Where does Burbulis live now? Gennady Eduardovich Burbulis. Biographical information. "Strategy to focus on the Russian Federation"

Thirteen little-known episodes from the life of the most mysterious person in the recent circle of the first Russian president

1. April 1992. Kremlin. VI Congress of People's Deputies of Russia. An acute confrontation between the head of the legislative branch, Ruslan Khasbulatov, and Gennady Burbulis, whom many in parliament still considered to be the de facto head of the executive branch. And although on the eve of the congress Yeltsin made some reshuffles in the government, the change in Burbulis's status - the transfer from the post of first deputy prime minister of the country's government to the post of secretary of state under the president specially established for him - did not deceive anyone. Not only in the Kremlin corridors, but throughout Russia, many knew that the government was not headed by Gaidar. At the most critical moment at the congress, when the confrontation reached its climax, it was with a wave of Burbulis’s hand that the government rose and left the hall, including Gaidar.

Some observers in their comments argued that the initiative did not belong to Burbulis, but to a certain lady who allegedly gave the agreed sign to Burbulis from the balcony, where she was sitting in a guest chair. The lady's last name is Elena Georgievna Bonner. I don’t know if this was the case in reality; I personally didn’t notice the wave of the hand of Academician Sakharov’s widow, although Elena Georgievna was indeed present at the congress.

2. At the same VI Congress, another piquant scene took place. During the break, the leader of the Communists of Russia deputy group, Ivan Rybkin, approached Burbulis. The deputy took out a small book from the folder, and... I witnessed an unforgettable moment. The leader of the parliamentary group “Communists of Russia” presented the Secretary of State under the President of Russia with Roy Medvedev’s just published book “The Gray Cardinal”. About Suslov. With your own inscription. I don’t know what was said there, but Burbulis, after reading two or three lines of the dedication, did not show any special emotions. Enviable self-control! Because everyone understood - a gift with meaning.

3. Does Gennady Eduardovich know that they talk about him as a person who does not pursue his own glory, but acts from behind the president’s back, that some call him a “gray eminence”, while others call him a figure of a sharply attacking plan, making a deep breakthrough clearing the way? He knows. The impudent newspapermen asked him about this more than once. I wonder how he himself feels about such rumors about himself?

Here is a short summary of his reaction to these and other questions related to his place and role in the presidential environment. Regarding the “gray eminence” - it is wrong neither in role nor in essence. Attempts to consider the contribution of everyone who is part of Yeltsin's inner circle are incorrect. In many respects, the role of Gennady Eduardovich is exaggerated, and often deliberately. Moreover, it seems that the dissemination of this version is organized.

And although Gennady Eduardovich repeats these words many times, but public opinion still considers him the person closest to the emperor. Moscow intellectuals like to repeat: “What Burbulis comes up with, Shakhrai will formulate, and Yeltsin will voice.” Deprived of popularity, half-forgotten masters of socialist realism accuse Burbulis: they say that it was he, taking advantage of his proximity to Yeltsin, who isolated the president from the tormented and thinking intelligentsia.

4. Observers rightly noted that Burbulis, while in government structures, avoided visiting production teams. He never spoke in front of the workers, much less the village workers. His contacts with the masses are kept to a minimum. Why? What's the matter? Ideas, said the founder whom we have all studied, become a material force only when they take possession of the masses. And Gennady Eduardovich set his sights on reforming the basic structures of society and the main attributes of the state, being confident that this social system was doomed.

Afraid that a wider audience will not understand him? There are grounds for such suspicions. Gennady Eduardovich is hampered by the uniqueness of his verbal style, which, as he admits, irritates many people, prevents him from being understandable to the general public. And here I am forced to attest to two features.

The first is that the verbal style of the former Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State is, perhaps, incomprehensible to the majority of the population. Complex, cumbersome constructions of phrases, the predominance of unfamiliar expressions, abstract concepts, lack of specifics. And the masses are accustomed to being spoken to in an accessible, understandable, in simple language. The language of Burbulis is the language of a small layer of educated people, mainly heads of labs. Well, what segments of the people are phrases like this aimed at: “In the sphere of individual and group feelings, people still cannot renounce socialism and all its ideologies, but the psychoforms of their existence are already different”? Is this said for a factory worker, a feed carrier on a farm, an ordinary engineer or a teacher?

And the second feature is that the former Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State speaks monotonously, with long pauses, which tires listeners, causes internal rejection and even irritation. There is a type of speaker that people can listen to for hours, no matter what they talk about. Unfortunately, Gennady Eduardovich does not have psychic abilities. Some even believe that Burbulis's speeches provoke counter-aggression. It’s not suitable for performing in a large audience; it won’t ignite people. That’s probably why he doesn’t like to show himself among people.

5. Perhaps the most common question that foreign and Soviet journalists ask Burbulis concerns the details of the meeting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. When was the plan for creating the CIS born and did it even exist? If there was one, who developed it?

Omitting expressions that are hard to understand for the general reader like “dominant modality”, “specific Russian mentality”, the reasoning that “the ultimate task resonated with the purely human, life style of the president”, that the situation that arose in December 1991 “was characterized precisely by increased internal historicism of everyone’s personal life” and other similar philosophies, it is worth highlighting the main thing, however, again in the retelling, because it is extremely difficult to understand anything from the literal text. The idea of Minsk arose from two sources. The first is from an unsuccessful attempt to hold such a meeting in February 1991. It turns out that it was planned, prepared, but did not take place. The second source is that in December a new quality of union republics emerged, which began to acutely feel the need to solve urgent life problems on their territory. Perhaps that's all. No, here is another argument: the hope for a miracle - for the kind word of the head of state - has been exhausted. And although the last name was usually not mentioned, it is clear who was meant.

It was not possible to glean anything more valuable from everything that was said on this topic. The rest is endless variations on the theme of the importance and power of Yeltsin’s most courageous act in his political biography, scientific rants about economic freedom as a natural human right.

This is what Burbulis is all about: the simplest truths in his mouth acquire an abstract planetary character. Not everyone will get to the meaning of what has been said through the thicket, let’s give it their due, smart, often fresh thoughts that make you admire the unconventional author who appeared in front of the whole world out of nowhere. Such a career, of course, cannot but cause irritation and envy even among like-minded people from the presidential team.

6. Really, who is Burbulis? Where did he come from? What do Russians know about him?

The Moscow period of Gennady Eduardovich’s career passed before our eyes. Plenipotentiary representative of Yeltsin as Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. Then Secretary of State Russian Federation- Secretary of the State Council. After the functions of the State Council were exhausted and a new government was formed, Burbulis became the first deputy head of the Russian government. Not for long - before the VI Congress of People's Deputies, Yeltsin takes his favorite (namely, Boris Nikolaevich had in mind when he said that in the presidential circle there are people smarter than the president himself!) from under attack, transferring him to the post of Secretary of State under the President . And although this position, according to Yeltsin’s decree, had long been written with a lowercase letter (observant journalists noticed that at first it was written, by his own decree, with a capital letter!), the attacks from parliamentarians did not stop. Deputy Slobodkin, for example, generally denied Burbulis the right to be called an official - such a position, they say, does not exist in the Constitution.

What exactly did Burbulis do, what was part of his responsibilities, besides the understandable function of heading a group of presidential advisers? Please: represent the president in the executive, representative and judicial authorities, personnel strategy and political, scientific and professional support for the presidential program in its entirety. Did you understand anything? Has the darkness that shrouded the mysterious, silent figure, who appeared like a shadow from behind the president, cleared up? No, it was no coincidence that Yeltsin again removed him from under attack on the eve of the VII Congress of People's Deputies of Russia, relieving him of his duties as Secretary of State in his own person. How did this man anger Russian parliamentarians?

Once upon a time, biographies of Politburo members and other important government officials were published in Pravda and Izvestia. Times are different now: democracy, modesty. It seems awkward to ask yourself, especially when it comes to juicy rumors. So the president himself was forced to answer a question asked with provincial spontaneity about the nationality of some members of the Russian government.

Let me remind you: there was a “straight line” of Komsomolskaya Pravda. On phone calls answered Boris Yeltsin. Devoid of complexes, Galina Sergeevna Vladimirova, an engineer from Novosibirsk, go ahead and ask:

Why are there no people of Russian nationality in our government?

In the government? - the president was surprised. - What are you talking about?

“I judge by last names,” the Siberian woman continued. - And I feel that there are no Russian people there. This is a sore point.

No, the majority, in my opinion, are Russian. Isn't Vorobyov Russian?

Gaidar, Burbulis...

Burbulis is not a government.

I'm just saying.

“I’ll explain to you, Burbulis’s grandfather is from the Baltic states, and his mother is Russian,” Yeltsin said.

Are you saying that he is not a Jew? - the Siberian woman retorted. - But this does not mean that there are Russians in the government. We Siberians feel this very much. I find this painful...

Well, we will have to conduct a special analysis of the entire composition of the government and then in “ Komsomolskaya Pravda» publish...

The Russian president is a great master of screw-ups. I wasn’t the only one who was struck by Boris Nikolaevich’s apologetic tone. I'm not even talking about the final passage regarding the government's examination of national conformity. Can the president consider it possible for himself to speak seriously on such topics?

But he said it. And the word is not a sparrow. And a couple of weeks later, the TV program “News” reported the removal from the post of minister Vorobyov - the same Russian whom Yeltsin had in mind. The decree was announced without explanation - for what? We remembered the overlay during the “direct line”, the president’s promise to conduct an analysis national composition government - and a cruel joke went for a walk around Moscow: they carried out an examination, and the last Russian was thrown out of the government.

There are many miracles in the world, O friend Horatio! Democrats seem to be in power, society seems to be open, but the images of the new Kremlin leaders are pure abstraction for the majority of the population. Especially the image of Burbulis, from whose life nothing interesting has yet been said in the press. Few Muscovites know what house he lives in, what his income is, who his wife is and what she does.

Burbulis himself calls himself either a philosopher or a politician. A philosopher - in the sense of forecasting. Politician by profession. But Hegel also said that a definition can be given only when the essence is formed. This means that philosophers are not prophets, they generalize practice. The Secretary of State also considered himself a professional politician whose activities were primarily based on devotion to an idea.

Connecting the unconnected? The proud independence of a scientist-philosopher with a canine nose for a politician, who every day does nothing but remove obstacles and clear the way?

Burbulis is not the only one among the new Kremlin Areopagus in this regard. Take Rutsky: he statesman and military at the same time. True, Gennady Eduardovich at the beginning of 1993 called Alexander Vladimirovich the embodiment of lumpen-populist, nomenklatura-Soviet and national-patriotic worldviews, which the vice president implemented, not without talent.

Who, in this case, is Gennady Eduardovich: an apostate or a hero?

7. According to the repeated confessions that Gennady Eduardovich gave in 1992, devotion to the idea for him is, first of all, complete agreement with the strategic goals of Boris Nikolaevich and the unconditional subordination of himself and his activities to these goals.

Yeltsin’s entourage quoted their idol for almost the entire 1992 right up to the VII Congress, just as the Kremlin Areopagus at one time quoted Stalin, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev. Then, too, it seemed that everything depended on the leaders. It seems that this simple truth did not reach the newcomers blinded by power. Even the smartest and most far-sighted of them refused to comment on the problem of Yeltsin’s successor, excluding such unexpected circumstances as a sudden heart attack, car accident, etc. With the tenacity and faith inherent in recent communists, Gennady Eduardovich persistently repeated: in Russian life there has finally been a coincidence of personality and social need. I wasn’t too lazy, I found a gorgeously published volume of greetings on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the birth of dear Leonid Ilyich - the same thing. Remember? More recently this happy coincidence seemed to us eternal.

Gennady Eduardovich did not tire of emphasizing at every opportunity (as if someone was counting who and how many times referred to the president in their public speeches!) that the historical cause of Russia received such an outstanding embodiment in the personality of Boris Nikolaevich with all his unique abilities. According to Burbulis, it turned out that the reformist property system was invented by the president himself. Gennady Eduardovich spoke modestly about his role:

The president himself came up with a lot, the absolute majority, Shakhrai came up with a lot, we came up with some things together...

8. And suddenly:

Thinking people are ready to identify themselves with the progressive future of Russia, but they are no longer inclined to identify themselves personally with Yeltsin.

These words of Burbulis, spoken at the beginning of 1993, were like a bolt from the blue. Gennady Eduardovich said that it is necessary to support the president, but it is also necessary to abandon the cult formula, as if the country’s reformist possibilities are limited to Yeltsin’s personality. It is necessary to clear away the mythological sediment when reforms and Yeltsin are perceived as one and the same. Just as the need for renewal could not acquire a dynamic outlet without being embodied in Yeltsin, so, personified in him, it received a certain limit.

9. According to Burbulis, the December revenge (1992) through the Soviets was predicted for him, but he personally underestimated it. Here the Soviets set their own trap. Personally, it seemed to him that the idea of a presidential vertical and the creation of parallel structures of power was winning. The Soviets lose their powerful reality and turn into a decorative entity that determines little. And here he miscalculated. A leader suddenly appeared in the party nomenklatura, and the presidential team missed the moment when the activity of the speaker in the center turned out to be an effective stimulus for restoration on the ground.

10. Burbulis flatly denies that he once taught scientific communism, although this episode of his Sverdlovsk biography was written about in the foreign press. My friend has been working in the system of advanced training for builders in Moscow for a long time, he knows his colleagues and what came from their pen. So, the name of the person who recently determined the political-economic essence of the new social formation became known to him only during Yeltsin’s struggle for power. And this despite the fact that it was not difficult to stand out in the system of advanced training for workers in this industry with a more or less noticeable article or brochure.

Nobody knew Burbulis then. He was a historian of philosophy, but the same Sverdlovsk intelligentsia read not his works, but the samizdat Merab Mamardashvili. Today, the reformer of the social system of Russia is, in fact, the author of one candidate’s dissertation, where on many pages it was proven: the highest manifestation of scientific philosophy lies in the works of the classics of Marxism, for which the Higher Attestation Commission recognized him as a philosopher in 1982.

Some were in exile, some were deprived of Soviet citizenship, some wrote to the table. Sverdlovsk philosopher Burbulis participated in the All-Union Conference “Social and Professional Orientation of Youth in the Conditions of a Developed Socialist Society in the USSR” (Tallinn, 1976), at the All-Union School of Young Scientists “ A complex approach in the communist education of youth" (Sverdlovsk, 1977), at the Ural school of young philosophers "Becoming an active life position builder of communism" (Magnitogorsk, 1979) and "Lenin's concept of truth and modern ideological struggle" (Sverdlovsk, 1980). There, the dissertation author’s conclusions about the need to move towards higher manifestations contained in the works of the classics of Marxism were tested, and an understanding of the practical significance of the work was born - the possibility of “application in further study of the problem of worldview and the processes of personality formation.”

11. What is the now retired Secretary of State and First Deputy Prime Minister doing? According to him, he is trying to resist repeated invitations to government agencies, take care of fulfilling his duty to his loved ones, and focus on organizational and research work in the least painful way for himself. This could be a research center or a trust fund whose task is to develop a predictive political product for the President of Russia. There is another option - to selflessly get involved in the work of creating a new democratic coalition and its political core.

12. At a press conference at the Slavyanskaya Hotel (January 18, 1993), M. N. Poltoranin said this about Burbulis:

He is often credited with all the bad things that have happened. Lately in Russia. And his trouble is that he is too smart, in Rus' people have always suffered from this...

13. In 1993 and 1995, Gennady Eduardovich was elected as a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation in a single-mandate constituency. He used the same special transport, household and medical services, and government telephones that he had become accustomed to during his stay in the Kremlin and the White House.

In 1998, he was elected chairman of the supervisory board of the Novotrubny Zavod joint-stock company (Pervouralsk Sverdlovsk region).

In the Duma of the second convocation (1995–1999) he was chairman of the subcommittee on the concept of national security and the geopolitical situation of Russia.

In 1999, he “flew” in the State Duma elections. Voters refused to trust him.

Gennady Burbulis, having worked in power for a little while more than a year, managed to launch an irreversible mechanism of destruction

The army of reformers that dissected Russia in the 90s stayed in power for a surprisingly short time by today's standards. Most of them were preparing for their mission, like Gaidar, Chubais or Aven, starting in the mid-80s. Yegor Gaidar worked in various positions in the government for a total of only two years. Aven - the same number. Koch - four. But each of them managed in his place to launch an irreversible mechanism of destruction, which continued to operate both under the “red director” Chernomyrdin and under former leader Foreign intelligence services Primakov.

Gennady Burbulis worked with President Yeltsin for just over a year. However, it is he who can be considered the main author of the scenario for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “godfather” of the Gaidar government. In addition, Burbulis was one of the bravest “hawks” who persuaded the president to shoot the Supreme Council in 1993.

The fate of the pipelayer

“...I didn’t think that I would see the modest Gena Burbulis enter the reception area and, as he walked, without looking back, throw his luxurious mackintosh off his shoulders, which the security guard caught on the fly,” recalls Stepan Sulakshin, a politician popular in the 90s.

Gennady Eduardovich’s lust for power is noted by almost everyone who knew him in those years. According to the chief of the presidential security, Alexander Korzhakov, in the pre-war days of the autumn of 1991, Burbulis asked for security, and two people were appointed for this purpose. When peacetime returned, it was no longer possible to take away the bodyguards from the Secretary of State until his dismissal. Even then, Burbulis hired private bodyguards and went on ceremonial trips with them. Marina Yudenich talks about Gennady Eduardovich’s constant manner of being late everywhere by at least one and a half to two hours.

And it would seem where everything came from. By origin, Burbulis is not a Moscow intellectual who studied at an elite school. Gennady was born in Sverdlovsk Pervouralsk into the family of a military pilot and even served in the missile forces. Then he worked as a pipe-laying fitter at the Mechanization Department of the Sverdlovsk City Housing Administration Trust and entered the Faculty of Philosophy. At the university they were talking about him, as if Gena had even managed to serve time for being a “hooligan.” At the faculty, Burbulis was a Komsomol organizer, a dandy and a ringleader. At parties in the hostel, he successfully used Stalinist tactics: he was sober, but he got others drunk, which made it possible to strengthen leadership: he sent one to bed, he called the parents of another and calmed him down. They also said that sometimes Gena appeared in a cafe all alone, where he drank his decanter of vodka, but no one knows whether this is true.

After graduate school, Burbulis taught Marxist-Leninist philosophy, and then, at the beginning of perestroika, with the approval of the city committee of the CPSU, he organized the Discussion Tribune political club in Sverdlovsk. By this time, his party base was cracking: “Marx and Lenin are looking surprised today,” Gena said at the May demonstrations, clearly hinting at the implementation of Marxist ideas in the USSR.

Gennady began to change around the year 1982, according to the recollections of classmates, - he learned “the taste of walking over heads, proudly led his wife on the arm, bought a fawn hat, and put a nutria collar on his gray winter coat.” It meant a lot at the time. Even then, in the character of Burbulis, who angrily talked about how he had to spend the night at a train station in Moscow after conferences, how his money was stolen there, there was a sense of readiness to reshape the world in such a way as to protect himself for the rest of his life from this disorder and obscurity.

The locomotive that dragged Burbulis and many others from the cold and dark Urals to a new life was fellow countryman Yeltsin. The Department of Scientific Communism of the Ural Polytechnic University gave the future president two odious “ gray cardinals"- speechwriters Lyudmila Pikhoy and Alexander Ilyin. The third was Gennady Eduardovich with an epochal surname that combined steel pressure, verbal abundance and sophisticated cunning - “drill”, muttering and “fox”. A surname is like an era.

"Gross mistakes"

In 1989, Gennady Burbulis became a people's deputy of the USSR. The then Supreme Council for television ratings was many times superior to the current show “Dom-2”, and entering it meant becoming an overnight star on a national scale. At these political shows that thundered throughout the country, the stars of Yeltsin, Burbulis, Popov and many other stars rose. In the spring of 1990, Burbulis became Yeltsin's confidant in the elections to people's deputies of Russia and, in fact, his main organizer election campaign, and later as the head of his staff in the presidential elections.

Then Burbulis wanted and had to become the second person in the state - vice president. Alexander Korzhakov in his book “Boris Yeltsin: From Dawn to Dusk” talks about the EBN’s tossing about this candidacy: “Well, how will I take Burbulis? If he appears on television, then his face, eyes, and manner of speaking repel potential voters!”

From the point of view of accumulating votes, instead of a gray teacher of Marxism, Yeltsin needed the rosy-cheeked General Rutskoi, who could split left-wing patriotic voters and attract some of them to his side. According to Burbulis, Yeltsin told him personally about his decision: “There is a risk, because I have concerns...” Burbulis agreed, but called it a gross mistake that would take a long and difficult time to correct. Whether he meant that he, Burbulis, would fight to the last, to the point of tanks and blood, with Rutskoi and Khasbulatov for influence on Yeltsin, it is difficult to say. However, everything turned out exactly like this.

There is, however, one more alternative version motives that forced Yeltsin to abandon first Burbulis the vice president, and then Burbulis the man. It is narrated by the same Alexander Korzhakov.

“...At the moment of the boss’s hesitation - to go to the elections together with Burbulis or not - Gena himself ruined his career. He, like Yeltsin’s family, lived in Arkhangelskoye. One day he drank too much and in the presence of women - Naina Iosifovna and Tanya Dyachenko - began to swear during a toast. Then Burbulis felt sick from the alcohol, and he, without much embarrassment, went to the corner of the room and cleared his stomach, and then continued the toast as if nothing had happened.”

According to Korzhakov, those present were truly shocked by what happened, and the “insightful psychologist, intelligent philosopher” Burbulis at that moment did not even understand that he had pronounced a final verdict on himself. If everything was so, then it’s amazing how Gennady could change his “Stalinist” tactics of not drinking and giving water to others. Probably - “dizziness from success.”

Nevertheless, the post of Secretary of State, not provided for by the Constitution, was invented especially for him, whose powers were vague, unlike the powers of Burbulis: they were clear and extensive as never before. In fact, he became the unofficial head of government: he oversaw the internal and foreign policy, was responsible for relations with allied structures, led the development of strategy and tactics for Russian reforms. Burbulis liaised between the government and the president and controlled “access to the body.”

In 1991, Burbulis led Yeltsin and then Gaidar to the decision to liquidate the USSR.

"Strategy to focus on the Russian Federation"

According to Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin’s decision to dissolve the Soviet Union was decisively influenced by Burbulis’s analytical note, in which he substantiated the impossibility of real reforms until the union power structures were dismantled.

Today, the ex-Secretary of State says that long before the Belovezhskaya agreements, since November 1990, his government was considering various options for agreements with the union republics on a bilateral basis with the RSFSR. That is, outside the framework of the USSR. At the same time, the reformers rejected any ideas regarding the preservation of union structures and the union government.

Optimism of will brought Gennady Burbulis to Moscow, pushed Soviet Union to collapse, and Russia - to reforms that were catastrophic in results

On the eve of the trip to Belovezhskaya Pushcha, according to Pyotr Aven, Burbulis told him that he “drew diagrams of how it would be possible to organize a new commonwealth.” That is, he described various options for the demise of the Soviet Union. As an option, it was proposed to leave almost single state, but as part of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and, possibly, Kazakhstan. Another version provided for more independent coexistence of all other republics, excluding the Baltic states.

All these preparations, as we see, began long before the 1991 coup, which the then reformers now call the real reason collapse of the USSR. In an interview with Forbes, Burbulis says that the “strategy of focusing on the Russian Federation” was adopted by reformers back in 1989–1990, “when within a year we became convinced of the inadequacy of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR for the tasks that it faced.” That is, actually from the moment Burbulis appeared in big politics and from the moment the bet was made on Yeltsin. The team tore out a country for itself from the USSR: Yeltsin - so that he would have something to lead, the rest - so that there would be somewhere to become a government with real levers of power and economic resources.

According to Aven, having arrived at Russian government In the fall of 1991, young reformers received signals from both Burbulis and Yeltsin not to cooperate in any form with the union government. The position of absolute sovereignty of Russia was declared a priority.

By the time of the meeting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, elections and a referendum had taken place in Ukraine, in which Ukrainians voted for independence. And when the newly elected Kravchuk, not having slept well after the victory, in euphoria began to insist on absolute independence for his republic, in Burbulis’s pocket, figuratively speaking, there was already a document prepared for such a happy occasion on the cessation of the country’s existence. In practice, it still needed to be translated into legal formulations, which is what Burbulis, Kozyrev and Gaidar did, but at the level of ideas it was absolutely ready.

"Radical solutions"

Burbulis chose Gaidar's government for Yeltsin. In the interval between the State Emergency Committee and the collapse of the Union, in September 1991, EBN, although he was not yet the king of the flood of the late 90s, left to “work with documents” in Sochi. Before leaving, according to Gennady Eduardovich, they agreed to look for “radical solutions.” In Sochi there were few of them, but in Moscow Burbulis had a company of economists who formulated just such, rather uncompromising ideas.

With the proposals for economic reforms developed at the 15th dacha in Arkhangelsk, Burbulis went to Yeltsin. According to Grigory Yavlinsky, who was also considered then as a candidate for “economic prime minister,” he asked Burbulis whether it would be Russia or the USSR. And, having learned that it was Russia, he refused.

In Sochi, Burbulis managed to convince Yeltsin that the proposed path of “shock therapy” had no alternative. Further, already at a personal meeting, the eloquent Gaidar himself managed to convince Yeltsin of this. According to Burbulis, the former Ural builder was impressed by the origin of Yegor Timurovich, the fact that his maternal grandfather was Pavel Bazhov. A lizard ran straight between two people from Copper Mountain and the grandson of two writers.

In accordance with his clearly understood goal of removing Russia from the USSR, Burbulis found an economic minister “tailored” specifically for this.

However, no matter how much of a puppet Yeltsin may look like in this situation, it is he who will withstand these “radical decisions” the longest, consistently handing over all his reformers to his political enemies. First, he removed Burbulis from the post of Secretary of State in exchange for the head of Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. Then he removed him from the presidential administration in accordance with the opposition’s demand “to remove Burbulis from political life Russia."

The further life of Gennady Eduardovich developed, albeit quietly, but quite happily. There were no more night stations in his life. For a long time he headed the humanitarian and political science center “Strategy”, which he himself created. He was a State Duma deputy. In July 2000, he was appointed by his protege, governor Novgorod region Mikhail Prussak, Vice-Governor for Cooperation with the Chambers of the Federal Assembly.

A year later, he became a member of the Federation Council and even headed a certain structure there, which, judging by the name, he himself invented - the Commission on Methods for Implementing Constitutional Policy. A former classmate describes Burbulis at this period of his life as well-fed and self-sufficient: “Yes, we drank well then in Gena’s office! There was cognac, vodka, wine and lots and lots of caviar and meat - right on the long meeting table. The fact is that this day was also the birthday of adviser Gena, a young official-looking guy who made his way to Moscow from the provinces. Gena spoke and listened... He reigned in his commission for the implementation of the constitutional powers of the Federation Council!”

Optimism of will

The Novgorod period in Burbulis’s life ended, however, ingloriously: new governor Having come to power, he discovered that the Novgorodians were very dissatisfied with their representative in the Federation Council. As it turned out, mansions have grown up at the Trinity excavation site, where the Novgorod Kremlin stands and which is still being studied by archaeologists. And they live in them, in particular, ex-wife Prussaka and Gennady Burbulis. The senator was not remembered for anything else not only by the residents of Nizhny Novgorod, but also by the ex-governor Prussian himself, who explained the role of Gennady Eduardovich at court quite comically: “Burbulis is a very literate person. He was my assistant. You understand how important it is to have a smart person nearby!”

Today, a thoughtful person, Burbulis, says about Gaidar that he “corresponded to the type of man described by the formula that Gramsci once proposed, and it was close to both Schweitzer and Gandhi: “Pessimism of reason, which is capable of understanding all the tragedy of human nature and all the hopelessness of efforts live by the rules, and the optimism of the will."

The optimism of will led Gennady Burbulis to Moscow, pushed the Soviet Union to collapse, and Russia to catastrophic reforms that wiped out entire generations. Optimism of will could, according to Alexander Korzhakov, lead him to even more impressive results. The former chief of Yeltsin's security recalls how, during the days of the dispersal of the Supreme Council in 1993, Burbulis found a certain folk craftsman who said that he could disperse the crowd with the help of a cunning apparatus of his own making.

“We need to send people to this Edison and check the effectiveness of the device,” Burbulis then suggested. “Then we could use it in the fight against riots - suddenly the crowd from the White House would go to the Kremlin.”

As it turned out, the “hyperboloid” influenced laser beam onto the retina of the eye through the pupil. After using these weapons, people would go blind and would definitely lose interest in rallies.

“It’s strange that such consistent democrats and humanists as Filatov and Burbulis considered themselves, came up with the idea of such an inhumane form of reprisal against their fellow citizens.”

Not weird. The readiness for some unfortunate but “inevitable” losses in the population is something they have in common.

Gennady Eduardovich Burbulis, who was considered a “gray eminence” in the early years of President Boris Yeltsin, turned 70 today.

Gennady Burbulis began his working career as a mechanic, served in the army in the missile forces, receiving higher education, taught Marxism-Leninism in the Urals for ten years.

In 1991, Burbulis headed the election headquarters of Boris Yeltsin, and later took the position of Secretary of State, which was not held by anyone after him.

At this time, he turned out to be the “godfather” in the politics of the young Mikhail Prusak - it was thanks to him that Prusak was appointed by Yeltsin as head of the Novgorod region.

After leaving the Kremlin, Burbulis was a deputy of the State Duma of the first and second convocations, and in 1999 Mikhail Prusak tried to bring him back to the Duma from the Novgorod region. But Burbulis lost the election to Yevgeny Zelenov.

Political strategist Alexander Vlasov, who then worked as Zelenov’s assistant, recalls:
- I must say that Gennady Eduardovich conducted his campaign with great dignity. He forbade throwing mud at Zelenov. And having lost, he congratulated him on his victory.

Mikhail Prusak appointed Burbulis vice-governor, and after the reform of the Federation Council, he began to represent the Novgorod region in it. When the Novgorod region was headed by Sergei Mitin in 2007, the senator was recalled from the Federation Council - to the satisfaction of the communists, who consider Burbulis one of the main culprits in the collapse of the USSR.

After that, Burbulis was an adviser to the Speaker of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov, now he is the vice-rector of a certain International University in Moscow for innovative development.

On the eve of the anniversary, the former “gray cardinal” gave an interview to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. In it, he critically assesses what is happening now in the country:

“But today we are dealing with a protracted restoration of imperial and Soviet values. Statesmen have very often begun to assess the events of the 90s inadequately; very dangerous trends are visible in the immediate revision of the basic constitutional values laid down then. There are dominants who never do anything good to the country did not bring: the search for an enemy, internal and external... At the same time, I well understand that the current ideological and worldview climate is the result not only of someone’s personal will, but also of a deep, historically coded tradition for Russian officials to prohibit, suspect, report where it should..."

He recalls the events in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1991 as follows:

“In the fall of 1991, Gorbachev began the painful process of Novo-Ogarevo-2 - meaningless gatherings with the goal of writing a new version of the union treaty. There, Mikhail Sergeevich gathered republican leaders and spoke for hours. Everyone understood that there was no Kremlin, Gorbachev and the allied authorities did not control anything, but they tolerated these meetings.

After one of these meetings, upset by the senselessness of what was happening, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich, approached Yeltsin and said that it would be nice to meet and normally discuss the pressing issues between the republics. He was most interested in energy supply.

The meeting was scheduled for December 8th. And on December 1, Ukraine elected its president, Leonid Kravchuk. And he asked to take part in the Belovezhskaya meeting. Everyone agreed, after which they decided to invite the President of Kazakhstan Nazarbayev. The latter, as a wise and cautious man, decided to first go to Moscow to see Gorbachev and never returned to Belarus from there. And while we were waiting for him for the whole day, Kravchuk explained to us that Ukraine is now a completely new presidential state, it is no longer part of any Union and does not know where the Kremlin is and who Gorbachev is. He categorically stated that Ukraine had suffered through freedom and history could not be returned now. It was completely unclear to us in what format to decide now at least energy issues. And then Russia and Belarus came up with an idea - to create a commonwealth - the Commonwealth of Independent States. Kravchuk was delighted and immediately seized on this idea. This did not impose any special obligations on anyone, but opened up prospects for interaction. And we quickly wrote a document saying that the USSR as a geopolitical reality had ceased to exist and an agreement was being concluded on the creation of the CIS. In Belarus, three countries signed it, and then all the republics joined former USSR, except for the Baltic ones."

Gennady Burbulis, having worked in power for just over a year, managed to launch an irreversible mechanism of destruction

The army of reformers that dissected Russia in the 90s stayed in power for a surprisingly short time by today's standards. Most of them were preparing for their mission, like Gaidar, Chubais or Aven, starting in the mid-80s. Yegor Gaidar worked in various positions in the government for a total of only two years. Aven - the same. Koch - four. But each of them managed in their place to launch an irreversible mechanism of destruction, which continued to operate both under the “red director” Chernomyrdin and under the former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Primakov.

The fate of the pipelayer

The locomotive that dragged Burbulis and many others from the cold and dark Urals to a new life was fellow countryman Yeltsin. The Department of Scientific Communism of the Ural Polytechnic University gave the future president two odious “gray cardinals” at once - speechwriters Lyudmila Pikhoy and Alexander Ilyin. The third was Gennady Eduardovich with an epochal surname that combined steel pressure, verbal abundance and sophisticated cunning - “drill”, muttering and “fox”. A surname is like an era.

"Gross mistakes"

In 1989, Gennady Burbulis became a people's deputy of the USSR. The then Supreme Council for television ratings was many times superior to the current show “Dom-2”, and entering it meant becoming an overnight star on a national scale. At these political shows that thundered throughout the country, the stars of Yeltsin, Burbulis, Popov and many other stars rose. In the spring of 1990, Burbulis became Yeltsin's confidant in the elections to people's deputies of Russia and, in fact, the main organizer of his election campaign, and later the head of his headquarters in the presidential elections.

There is, however, another, alternative version of the motives that forced Yeltsin to abandon first Burbulis the vice president, and then Burbulis the man. It is narrated by the same Alexander Korzhakov.

Nevertheless, the post of Secretary of State, not provided for by the Constitution, was invented especially for him, whose powers were vague, unlike the powers of Burbulis: they were clear and extensive as never before. In fact, he became the unofficial head of government: he oversaw domestic and foreign policy, was responsible for relations with allied structures, and led the development of strategy and tactics for Russian reforms. Burbulis liaised between the government and the president and controlled “access to the body.”

In 1991, Burbulis led Yeltsin and then Gaidar to the decision to liquidate the USSR.

"Strategy to focus on the Russian Federation"

On the eve of the trip to Belovezhskaya Pushcha, according to Pyotr Aven, Burbulis told him that he “drew diagrams of how it would be possible to organize a new commonwealth.” That is, he described various options for the demise of the Soviet Union. As an option, it was proposed to leave an almost single state, but as part of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and, possibly, Kazakhstan. Another version provided for more independent coexistence of all other republics, excluding the Baltic states.

All these preparations, as we see, began long before the 1991 coup, which the reformers of that time now call the real reason for the collapse of the USSR. In an interview with Forbes, Burbulis says that the “strategy of focusing on the Russian Federation” was adopted by reformers back in 1989–1990, “when within a year we became convinced of the inadequacy of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR for the tasks that it faced.” That is, in fact, from the moment Burbulis appeared in big politics and from the moment the bet was made on Yeltsin. The team tore out a country for itself from the USSR: Yeltsin - so that he would have something to lead, the rest - so that there would be somewhere to become a government with real levers of power and economic resources.

According to Aven, when they came to the Russian government in the fall of 1991, young reformers received signals from both Burbulis and Yeltsin not to cooperate in any form with the union government. The position of absolute sovereignty of Russia was declared a priority.

"Radical solutions"

In accordance with his clearly understood goal of removing Russia from the USSR, Burbulis found an economic minister “tailored” specifically for this.

The further life of Gennady Eduardovich developed, albeit quietly, but quite happily. There were no more night stations in his life. For a long time he headed the humanitarian and political science center “Strategy”, which he created. He was a State Duma deputy. In July 2000, he was appointed by his protégé, Governor of the Novgorod Region Mikhail Prussak, as vice-governor for interaction with the chambers of the Federal Assembly.

Optimism of will

The Novgorod period in Burbulis's life ended, however, ingloriously: the new governor, having come to power, discovered that the Novgorodians were very dissatisfied with their representative in the Federation Council. As it turned out, mansions have grown up at the Trinity excavation site, where the Novgorod Kremlin stands and which is still being studied by archaeologists. And, in particular, Prussian’s ex-wife and Gennady Burbulis live in them. The senator was not remembered for anything else not only by the residents of Nizhny Novgorod, but also by the ex-governor Prussian himself, who explained the role of Gennady Eduardovich at court quite comically: “Burbulis is a very literate person. He was my assistant. You understand how important it is to have a smart person nearby!”

As it turned out, the “hyperboloid” impacted the retina of the eye through the pupil with a laser beam. After using these weapons, people would go blind and would definitely lose interest in rallies.

Not weird. The readiness for some unfortunate but “inevitable” losses in the population is something they have in common.

The material was prepared as part of a special project of the series of articles “How Russia was betrayed”
Dmitry Trunov

04/08/2010

Gennady Eduardovich Burbulis born on August 4, 1945 in the city of Pervouralsk, Sverdlovsk Region, in the family of a military pilot. After graduating from school in 1962, he worked for two years as a mechanic at the factories of Pervouralsk.

In 1964 he was drafted into the army, served in the missile forces in Kirov region. After the army, he worked as a pipe-laying fitter at the Mechanization Department of the Trust of the City Housing Administration of the city of Sverdlovsk.

In 1969, Gennady Burbulis entered the Ural State University them. A. M. Gorky to the Faculty of Philosophy, which he graduated in 1973 and for ten years taught philosophy (dialectical materialism) at the Ural Polytechnic Institute (UPI) named after. S.M.Kirova.

Burbulis is a candidate of philosophical sciences; in 1981 he defended his dissertation on the topic “Knowledge and belief as integral phenomena of consciousness.” At this time he was one of the initiators of the creation of the Council of Young Scientists.

In 1983, Burbulis went to work as the head of the department of social sciences at the All-Union Institute for Advanced Training of Specialists of the Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metals of the USSR in the city of Sverdlovsk, and was appointed deputy director for scientific and methodological work.

In the spring of 1983, he and a group of like-minded people organized the “Sverdlovsk City Discussion Tribune” and was its permanent leader. Over the two years of its operation, the “Discussion Tribune” has become an informal center for training the city’s democratic activists.

In 1989, Gennady Burbulis was elected as a people's deputy of the USSR, and was the chairman of the subcommittee on the methodology and practice of the work of Soviets in the Committee of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the work of the Councils of People's Deputies, the development of management and self-government (1989-1990). Being one of the initiators of the creation of the opposition Interregional Deputy Group, he met Boris Yeltsin, who became one of the five co-chairs of the MDG.

As a member of the Committee, Burbulis actively participated in the preparation of the Law “On Local Self-Government”.

In 1990, he was elected as a deputy of the Sverdlovsk Regional Council.

In May 1990, Gennady Burbulis left the CPSU and for some time was a member of the Democratic Party of Russia.

In August 1990, he was appointed plenipotentiary representative of the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, Boris Yeltsin. At the same time, he created the Supreme Coordination and Advisory Council, which included many famous scientists and public figures Russia.

In the summer of 1991, after Yeltsin’s victory in the Russian presidential elections, Gennady Burbulis, who headed his campaign headquarters, was appointed Secretary of State of Russia - Secretary of the State Council under the President of Russia, Secretary of State under the President of the Russian Federation (1991-1992).

From November 1991 to April 1992, Burbulis was First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

He participated in the organization of the Belovezhsky Conference, during which the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus decided to dissolve the USSR.

On December 8, 1991, at the Viskuli estate (Belarus), Gennady Burbulis, together with Boris Yeltsin, on behalf of the RSFSR, signed an agreement on the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Since March 1992, Burbulis has served as vice-chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council. From November 1992 to January 1, 1993, he was the head of a group of advisers to the President of the Russian Federation.

He created a non-governmental organization - the Humanitarian and Political Science Center "Strategy", becoming its president in February 1993. The Center participated as a basic developer in the preparation and conduct of the 1993 referendum on the adoption of a new Constitution.

In 1993, Gennady Burbulis participated in the creation of the “Choice of Russia” movement.

In December 1993 he was elected deputy State Duma Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the first convocation (1993-1995) on the list of the “Choice of Russia” bloc, was a member of the Committee on Geopolitics; in December 1995, he was elected as a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the second convocation (1995-1999) in a single-mandate constituency, and was chairman of the subcommittee on the concept of national security and the geopolitical situation of Russia of the Committee on Geopolitics.

He was the chairman of the Parliamentary Club. In May 1995, with the participation of the Strategy Center and the Parliamentary Club, the public organization “Russian Union “People of Action” was created, whose task was to support professionally, competently acting people in various fields of activity. Gennady Burbulis was the co-chairman of this organization.

From November 1998 to January 1999, he was the chairman of the supervisory board of JSC Novotrubny Plant (Pervouralsk).

From July 2000 to November 2001, Gennady Burbulis served as deputy head of the Novgorod region administration for interaction with the chambers of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

On November 2, 2001, he was appointed a member of the Federation Council - representative of the Novgorod regional administration in the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, and in September 2003 he was re-appointed to this position.

Since January 30, 2002, Gennady Burbulis was the chairman of the Federation Council Commission on the methodology for implementing the constitutional powers of the Federation Council, a member of the Chamber Council, the Committee on Constitutional Legislation, the Commission on Rules and Organization of Parliamentary Activities.

In the fall of 2007, in connection with the appointment of Sergei Mitin as the new governor of the Novgorod region, he resigned. On November 16, 2007, the Federation Council voted to release Gennady Burbulis from senatorial powers.

Since 2007, Gennady Burublis has been an adviser to the Chairman of the Federation Council, organizer and first deputy head of the Center for Monitoring Legislation and Law Enforcement Practice (Center for Monitoring Law) under the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, head of the team of authors and scientific editor of the annual reports of the Federation Council "On the state of legislation in Russian Federation".

In August 2009, Gennady Burbulis founded the Gennady Burbulis School of Political Sophiy.

Burbulis is an active state councilor of the Russian Federation, 3rd class (2008).

He is the President of the Youth Forum of Modernizers "My Russia", President of the All-Russian public organization"Russian Short Track Federation".

Gennady Burbulis is married. His wife, Natalya Nikolaevna Kirsanova, studied with him at the same faculty at the university, taught philosophy at the Ural Forestry Institute. They have a son.