Former Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, a symbol of the nation’s tumultuous half decade after the Soviet collapse that saw war and near economic meltdown, died yesterday at age 72, the Kremlin said.
A dour ex-apparatchik, Chernomyrdin showed a steady hand at the helm over the government in contrast to his unpredictable boss, then-president Boris Yeltsin, but also amused Russians with his folksy aphorisms.
His long stint in power — from December 1992 to March 1998, with another brief premiership from August-September 1998 — included the first war over the breakaway region of Chechnya and the hyperinflation of the 1998 economic crisis.
“If it wasn’t for Viktor Chernomyrdin personally, we would not have the history we have now,” said former deputy prime minister Anatoly Chubais, who worked in his government and masterminded Russia’s privatization program.
“Without him, our people would live a different life,” he said.
Chernomyrdin died in the early hours yesterday, the Kremlin said. It did not specify the cause of his death, but he had been known to have been ill for some time.
Prior to his appointment as prime minister, he also served as the first head of Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom, which he formed from the Soviet Union’s gas assets across the country.
Yeltsin’s appointment of Chernomyrdin as prime minister came as a complete shock to the man as everyone in the country was expecting the president to pick liberal reformist Yegor Gaidar.
However, through his term the former gas industry bureaucrat built up enough political drive to head a conservative party named “Our Home Is Russia” and hint at presidential aspirations.
“I am in support of a market but not a bazaar,” he said after his appointment, marking a diversion from Gaidar’s radical reforms and creating his reputation as a maker of catchphrases.
Other Chernomyrdin’s sayings include “we hoped for the best, but ended up with the usual” and “no matter what party you try to create the result is the Communist party” and have already become colloquial proverbs.
Chernomyrdin was “an extraordinary man of very humble upbringing who was put forward by history to one of the top posts in a very difficult moment for Russia,” former Russian economy minister Yevgeny Yasin, who now heads the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told Echo of Moscow radio.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese