. These are psychiatric hospitals, these are prisons, this is the destruction of inconvenient, dissidents, whatever you want. Will the secret services finally go about their own business? That is, the fight against terrorism, the prevention of all sorts of troubles that threaten us from behind the hillock, and other things. That is what intelligence agencies around the world are doing.
Mikhail Sokolov: It's clear.
By the way, I'll tell Alexander. You know, if people in our country still call themselves "glorious Chekists" and hang portraits of Dzerzhinsky in the Lubyanka, this is very symbolic. It's like ... again, you mentioned Germany there, German counterintelligence officers would call themselves "glorious Gestapo" and hang portraits of, well, Himmler or Muller, it's about the same thing.
It is absolutely not the same thing. I am ready to argue on this topic. Because Dzerzhinsky and his portraits do not personify Dzerzhinsky himself, but personify a certain faith. After all, what happened? Yes, of course, the financial component, yes, the collapse of the Union, but another very important thing happened. Those who went to serve in the KGB, especially in the central apparatus, they were people, well, to a sufficient extent, if not to say that they were ideological, at least they understood what they were working for and in the name of. They felt they were in a special position, they felt they belonged to a certain caste...
Mikhail Sokolov: Punishing sword of the party, huh?
Revolutions. Such a secret Order of Knights of the Sword. And any secret Order, any secret thing, it is always attractive. Suddenly, overnight, the system crashed. And the idea for which they worked was taken away from them. They weren't given a new idea. And today, it seems to me, what is one of the main reasons for the problems and troubles of our special services, that people have nothing to believe in and no one to work for. And Dzerzhinsky is a kind of symbol, a kind of personification of the faith that they had. And by the way, I must say that I studied the life of Felix Edmundovich a lot, worked in the archives, this figure was very interesting to me. I can say that Dzerzhinsky could still be a model for many leaders today, because, as you know, he slept in the rest room in his own office on a hard overcoat, covering himself with a tunic ...
Dzerzhinsky could still be a model for many leaders today
Mikhail Sokolov: And he signed hundreds of death sentences for people who are now considered the pride of Russia. Well, you know, this story...
Yes, I signed, but there was a war.
Mikhail Sokolov: War, yes. Anti-people.
In the same way, his opponents signed reverse verdicts.
Mikhail Sokolov: Not in that amount.
I should point out that again...
Mikhail Sokolov: And by the court in a large number of cases.
Artem Tarasov: I'm sitting here and thinking how to turn you from this topic somewhere into the economy.
Still, people do not receive salaries, they live poorly. Maybe we'll talk about it. What will happen to the economy. Please, in the light of the same strengthening of power structures.
And these things are still inseparable.
Artem Tarasov: That would be there...
Mikhail Sokolov: You know, an interesting message from the pager, Alexander, to you. “So you wrote about the deeds of Colonel Sukhodolsky, but you failed to stop the ascent of this ... (I skip the epithet) figure, and he has already become a general in the main and most numerous structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - in the Main Directorate of Private Security. As a deputy of the Duma, you still powerless to stop this figure's rise to power."
Don't you think you're fighting windmills?
You approve the system and think that if good people who sleep in the same overcoat in offices and fight real criminals, support, then the system will improve. Do you understand? Here you are an idealist.
Yes, I am an idealist. But is it bad?
Mikhail Sokolov: Probably bad. It is better to change the system.
And it seems to me that the opposite is true.
And it seems to me that everything that happens in life, all the changes, all the shifts, they are all made by idealists.
Mikhail Sokolov: We have a call from Petersburg. Malkhaz Grigoryevich, please. Hello.
Listener: I would like to turn to Tarasov. Artem, I want to go back... you keep saying: let's go back to something else. That's about the so-called incident in your book. There are pages of your life, and people who, as you said, inherited ... And I, and many of my friends, remember you from their youth and were very good friends with your father.
Artem Tarasov: Yes?
Listener: And I am sure that many of them would not mind meeting and nostalgic.
I have this question. Is this period a turning page for you?
Artem Tarasov: You know, Malkhaz, I deliberately didn't include a chapter about my life there. However, this book is not a biography. I wrote about my grandmother, who lived under the tsarist regime, and did not write at all about my parents, about Georgia, about Sukhumi. A very sick topic for me is Abkhazia. I didn't try to write an autobiography. Therefore, I do not remember this period. Although for me it is very painful. I once spoke here, you know, I was recorded on Sukhumi television. And I turned to the Abkhazians, to the Georgians and to the Russians, and said: "Give me back my youth and childhood - it does not belong to you, neither to the Abkhazians, nor Georgians, nor Russians. This is my youth - the city of Sukhumi in the form in which I I lived there when I was young. That's why I didn't touch on this topic. But it's good that you remember it. I don't know where you got the book in St. Petersburg, it doesn't seem to be there yet.
Listener: And I didn't get it. I was guided by what you said at the beginning of the transmission.
To my left lies Korzhakov, and to my right stands Berezovsky, Trud, and I am in the middle
Artem Tarasov: There are no books yet. But it is sold in Moscow. I just went to the store ... very good neighbors: Korzhakov lies to my left, and Berezovsky, Trud, stands to my right, and I am in the middle.
Mikhail Sokolov: All three volumes?
Artem Tarasov: Berezovsky?
Mikhail Sokolov: Here are the three volumes of Berezovsky.
Artem Tarasov: Three volumes, I think. They are all standing, but Korzhakov is lying about something. That's how I am between them.
Mikhail Sokolov: And Khinshtein is not, apparently, still on sale.
Sold out.
Artem Tarasov: Sold out already.
Mikhail Sokolov: Next volume is preparing.
Artem Tarasov: Therefore, there is no biography, there is no my childhood, parents - I did not touch on this period. The book ends not even with the Putin period, not because I have nothing to write, but because my new return to the Motherland did not leave enough impressions, still traces. This is the next work.
Mikhail Sokolov: I would like to touch on one more topic, quite interesting. Artem just did not write in his book about an interesting, in my opinion, period when he ran for governor. It was in St. Petersburg and it was in Krasnoyarsk.
Artem Tarasov: Also, a whole chapter, Mikhail, was written, called "The Campaign for Governors", very modestly.
Mikhail Sokolov: Where is the head?
Artem Tarasov: And I realized that this thing is not finished. This is a different period, a different country, this is Putin's country, but I am still writing about the Yeltsin country and the pre-Yeltsin period. it new country, which is necessary ... Michael, I discovered a new law. You know, when a person fasts for five days, how long does he get out of hunger? Roughly five days. You starve for ten - you sit on water for ten days. That's how long you were absent from Russia, how many years you have to return. I was absent for five years, I returned in 2002, I have been here for two years, I have three more. In 2007 we will talk about Russia...
Mikhail Sokolov: Can I run for the next governor? If only it will. By the way, I wanted to ask you, as a participant in this whole affair. And how do you feel about the latest ideas, so that governors are not elected, but appointed, and deputies, too, such as Alexander Khinshtein, who are single-mandate, should be eliminated. Maybe deputies will also be appointed?
Artem Tarasov: In fact, of course, the elections are biased. Now people dragged me, just people even persuaded me, here are some of my friends, to run in Bryansk. Elections will take place in December.
Mikhail Sokolov: Yes, there the governor Lodkin, so "red", ruined a lot of things.
Artem Tarasov: We sent a car there that I was supposed to drive. She was stopped at the border of the Bryansk region, and they found cartridges from a machine gun. But it turned out that I was not driving in this car. I just wanted to take a look. This is how Lodkin's campaign begins. I did not go there, because there was not enough money and the local, well, today's authorities would not agree with me. I don't belong to any circles.
What do I think of Putin's ideas on the appointment of governors, on these very alternatives. In fact, I am not some kind of revolutionary and I do not shout that this is some kind of infringement of democracy. The way the elections are held today, Mikhail, it would be better if they already appointed.
Mikhail Sokolov: You don't tell me.
Artem Tarasov: Especially not to tell you, you are running such programs. So this is something else that worries me. We once discussed what consequences this system would have on the Russian economy. Maybe Putin chose the Chinese option, then he will set the task for the appointed governors to introduce 10, 100 small enterprises every day, open and report...
Mikhail Sokolov: And for this it is necessary to appoint the Chinese as governors, and also to shoot corrupt officials.
Artem Tarasov: What for? But I didn’t open it, I’m sorry, they removed me from work. In England, 2,000 small and medium-sized businesses open daily. In Russia, in my opinion, somewhere around 100-150 throughout Russia.
Mikhail Sokolov: And just as many closed, probably.
Artem Tarasov: In England? Yes. Well, good. And here, if you open it, you can’t close it without a bribe. It is necessary to create a commission, liquidation - a lot of money.
Mikhail Sokolov: Let Alexander also give his opinion on this topic. Moreover, I think ... Last Monday, he scheduled a press conference on this issue, still, in my opinion, not knowing that the president would speak out in support of all these ideas, and, nevertheless, did not refuse from this event. It was even interesting. Like a dick" United Russia", by the way. I went against the party line.
Not only did I not refuse, but I expressed the point of view that I held even before the President's speech.
Well, as for the cancellation of the gubernatorial elections. I do not have an unequivocal attitude to this, because ... here I agree with Artem Mikhailovich, since the elections are taking place today, it would be better if they did not exist at all.
Mikhail Sokolov: But that depends on the people. In some places it goes like this, and in others it doesn't.
Unfortunately no.
Mikhail Sokolov: And not everywhere choose those pleasing to the authorities.
Artem Tarasov: Just one example...
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, you know, the story with Governor Yevdokimov in Altai is rather funny. Yes? But who was the Kremlin punching? Surikov, a man who for many years, in general, led the region, and without great success.
I don’t know if the actor will succeed, but maybe even such a replacement is better.
Artem Tarasov: I'm not sure he didn't find funding. And what funding could Evdokimov find? Well, ask him who gave him money and how much.
Mikhail Sokolov: And this can be seen from the composition of his government already ...
Artem Tarasov: Here you see.
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, what to do. Nothing works without money.
Artem Tarasov: Therefore, this is not an election, again, not an election at all. This is not the will of the people. It's either money or power.
Mikhail Sokolov: Let's let Alexander finish.
So, according to the way they choose today, I repeat, it would be better if there were no elections.
And, to our deepest regret, the electoral system, by and large, is, of course, a convention, it is, of course, a screen, since the main decision is still made by the federal center. And the administrative resource is the weapon against which, unfortunately, the people today are powerless.
An example with Evdokimov, he only confirms general rule, because such examples, well, probably, we will not name more with you - one, two, three.
As for the election of single-mandate deputies, well, I think that this is a mistake. I say this as a single member myself. Because I understand very well that, first, the list-deputy is a deputy of all Russia, he is elected from the country, and he has no personal responsibility for what is happening. Here I have a constituency where half a million voters live, I know their current problems, I know what difficulties I have in the districts.
I just came to your program, and just before that, I was in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, I went to the Deputy Minister for Logistics, punched new buildings in order to speed up the construction of police facilities in the district and help with vehicles.
I have to do this because there is a reverse mechanism. This is the second reason why I am against it.
The reverse mechanism, the only mechanism of control that humanity has managed to come up with is re-elections. If I don't work well as a deputy, they don't elect me.
The governor does not work well - he is not elected. The president does not work well - he, accordingly, is not elected, God forgive me, I beg you ...
Mikhail Sokolov: "Democracy is a terrible thing, but nothing better has been invented." I agree.
Yes, Churchill was absolutely right. This is the second. The MP is not responsible for anything. Well, they attributed to you, they said: for example, you will be registered with the Republic of Karelia, or with Sakha (Yakutia). Well, you go there once every six months in Sakha (Yakutia), probably, eat stroganina, drink frosty vodka - it will all be over.
The only mechanism of control that humanity has managed to come up with is re-elections.
In the Nizhny Novgorod region, from which I was elected, we probably have at least 12 people on the list from all factions assigned there. I didn’t see anyone there, in my district, not even once. And, probably, for the remaining three years I will not see.
Third. See what we get. It turns out that everything in the country is controlled by a single center and a single person. All threads of power, all threads of control gather in one office. Because the president appoints governors - time. The governor, in turn, sends his representative to the Federation Council - two. Deputies are elected by lists. How are these lists formed? Are they formed without the participation of the administration? I strongly doubt it. Three. The next step that the authorities will take, I am absolutely sure of this, will be the abolition of elections in municipalities.
Mikhail Sokolov: Because the governors need compensation.
Undoubtedly. Well said. But not only that. Because it is much more difficult for an appointed governor to lead people than for an elected governor. Because behind the elected governor there is a human resource, and behind the appointed governor there is nothing but virtual support. Thus, we compress the decision-making ring from responsibility into a very thin, thin, so to speak ...
And the last argument is very important. The fact is that in this way we are essentially throwing out the regional elite, the people who are active in the regions, we are throwing them overboard. Because decisions will be made in Moscow, and appointments will come from Moscow.
Artem Tarasov: So it seems to me ... I will now say one phrase, and I think that the people who listen to us will support me. Yes, deeply, in fact, the entire population does not care how all these verticals, horizontals of power are arranged. Will this new structure, any, still lead to economic reforms in society, so that life becomes better for people, so that people earn more - that's where it leads. If, I say again, this tool, centralization, will be used to somehow... After all, you see, no one questions the free market economy. No developed country can exist without this form of economy. Yes?
I absolutely do not care, the Islamic Republic or the Chinese version, as a person. If I live day by day, year by year it’s better, if it’s easier for me and they let me do business, I don’t care what kind of power. I tell you honestly. Absolutely do not care who discusses what, what verticals. If Putin chooses such a concentration of power in order to introduce, somewhere by force, somewhere by orders, a highly developed economy that will give results, and the country will begin to follow not the path of a raw material appendage of world countries, but really science-intensive products, innovation and so on, well, God bless him. Then he will order everyone up to the municipalities, implement and create conditions for business.
Mikhail Sokolov: We have a call from Tomsk. Anna, please. Hello.
Listener: My question is mainly to Artem Mikhailovich. The question is how he relates to the issue of social responsibility of business.
Mikhail Sokolov: Need to share?
Artem Tarasov: You see, the fact is that we do not have a business as such. We have surviving small enterprises that miraculously survive, and there are oligarchic structures that are doing very well.
Mikhail Sokolov: And connected with the state.
Artem Tarasov: And connected with the state. The fact is that a poor person, he is not able to be a benefactor. He thinks about how to feed his family. Well, absolutely rare people-heroes can sacrifice everything for the sake of someone's misfortune. And a rich person or just a person who is provided with everything necessary is engaged in charity work, social problems. This is a huge number, this is an army of funds in the West, these are all the wives of medium and small even, and large, of course, entrepreneurs in the West, all members of the funds. And it's a huge move. And we have this ... I tried, I brought the crown, I didn’t collect any money, she left for Riga, the bank bought her for the oligarch - that’s all.
We do not have a business as such. We have surviving small businesses and oligarchic structures
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, thank God. We have Faberge eggs...
Artem Tarasov: Excuse me, well, Faberge eggs are eggs, and this crown belonged to Pushkina, was presented to the Romanovs - these are still great families, and this crown has a huge historical value of the state.
Mikhail Sokolov: It is better to help disabled children.
Artem Tarasov: Well maybe. But neither one nor the other succeeded.
Mikhail Sokolov: Vladimir from Moscow. Hello.
Listener: Objection to Artem Tarasov. You gave Czechoslovakia as an example for privatization in Russia. So it was the other way around. There were nominal privatization checks that ensured a smooth transition, not predatory, not looting, or idiotic, like privatization in Russia, but a smooth transition from socialist to capitalist property. This is the first.
Mikhail Sokolov: There, too, their oligarchs appeared.
Listener: Now the second, on privatization. All over the world, first of all, unprofitable enterprises, low-profit ones are privatized ...
Artem Tarasov: You're right.
Listener: ... but profit-making enterprises remain, and the state is funded from their profits. We started the other way around. And Chubais said bluntly: the goal was not to optimally solve the problem of this transition, but to create a class of big capitalists.
Artem Tarasov: You know, I agree with you. Here is the period that I gave, it was then that they discussed the option of Czechoslovakia, but it was 1990. I left in 1991, and privatization began in 1992. I didn't participate. They introduced non-registered checks, this is really, maybe worse.
Mikhail Sokolov: Let's have another pager question. "Hushed up the case about the" werewolves in uniform "?".
No, they haven't hushed it up. Now all the defendants, and I remind you that these are six employees of the MUR and the former head of the Security Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Major General Ganeev, they are getting acquainted with the materials of the indictment. It is assumed that somewhere in December-January the materials will go to court. The investigation managed to establish 11 criminal episodes. The story does not end there, because many letters and appeals from the victims of these people come to me, and to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and to me directly. Unfortunately, many of those who got in their way are already serving their sentences today. I have visited several colonies. Of course, very difficult human stories, when people, in fact, for no reason turned out to be victims of provocations. And today one person, I am now dealing with his case in detail, was sentenced to 24 years.
Mikhail Sokolov: Well, rehabilitate, perhaps?
Today we already have the decisions of two courts, which removed the convictions from the victims of "werewolves", and this work must be continued.
Mikhail Sokolov: Here they write: "People who were shot without guilt, it is not easier because the executioner slept in the office in the same overcoat." Do you understand? They argue with you.
So it's good that they argue. It would be worse if, instead of arguing, they would also be shot today.
Mikhail Sokolov: By the way, another question for you: "Who benefits from the provocation with the pardon of Budanov?"
I don't think it's a provocation. As far as I understand, there is indeed a fact, indeed an attempt to pardon Budanov has been made...
Artem Tarasov: Will he be pardoned?
I think not, because the scandal has gone too far. And he did not even spend half of the appointed term in the colony. Here the so-called principle of parole - parole, it does not work. The man must serve half his sentence.
Mikhail Sokolov: But Mr. Shamanov is just in a hurry, because he has elections on his nose, and he needs to help his colleague...
By the way, Shamanov's example is one of those examples that, in general, makes one agree with the president's position that governors should not be elected by the people, but appointed by the president. Because we get people like Shamanov.
Mikhail Sokolov: Alexander, you know, I'll tell you that Shamanov was elected, among other things, with the great support of the federal government and Moscow. That is, he was actually pushed there. So what is it...
Even if there was no support from the federal center and Moscow, the hero Shamanov, a handsome man, full of orders, he would still be elected there.
Mikhail Sokolov: God knows. He is a military man. If he had been told that he should not go there, he probably would not have gone there.
Artem Tarasov: Let's say something good in conclusion.
Mikhail Sokolov: Tell me, Artem. Can you also answer why all the oligarchs go to London, they ask.
Artem Tarasov: Well, good again... Because London doesn't betray anyone. If he does not extradite Zakayev, then, of course, he will not extradite any oligarch. Do you understand? Therefore, London is such a place... There are not only oligarchs there, a lot of people leave there. That's where I came from. Maybe they will follow me, I would like to.
We would be happy to meet them here, place them in comfortable cells.
Mikhail Sokolov: Not everyone, not everyone. No need...
Today Russia is a great and fairly independent power. The country was put in a difficult position during the collapse of the USSR, but even at that moment people organized themselves who managed to orient themselves correctly and build their business. It will be about people who are considered the first Russian millionaires.
Among the very first millionaires in Russia, Artem Tarasov, a people's deputy of the 90s, can be nominated. The entrepreneur and member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation was nominated for the presidential elections in 1996, but did not take part in them.
In 1989, having received a salary of 3 million rubles, Tarasov gained popularity as the first legal millionaire. Soviet Union. Tarasov's popularity went beyond the borders where he was forced to emigrate.
Another political figure, who later became a multimillionaire - German Sterligov, now lives in the forest. In 1990, under his name, the first Soviet commodity exchange "Alisa" was organized. It included 84 more subsidiaries in Russia and abroad.
Sterligov ran for governor Krasnoyarsk Territory in 2002, mayor of Moscow in 2003, and even ran for president in 2004. In the same year, German Sterligov left business and politics and left Moscow with his family for the Mozhaisk region, took up agriculture, and delved into religion.
Alexei Konanykhin and Georgy Miroshnik are experts in their field and excellent businessmen who previously held high positions in the country's economy. To date, little is known about them, apparently due to big problems with the authorities. Modern businessmen and entrepreneurs create their business in alliance with foreign colleagues and create international business and economic relations, nourish experience from their employees. These people can also be called the first millionaires of Russia.
One of the pioneer cooperators of the times of perestroika in the USSR is businessman Artem Tarasov.
Tarasov is considered the first Soviet legal millionaire: it was he who officially received a salary of 3 million rubles in 1989, which then caused a real sensation. Later, Tarasov never became an oligarch - although he could not have “sat down” - although everything went to this, he survived emigration and ruin, tried to return to politics and died alone from pneumonia at the age of 67. 
Artem Tarasov was born in Moscow on July 4, 1950 in the family of photojournalist Mikhail Artemovich Tarasov and Doctor of Biology Lyudmila Viktorovna Alekseeva. On the paternal side, A.M. Tarasov comes from the Armenian merchant family Tarasov.
After school, Tarasov graduated from the Moscow Mining Institute (1972) and received a Ph.D. in technical sciences (1982). In the 1960s, he participated in the KVN team of the Mining Institute. 
Tarasov became famous as the first legal Soviet millionaire in the late 80s. In the country then there was devastation, in stores - an acute shortage. People hardly pulled from payday to payday with an average salary of 130 rubles. And in 1989, Artem Tarasov, in the Vzglyad program, said that he and his deputy received 3 million rubles in salaries for January. Only the tax on childlessness from this amount amounted to 180 thousand rubles, and the deputy who was in the CPSU gave 90 thousand in the form of party contributions. 
This was just two years after the registration of the Tekhnika cooperative, of which Tarasov was the director. The cooperative was engaged in the repair of foreign household appliances. After some time, employees of the Main Computing Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences began to transfer the rights to their software products to the Tekhnika cooperative and through it sold them to branches of the State Committee for Computer Engineering. Revenue for the first month of work, according to Tarasov's memoirs, amounted to about a million rubles. 
This is what the products of the cooperative looked like in the late 80s. Then, according to Tarasov, the enterprise was involved in 27 areas of activity: construction, training, innovation, trade, and so on. As of January 1989, Technika's account had 79 million rubles, which is 100 million dollars in dollar terms.
The legendary performance of the millionaire Tarasov in the Vzglyad program caused a shock in Soviet society and an extraordinary resonance throughout the country. A whole series of inspections of the Tarasov cooperative began, which they tried to bring under the article “Theft on an especially large scale” (in the USSR it was punishable by execution). After 9 months of inspections, the company was closed, and all accounts were arrested. Although the case did not reach the court, because the inspectors did not find any crime. 
Tarasov was called an enemy of Gorbachev. The first and last president of the USSR spoke out sharply after that broadcast of the Vzglyad program: “Our country is rich in talented people. One of them bought computers cheaply and sold them for big money! This cannot be in the USSR.” Tarasov irritated him and interfered with his harsh statements, especially since he later became a people's deputy and received immunity.
However, after the businessman spread the word in February 1991 that Gorbachev was preparing to transfer the Kuril Islands to Japan for $200 billion, his conflict with the authorities forced him to leave the USSR for London: Tarasov believed that immigration in March 1991 saved him life, because, as he believed, the Ministry of Internal Affairs had already ordered his killer for 12 thousand rubles. 
Tarasov returned to Moscow in 1993, when directly from London he participated in the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation and won in the Central District of Moscow, becoming a deputy. In 1996, Tarasov even put forward his candidacy for participation in the presidential elections in Russia, but the Central Election Commission did not register him.
Tarasov later recalled: “When I arrived in Russia after emigrating, I saw another country. Gangster. Where my friends were killed. These are politicians, and journalists, and businessmen. I had a nostalgic breakdown. And from this terrible country, after two years of being a deputy, I drove back to England. I realized: there is nothing to catch here.
At the end of 1996, he again went to London and lived there until 2003. There he lost his millions, getting involved in the scam of a Lebanese named Abdel Nasif, and then spent a lot of money on litigation with him. 
Tarasov again returned to permanent residence in Russia in 2003. Twice participated in the elections for the governor of St. Petersburg (2000) and the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory (2002), but was not successful.
Tarasov had a plan to fight corruption in Russia. Among other things, he proposed abolishing taxes. 
In recent years, Tarasov led a kind of reclusive life. Only a couple of years ago he tried to return to public life through the political door. From the Yabloko party, he tried his hand at the elections to the State Duma. As Tarasov himself admitted in an interview, he lived modestly in a small apartment on the Arbat, as they say, “on a salary,” plus the money set aside in the years of former luxury in the American pension fund came in handy. 
The house where Artem Tarasov died at the end of July 2017. 
In recent years, the businessman lived alone in an apartment and only once a week a housekeeper came to him. The corpse of a millionaire was discovered by his friend on Saturday evening, July 22, when he brought him medicine.
By the way, the millionaire did not like to go to the doctors, because he did not trust medicine. He told everyone that he knew his body better than doctors. Therefore, he made his own diagnoses, and searched the Internet for the medicines to be taken. Investigators of the UK ordered a check, but according to the first conclusions of doctors, the death is not of a criminal nature.
