Prime Minister of Russia (1992–1998)
Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (, ; 9 April 1938 – 3 November 2010) was a Soviet and Russian politician and businessman. He was the Minister of Gas Industry of the Soviet Union (13 February 1985 – 17 July 1989), after which he became first chairman of Gazprom energy company and the second-longest-serving Prime Minister of Russia (1992–1998) based on consecutive years. He was a key figure in Russian politics in the 1990s and a participant in the transition from a planned to a market economy. From 2001 to 2009, he was Russia's ambassador to Ukraine. After that, he was designated as a presidential adviser.
Chernomyrdin was known in Russia and Russian-speaking countries for his language style, which contained numerous malapropisms and syntactic errors. Many of his sayings became aphorisms and idioms in the Russian language, two examples being the expression "We wanted the best, but it turned out like always." () and "The thing that never happens just happened again" ().
Chernomyrdin died on 3 November 2010 after a long illness. He was buried beside his wife in Novodevichy Cemetery on 5 November, and his funeral was broadcast live on Russian federal TV channels.
Early life and education.
Chernomyrdin was born in Chernyi Otrog, Orenburg Oblast, Russian SFSR. His father was a labourer and Viktor was one of five children. Chernomyrdin completed school education in 1957 and found employment as a mechanic in an oil refinery in Orsk. He worked there until 1962, except for his military service (which lasted from 1957 to 1960). His other occupations on the plant during this period included machinist, operator and chief of technical installations.
In 1962, he was admitted to Kuybyshev Industrial Institute (which was later renamed Samara Polytechnical Institute). In his entrance exams he performed very poorly. He failed the maths sections of the test and had to take the exam again, getting a C. He got only one B, in Russian language, and Cs in the other tests. He was admitted only because of very poor competition. In 1966, he graduated from the institute. In 1972, he completed further studies at the Department of Economics of the Union-wide Polytechnic Institute by correspondence.
Soviet political and government career.
In 1961, Chernomyrdin became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1967–73, he served as an industrial administrator for the city party committee in Orsk. From 1973–78, he was served in an appointed position as the deputy chief engineer and director for a natural gas plant in Orenburg. In 1978, he moved to Moscow to work for the Central Committee of the CPSU, becoming an apparatchik. From then until 1982, he worked in the heavy industry arm of the Central Committee.
In 1982, he was appointed deputy minister of the natural gas industries of the Soviet Union. Concurrently, beginning from 1983, he directed Glavtyumengazprom, an industry association for natural gas resource development in Tyumen Oblast. In 1985, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had him appointed to serve as minister of the natural gas industry, a role he held until 1989. 
Founder of Gazprom.
In August 1989, under the leadership of Chernomyrdin, the Ministry of Gas Industry was transformed into the "State Gas Concern", Gazprom, which became the country's first state-corporate enterprise. Chernomyrdin was elected its first chairman. The company was still controlled by the state, but now the control was exercised through shares of stock, 100% of which were owned by the state.
Chernomyrdin unsuccessfully ran in the 1990 Russian Supreme Soviet election.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in late 1991, assets of the former Soviet state in the gas sector were transferred to newly created national companies such as Ukrgazprom and Turkmengazprom. Gazprom kept assets located in the territory of Russia, and was able to secure a monopoly in the gas sector.
Gazprom's political influence increased markedly after Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed the company's chairman Chernomyrdin as his Prime Minister in 1992. Rem Viakhirev took Chernomyrdin's place as chairman both of the board of directors and of the managing committee. Gazprom was one of the backbones of the country's economy in 1990s, though the company underperformed during that decade. In the 2000s, however, Gazprom became the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company.
Deputy prime minister of Russia.
In May 1992, President Boris Yeltsin appointed Chernomyrdin as deputy prime minister in charge of fuel and energy. Chernomyrdin began his role in June, serving in the Cabinet of Boris Yeltsin and Yegor Gaidar, serving under acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar. Chernomyrdin's appointment came at the behest of the Civic Union political union.
Chernomyrdin's loyalty to the industrial lobby persisted.
Prime Minister of Russia.
Gaidar was considered a liberal political reformist, and the Congress of People's Deputies of Russia refused to confirm his nomination to serve as permanent prime minister. This led Yeltsin to instead nominate the Chernomyrdin. Chernomyrdin was not regarded to have established much of a political identity for himself up to that point, making his nomination a surprise. However, the fact that he had staked out no political positions during his brief time in Gaidar's cabinet made it easier for Chernomyrdin's nomination to win sufficient approval. On 14 December 1992, Yeltsin formallynominated him. He was confirmed the same day by the Congress of People's Deputies.
According to Felipe Turover Chudínov, who was a senior intelligence officer with the foreign-intelligence directorate of the KGB, Chernomyrdin secretly decreed in the early 1990s that Russia would become an international hub for narcotics trafficking including importing cocaine and heroin from South America and heroin from Central Asia and Southeast Asia and exporting narcotics to Europe, North America including the United States and Canada, and China and the Pacific Rim.
While he had been critical of his predecessor Gaidar, Chernomyrdin largely continued Gaidar's policies.
Alongside U.S. vice president Al Gore, he served as co-chair of the Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission. The commission met biannually to discuss U.S.–Russia cooperation, but produced few tangible results. One outcome was U.S.–Russian cooperation in space exploration. In September 1993, he and Gore announced plans for the two nations to build a new space station, which eventually became the International Space Station. They also reached an agreement for the United States to begin participating heavily in the "Mir" programme in advance of the launch of the new space station, setting the ground for the Shuttle–Mir Programme.
In April 1995, he formed a political bloc called Our Home – Russia, which won 10% of the vote and 55 seats to come third in the 1995 Russian legislative election.
In 1995, Chernomyrdin signed a decree calling for the development of a national strategy for tiger conservation
On 18 June 1995, as a result of Shamil Basayev-led terrorists taking over 1500 people hostage in Budyonnovsk, negotiations between Chernomyrdin and Basayev led to a compromise which became a turning point for the First Chechen War. In exchange for the hostages, the Russian government agreed to halt military actions in Chechnya and begin a series of negotiations.
When Boris Yeltsin was undergoing a heart operation on 6 November 1996, Chernomyrdin served as Acting President for 23 hours.
Chernomyrdin remained Prime Minister until his sudden dismissal on 23 March 1998. Following the 1998 Russian financial crisis in August, Yeltsin re-appointed Chernomyrdin as Prime Minister, and attempted to groom him as his successor. However, the Duma twice refused to confirm Chernomyrdin as the head of the government. Rather than risking a third rejection and thus forcing the dissolution of the State Duma and political crisis, Chernomyrdin withdrew his nomination and the president asked the more popular Yevgeny Primakov to form a new cabinet.
Diplomatic career.
During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 Chernomyrdin was a special envoy of Russia in Yugoslavia. Chernomyrdin also disclosed his intent to run for president of Russia in 2000.
In December 1999 Chernomyrdin was elected a member of the State Duma. In May 2001, Vladimir Putin appointed Chernomyrdin Ambassador of Russia to Ukraine. This action was interpreted by some Russian media agencies as a move to distance Chernomyrdin from the centre of Russian politics. In 2003, he dismissed talk of an apology for the Holodomor Famine made by the Soviet Union.
In February 2009 Chernomyrdin again strained the relations between Ukraine and Russia when he in an interview said "It is impossible to come to an agreement on anything with the Ukrainian leadership. If different people come in, we'll see". The Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a response it could declare Chernomyrdin "persona non-grata" over the row.
On 11 June 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev relieved Chernomyrdin as Russian Ambassador in Kyiv, and appointed him as "presidential adviser and special presidential representative on economic cooperation with CIS member countries". In a parting shot at the Ukrainian government, Chernomyrdin stated that Russia should not apologise to Ukraine over voicing its suspicions about Ukraine being unable to pay for its natural gas, and further stated that Russia wants Ukraine to pay for the gas it consumes, and hence Russia is right to be concerned about the solvency of the Ukrainian state.
Death.
Chernomyrdin died on the morning of 3 November 2010 after a long illness. According to people close to Chernomyrdin, such as singer Lev Leshchenko, the former Prime Minister was deeply affected by the death of his wife Valentina, seven and a half months earlier.
Chernomyrdin was buried beside his wife in Novodevichy Cemetery on 5 November 2010. On 3 November Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed an order to show Chernomyrdin's funeral in a live broadcast on Russian federal TV channels (only the funerals of the former President Boris Yeltsin and Patriarch Alexy II were granted the same right in recent years). The head of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Naryshkin, supervised the funeral ceremony.
Condolences on the death of Chernomyrdin were voiced on 3 November 2010 by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, other state figures in Russia and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.
Sayings.
In Russian-speaking countries, Chernomyrdin is known for his numerous malapropisms and syntactically incorrect speech, somewhat similar to Irish bulls. His idioms received the name "Chernomyrdinki", and are somewhat comparable to Bushisms in style and effect. One of his expressions "We wanted (to do) it better, but it turned out as always" ("Хотели как лучше, а получилось как всегда" in Russian) about the economic reforms in Russia was widely quoted (sometimes rendered in English as "We wanted the best, you know the rest" or "We tried our best, you know the rest.") The phrase was uttered after a highly unsuccessful monetary exchange performed by the Russian Central Bank in July 1993.
References.
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