Tag Archives: Wild 90s

Andrey Karaulov: “Those, who laughed at us yesterday, are no longer laughing today”

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Reading time: 7 minutes

Below is my translation of an interview with Andrei Karaulov, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 30th of January 2016. The information in this interview underlines and strengthens what I previously wrote in the articles, pertaining to the Wild 90s: The ”Wild 90s” in Russia, as reflected in people’s memory and another of Karaulov’s articles that I translated, For Russia 90’s Were Worse Than WWII.

One highlight from the article below:

Liberal historian Boris Sokolov counted how many people died over the course of only two years – 1992 and 1993 – during the so-called “reforms” of Gaidar and Chubais. 150.000 more than during the executions of 1937-1938.

Andrey Karaulov was born in 1958 in town Korolev. Journalist and writer, winner of TEFI, Author of TV programmes “The Moment of Truth”, “Russian century”. Author of the documentary films “Unknown Putin”, “Khodorkovskij. Pipes(dead bodies)” (translator note: the inserted character creates the pun), “A Common Fascism”. Author of the books “Around Kremlin”, Russian hell”, and other.

Olga Shablinsky, “AIF”: “It looks as if a new war is coming! We’ve quarreled with almost the whole world,” – it’s a conversation that I recently overheard, expressing the mood of so many… And at the same timet Karaulov writes on his page on the social networks: “Why is Putin not afraid of isolation?” Andrey, are you not worried with these feeling of a coming war?

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The “Wild ’90s” in Russia, as reflected in people’s memory

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I previously published a translation of an article For Russia 90’s Were Worse Than WWII, which tells the extent of the destruction caused to Russian industry and science in the course of the 90’s.

That was the time, when the West’s darling Yeltsin was in power, and when every parliamentary, every minister had an American “advisor” attached to him or her.

Let us remember that in October-November 1993, the Russian Parliament tried to pass an impeachment of Yeltsin, trying to save the country in a democratic way. The response back then, authorised by Clinton, was to bring tanks into the streets of Moscow, open fire at the Parliament building and kill almost 2000 people, who came to defend the young democracy from APC machine guns. That was effectively a coup d’etat, which kept Yeltsin in power and descended Russia into a dark stretch of destruction of the country and its people, which lasted until 2000, when Yeltsin released his American-backed grip, and Putin started slowly, but surely, save the county.

In this post I want to translate an echo from that time. There is a Russian site, which publishes jokes, real life stories (both fun and sad) and aphorisms, and people get to vote on them. One story collected a large number of votes, for it resonates strongly with the Russian population which survived through the war-like conditions of the 1993-1999.

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Andrey Karaulov: For Russia the ’90s Were Worse Than WWII

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Following is a telling reply to a reader question, published in Russian in newspaper Argumenty i Fakty:

Deputies are trying to demand a compensation from Germany for the losses suffered by Russian in the Great Patriotic War. But why don’t they take care of the cases that happened 20 years ago and hold accountable those who bankrupted factories, ruined farms?

Reply by Andrey Karaulov, journalist:

– What has been done to the country in the era of perestroika by “young reformers” is unimaginable. Yes, the Germans during the War destroyed the factories on the occupied territories, they blew them up. But during World War II, to save plants, Stalin evacuate them to Central Asia, Siberia.

While during the 90s, 262 largest plants that fed the entire country were culled. These were primarily metallurgical plants, plants that produced the world’s best ball-bearings, and so on. Machine tool construction suffered the biggest blow. 187 of 262 factories were brought back to life by Putin. But some, such as the Ukhtomskij Plant in Lyubertsy is impossible to revive. To understand what the 90s cost Russia, go to Lyubertsy, walk around the wasteland, where once there was a chain of several companies with more than 8,000 jobs. Previously, there was the production of the different machines for agriculture. And now, all’s empty. I remember when in Krasnoyarsk I went with the camera around a plant, which produced tires. Only horror movies could be shot in those workshops nowadays. We have transcripts of Gaidar Cabinet. Unique plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur producing our SU jets (today they are considered the best in the world) was proposed to be re-profiled into the production of Chinese bicycles. They said back then, they will be in high demand.

Today we pay for those mistakes (translator: I would call them crimes!). The best scientific schools are destroyed. I once asked Nobel laureate Zhores Alferov: could we in the ’90s, after Gaidar, Chubais and Nechayev ploughed through our industry, build a nuclear bomb? He categorically said, “No, we wouldn’t be able to.” Because all that was needed for its production, had been destroyed… Why those reformers are not held accountable today? Firstly, because all decisions that were taken back then, were approved by Boris Yeltsin. The fact of the matter is that there was no one single saboteur, but a lot of people in power. So should we judge the whole former government? Some are not among us, and others far away. Dead are Boris Fyodorov, Yegor Gaidar. We do not, after all, think of judging the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, because of what they made in 1917.