TRIGGERnometry - Conversations with My Father - USSR, Communism and Modern Russia

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

Conversations with My Father - USSR, Communism and Modern Russia - AI has been used to dub this video from Russian into English | SPONSOR. We use Ground News to escape the echo chamber and stay fully informed. Go to https://ground.news/triggernometry to save 40% on the Ground News unlimited access Vantage plan. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Delivery fees may apply. You're about to watch a conversation with one of the most intelligent, knowledgeable and fascinating people I know, my father. He's had a remarkable life too. By his mid-20s, he was making vaccines and then working at a Soviet nuclear facility. By age 30, he was a successful businessman who was recruited into the Russian government. The department in which he was a junior minister was tasked specifically with rebuilding the Soviet Union. By age 35, he was living abroad and on the run under a cloud of false charges, stemming from political disagreements over the direction of Russia.

Today, in his early 60s, exonerated of all the false allegations, he spends his time thinking and writing about history, geopolitics, the Battle of Civilizations, Mysticism, and a lot more. My dad and I have different opinions on many things, but we've always been able to talk about anything, including our differences. At points, the conversation was difficult, as we see the world from different perspectives, especially when it comes to Vladimir Putin,

the war in Ukraine and Russian foreign policy. But I think that itself will be illuminating. Across the three interviews in total, we talked about him growing up in the Soviet Union, why communism is a religion, how the USSR fell apart, why America today reminds him of communist days in the Soviet Union. His views of COVID and COVID vaccines

as someone he used to make flu vaccines, the crazy 90s in Russia that he lived through, why Russians, according to him, won't trust the West for at least two generations. How he went from being a scientist to co-founding one of modern Russia's first banks. Why he went into politics in the first place. The power struggles he saw and was part of in the Yelton government. Why he believed in attempting to rebuild the Soviet Union after it collapsed. How, according to him, pro-Western forces destroyed his government department and forced him to flee the country. Why he respects Vladimir Putin. The history of

Russia, Arnold Toynbee and the Battle of Civilizations, why the war in Ukraine was inevitable according to him. Was Russia provoked? That's a debate that we have. Will Russia stop at Ukraine? That's another conversation that is very popular in the West. Can humanity even survive the battle of civilizations in the nuclear age? The future of the Middle East, Lev Gumilov's theory of ethnic group dynamics. What is happening to modern Western civilization? Mysticism. His model of how societies are made up of four different groups whose values determine their attitudes and behaviors. Why societies went from being run by priests and holy men to being run by warriors and commanders to now being run by businessmen. How to work out your life's purpose? Why the scientific

method is important but not sufficient according to him for understanding reality. Will science ever answer questions about the origin of the universe, life and consciousness? Does God exist? Non-scientific tools for understanding the world. The first, part focuses on my father's life growing up in the Soviet Union, the collapse of the USSR, communism, his journey into business and then politics in Russia, eventually being forced to leave Russia under a cloud of false accusations. In the second part, we focus on history, theories about geopolitics and tribal dynamics, as well as Lev Gumilov's theory of ethnic group dynamics, and a lot more. And in the final part, we talk about his model for understanding the world

through different groups in society and how their attitudes and approaches are determined by the type of roles that they play. We also talk about mysticism. We talk about God, the existence of scientific explanations or lack their role for certain important things, and more. Dad, I'm glad we can have this conversation because when I tell people even a fragment of your life story,

first, no one believes me, especially in the West. And second, if they do believe me, they're absolutely stunned. They get surprised to put it mildly. Yes, to put it very mildly. To live through so many events, cataclysms, and truly historic periods on the course of one life is very unusual, so I'm glad we're going to have this conversation.

You know the Chinese proverb, right? May you live in interesting times? That's exactly what you did? Yes. You lived through a period of rapid change, And in your own life and your career, you were involved in these changes. So we'll have a fascinating conversation about the Soviet Union, its transformation into modern Russia. We'll then have a separate conversation about your political and geopolitical views.

And finally, all things esoteric. But let's start at the beginning of your life story. You were born in 1962 in the Soviet Union. On the 12th of April, the first celebration of Cosmonauts Day, a year after Yuri Gagarin first went into space. What can you tell people who weren't born in that society and never even saw it about what it was like, the 60s and 70s in the USSR? You know, when you're a child, you take everything you experience as a given. so I'll try to explain how I saw everything. Today, as someone who's a lot older,

I can say we were a fairly poor family, especially given that my parents got divorced when I was around three and were no longer living together. My mother lived with my grandmother and great-grandmother, that is with my father's mother and grandmother. The four of us lived in a two-room apartment on my mother's salary. It was enough, but only just, no luxuries. What was it enough for?

Enough to eat, to sometimes, very rarely, buy something we needed like clothes. We didn't have a lot of choice. in terms of clothing. It was very modest. At that time, people in the Soviet Union mended clothes and footwear. If something ripped, we'd get it stitched. If something cracked, we'd take it to have it repaired, to have the shoe leather replaced.

That's how we lived, repairing clothes. loads and footwear. You went to school age seven. Yes. So it was in the late 60s? Say 69. I was at school from 1969 through to 1979. At that time, did you have the sense that you lived in a country that was trying to build

communism? That Lenin was everything and so on. By this point, there were already a lot of jokes about. this because it was a period I mean after Stalin's death the Khrushchev period was a period of decline Stalin was far from ideal but when he was in charge there was order and anyone who tried to break the law would be ground into dust immediately But when Khrushchev came to power, it was prohibited to prosecute or even investigate senior communists. The people at the top became effectively exempt from the law.

So the leadership was starting to decompose by this point? Not the people at the very top. They were still ideological. But the people in the middle. The people who would have been shot. under Stalin for stealing or abuse of power were immune from prosecution under Khrushchev. So there was a growing sense of disorder. It was a kind of decline in my view. So by the time I became aware of the society I was living in, from age five onwards, 1967, it was still a socialist society, but not entirely.

But I remember that when I was small, so in the 80s, you and Mum tried to keep me out of being a little octobrist, young pioneer and so on. I don't remember that, to be honest. I was a little octobrist, young pioneer. and comso-molyts and i am not worried about it i understand but you did your best to keep me away from it anyway in your childhood it was something everyone went through well not quite everyone became a little octobrist it was simple in grade two you'd be given a badge and told you were now a little octobrist in a where everyone understood what that meant. What was it, what was the point of this system? I don't know what the point was exactly, but it helped

give people a sense of we're all part of one world, one community. But it was a process of including you in the Communist Party. Yes, it was communist ideology, it was part of that. And then almost everyone went to the Communist Party. everyone went on to become a young pioneer. But there were certain conditions. And there was an element of threat, i.e., if you misbehave, you won't become a young pioneer.

Then what would happen? Well, if you're considered human, that's good, right? What about if you're not? That's bad, right? You're with us, but not one of us. You didn't become a young pioneer. It was a common ideological timeline. As a child, you'd become a little octobrist, then a young pioneer, then a Komsumolets.

And by the time you became an adult, you were a communist. It was also possible you wouldn't become a communist. Many people didn't. Most people became a Kom Somolets, but again, not everyone. Almost everyone became a pioneer, but again, not everyone. It was always a festive event. Becoming a little octobrist happened at school. It was a celebration.

But when we became young pioneers, it was in the Lenin Museum in Tashkent. It was very festive. We were happy. And the red tie we wore wasn't an issue. We got used to it. And you didn't have to wear it day to day. I just want to compare because even later when I was a kid, I remember portraits of Lenin all over my school.

And I remember you and mum warning me that people would try to get me involved in all of this stuff. But in your childhood, this must have been even more intense. Yes. The people of my age all have a pretty good understanding of Lenin's biography. the history of the Soviet Union, and some of us even know the history of the Russian Empire and Russia more generally, as well as the entire region.

We'll probably agree that in the Soviet Union certain subjects were taught well. History, maths, the natural sciences. But what I'm curious about, given the context that this was a close society, What were you taught about the West, about America, etc.? At school, nothing. At school we studied English. We were never told that English is the language of the bad people. Sure.

And I imagine you would have been given English books to read, right? We were taught English very badly. We were given fragments of textbooks, and it was, hardly classical literature, because the more classical, the literature, the more complicated the language. We were given simplified text. Were you allowed to read translations of English language books? Of course, I had a lot of American, European, not just English, but French and German books, all of which I read in Russian with great pleasure. There were plenty of American European, not only English, but also French and German writers. And I read all of this in Russian with pleasure.

Later, I tried reading in English what I'd read in Russian and realized I know Russian way better and enjoy that more. The Fed's out of options. Rate cuts, money printing, balance sheet reversals. They call it policy, but it's really panic. This is in-game economics where hope replaces discipline and the illusion of control finally breaks. They're not cutting rates because things are strong. They're cutting because the system is cracking. Inflations eating savings.

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right and good. We're heading towards communism, which is right and good. And they, Americans, Brits, French and Germans will also eventually come to communism. But they're on the wrong path for now. But the entire world will be communist one day. What made communism good and right in this worldview? Why were we heading towards it? It was thought of as the peak of human happiness. I've thought about this a lot. And in my opinion, opinion, communism is religion. It's a highly mystical religion. If people were angels, the best form of society would be a communist society. But if people are demons, the best form of society is different, namely capitalism. Or we could say, well, not demons, but semi-deamons. If people are people.

Here's a question. There's such a thing as human nature. They're both good and bad. Semi-angels, semi-demons. So a society that tries to pretend everyone is an angel quickly becomes a society of demons? It doesn't try to pretend. It says we must all become angels.

Come on, guys, be angels. We are communists. Be angels. Did it work? Did people manage to be angels? People can't. not everyone can be even 80% angel. Yes, many did manage. But the moment there were a few people within any micro community who weren't angels, things became difficult and uncomfortable for the angels.

The simpler the people, the more kind and honest they were because why fight over things? I have bread, butter, some meat for dinner. Everything's fine. I have clothes. I have work clothes. I may not have everything. For example, my grandmother, Valia, lived in a single story building with two rooms. The toilet was outside, a hole in the ground.

In my Oxford speech, I explained what that kind of toilet is like. Yes. There was no running water in her house. She had to go down the street to a tap where she'd get water in a bucket and carry it back home. Initially, there was no gas in the house, but there was electricity. Eventually, they connected the gas, but there was no running water and no sewer. She'd go to the public bathhouse once a week unless it was really hot. When it got really hot, she had this plywood outdoor toilet and a plywood outdoor shower.

It had a container on top. In the morning, you'd put a few buckets of water in there. During the day, the scorching Tashcan sun would warm it up. And around 5 p.m., you'd be able to have a hot shower. That's more or less how it was. We'll get back to my dad in just a moment. But first, let me tell you about something I personally use, ground news. In an era where facts are so often filtered through partisan lenses,

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serious about staying informed. Right now, trigonometry viewers who subscribe through our link can get 40% off their unlimited access vantage plan, the same plan that we use. Just click the link in the description or scan the QR code and subscribe at ground.news slash trigonometry. This is the perfect way to support transparency in the media while keeping yourself informed. Your subscription helps ground news bring transparency back to the media, something that I fully support. Coming back to communism and people as angels, it's an interesting subject that you raised. Coming back to the Communist Party leaders who you described as still being ideological. Were they angels?

You know, they were archangels. It's a different thing. It's a type of angel, but harsh, tough. An archangel is someone who will slaughter anyone who misbehaves. I understand what you're saying, and it's an interesting idea, but I'm asking more about their personal conduct. Our viewers don't know this. but at a certain point we lived in a country house where these people used to live.

Wealthy people today would look down on that country house as a piece of crap. We'll come to that, but we understood pretty quickly, or at least I did, that they weren't living in compliance with communist ideals. For example, they watched banned Western movies. They weren't banned. We also watched Western movies. Not the full range that they did. We watched it on TV. Yes, they had more rights. They could watch band movies. That's my point.

Or things about which the decision hadn't been made as to whether it should be banned. I'm not sure that's the reason their film libraries are. included porn. Starting with Khrushchev, they were permitted to do anything, and dealing with them was prohibited. You don't think this was happening prior to Khrushchev. Nonetheless, all the powerful people in the Soviet Union caused their country less than one. The under the cousin, Senegal. Oligarch. Yes. Sure, but oligarchs don't pretend to be archangels. I'm trying to understand. Well, it depends. Some do. Well, maybe. Let's come back to the idea of communism as a religion.

In addition to the fact it's based, we can probably agree, on a certain ideological viewpoint that doesn't match reality. The idea that all people are angels, why else is a religion? The idea isn't that all people are angels, but that all people can become angels. and it's important that they do and then we'll arrive at communism. It's a religion in the sense that if they hadn't exiled God, it would be perfect.

There's a god and God commanded us to be communists. But they said there's no God, we are God. It's a continuation of what we may discuss in our next conversation. The idea invented in Europe, which I call the evil of human, Humanism, replacing God with man. Man isn't a God. We'll talk about it next time. This was another framework that saw man as godlike. And communism also put man in God's place.

Not only that, but also that the simpler and more working class that man was, the more important a God he was, something like that. Religion involves a whole host of rituals. We had plenty of those. Tell us about them. I mentioned we were inducted into the young pioneers in the Lenin Museum. Every capital of every Soviet Republic and maybe even every regional capital had a Lenin museum. What's funny is that every one of these museums had his coat, which he was wearing when he was shot at by that woman, I forgot and her name, there was an attempt on his life and he was shot. So there was a coat with bullets. It was funny, but it was a ritual.

There were many rituals. For example, I was a kid and I went to school for free. And if I wanted to do anything, I spent a lot of time. in the palace of young pioneers in Tashkent, which had been the Grand Duke's Palace before that. The Grand Duke had been deported to Turkestan a long time prior, and his police became the police of young pioneers. So I went there to learn public performance. Reciting, poetry, public speaking, etc. I went to this club for first. And eventually, as a reward for some achievement or other, I was sent to a republic-level young pioneer summer camp on the coast of the Aral Sea.

This wasn't the best deal. My schoolmate who went there with me won a trip to Arctic, whereas my trip was in Uzbekistan. Interesting. Again, you've raised the subject that our viewers may be unfamiliar with. The idea that you can't buy what you want, even if you have money, to get something, it has to be issued to you. Tell us about that. Well, I didn't mention it, but let me explain it. It was more complicated.

Only expensive things had limits. You couldn't just go buy a car or especially. an apartment. You couldn't do that because it would be a violation of the socialist system which said that everyone is equal. So if someone's a lot wealthier than someone else, that's bad. The highest salaries for the top people in the country were approximately five to eight times more than what my mother earned, who was just a junior lecturer. That's how it was. On the other hand, if you were a government official,

not only was your salary, not 160 but 700 rubles, but also you had access to a food shop, no one else had access to except other government officials. There you could buy food that cost two rubles, in any other shop for 45 kopeks, because the prices had been kept at the level of the 1920s. This was deliberate. What about the quality? Was it the same? If you remember, when we lived at this country house, the quality of the food was very high. I remember when you were in hospital once. This may have been in the 1990s. The USSR had collapsed,

but the customs and some systems were still in place. You told me that in your ward, there was a woman who was from these top party circles. It was either you or someone else there who took out some basic salami out in front of her. Yes, that wasn't something I saw. I told you this story. So she saw someone take out this basic sausage.

She said, We don't buy food in the city. We don't eat food. That's for the people. Food for the people. I remember this phrase very well. So these special food shops... Yes, that's what I mean when I say decline.

This was occurring by the 80s or so. So you watched this happen? Yes. When I was a kid, I did a lot of the shows. The adults would send me to buy things, and I saw it with my own eyes, and I saw how over time, the choice, quality and quantity of everything went down. At the beginning, I might have to queue for 10 minutes to buy meat. I'd be third or fourth in line. By the end, I'd have to queue for hours to buy meat.

to buy a kilo and a half of meat that I was allowed. You couldn't buy more? It was often the case in stores. We've got a certain amount of meat or whatever else it was, and everyone was allocated a certain amount they could buy to make sure everyone got some. So by the end you'd be allocated a kilo and a half and you'd wait for hours in a queue of hundreds of people.

That was the economic decline of the Soviet Union. Were you given an explanation for why this decline was happening? We were not allowed to call it decline. We weren't even allowed to notice it. Everything is fine. What would have happened to someone who did notice? We all knew. What did you know?

That there were shortages of different things in different cities. But you said you weren't allowed to notice? In Tashkan, things weren't too bad. In Moscow things were very good. Well, Moscow is Moscow. My grandmother brought me sweets from Moscow that I'd never seen because we didn't have them in Tashkent. Whereas in Norelsk, where my wife and your mother grew up, they were extremely well-supplied, well provided there was enough because they could only deliver food there a few months a year

when the ice had melted, but what they delivered was generously distributed to the citizens. Let's come back to the idea that you weren't allowed to notice the decline. You weren't allowed to call it decline. By this time, the idea was that criticizing something, anything about the Soviet Union is completely unacceptable. We were supposed to be respectful. What would have happened if you said, We've got decline going on. I just spent three hours in line for food at school or at work.

There'd be a big argument. If you were an adult and were trying to achieve something, you would almost certainly have been in real trouble. What kind of big trouble? Different kinds. You wouldn't have been shot like in previous decades. When people could be executed for expressing anger at the state or the socialist system, but they could have kicked you out of the commsomol,

which meant you wouldn't be able to go to university. You'd be denied a higher education. Many things could happen. You could be fired. Yes, they could even put you in a psychiatric hospital because you can't possibly be healthy if you're not happy. Under the socialist system. Yes.

There was a time in the Soviet Union when this, Not a huge number of them, but some, instead of being prosecuted and punished, were simply declared clinically insane and put in prisons for mentally ill people, i.e. psychiatric hospitals, where they were treated extremely badly, it was worse than going to prison. So you all knew that something like this could happen to you? That was one of the errors of the time, because you know one of the main ideas is that making mistakes is how you ultimately succeed. But if you refuse to accept that you make mistakes, you stop growing. You stay as you are and you can't move forward.

The socialist system declared its goal was to move towards communism. but as soon as we were prohibited from acknowledging the system wasn't perfect, that put the brakes on. So there was no feedback mechanism? I don't know if it's about feedback, but there was no ability to draw conclusions, gain experience, adjust the plan and move towards the original objective. What's the point of making mistakes?

I gave this a go. It didn't work because of X, so let me try a different way. Okay, that didn't work either because of why. Let's try another way. That's different to both. That worked. But if I keep doing things the original way, I'll never achieve the goal I'm aiming for. That's one of the reasons communism failed.

Were you a communist when you were a young man? I was a little octobrist, a young pioneer, comso mulettes, but I never tried to join the party. Why not? First of all, because I didn't want to. See, in the 1920s and 1930s being a communist was an honor. It was a sign that you'd earned something, as I mentioned to you, Chhatrias. Our audience doesn't know about Chhatrias yet, so let's keep them out of it for now. Okay, well, being a communist was an honor, and a romew.

reward in the 20s. But by my time, it was more like, if you want to be in charge, you need to be a communist. And if you want to be a communist, it's preferable that you're from as ordinary a background as possible. If your parents were members of the intelligents, your chances of becoming a communist were pretty slim. If your parents were peasants, then your chances were better. Your class background predetermined your opportunities. Your family class background, yes, you yourself could have been a PhD, but if your mom and dad were workers, you could be a communist. I think for our audience this will ring a lot of bells, given what's happening in modern Western society where your genetic roots predetermine which university you can go to, what grades you'll need, etc. My suspicion is that the modern West, especially the U.S. is a sort of copy of the Soviet Union.

I have that same suspicion. I even wrote a book about it. The smell is the same. Yes, we'll come back to that. But I think the issue isn't socialism. It's the same mistakes being made, the ones we've been discussing. Lack of feedback. Lack of feedback. Let's come back to your life story and communists. You made the point, and I emphasized your point, that the society in which you lived, the family you were born into largely predetermined the options you had in your life.

To a large extent, yes. We are talking about the downsides, not the upsides. They were a lot of upsides as well. So, for example, Dima, my classmate who's visiting me soon, who, like me, won a gold medal. In his case for mathematics, he was an excellent mathematician, but he was Jewish, officially Jewish. What does that mean? It means his paper said he was Jewish. There were a lot of Jews whose papers said it was different. I should explain that in the USSR, your passport had two fields. One was nationality. And the other one? You surprised me. What do you mean? Just your nationality.

Hold on. Field number five in your passport was your nationality. You mean the internal passport and the one for foreign travel? Did it say you were a Soviet citizen? It didn't have field number five. Right. It just said Soviet citizen. But your internal passport said, a Jew, Greek, Russian, Ukrainian or whatever. In the internal passport, okay,

so your passport actually recorded what in English we would call ethnicity. Ethnos is an important term. We'll discuss later. So your ethnicity was in your passport? Your ethnic background. So I, for example, I'm half Ponte Greek, half Polish, Riga, Ukrainian Jew.

And the difference between you... Even though I'm thoroughly Russian. Culturally. Culturally. I am not part of the Ponte Greek or the Jewish ethnos. So we were saying that your classmate was officially a Jew. So what did that mean? So he was thrown out. When he went to apply to Moscow University, he was treated very unjustly.

They failed him at the entrance exam, but in such a way that he couldn't appeal. Even though he was an A grade student and deserved an A. Because he was officially a Jew? At the time, the mechanics and mathematics faculty of Moscow State University took zero Jews. Why? Because the head of faculty made that decision. He was an anti-Semite, a communist anti-Semite. Why did a communist society, a society where everyone is equal, tolerate such people in senior leadership roles?

You know, anti-Semitism is an element of nationalism. The product of nationalism is an antipathy towards other groups. Jews were a particularly prominent group. in the Russian Empire. They were particularly visible. So if instead of becoming a socialist, someone was a nationalist, then that person became an anti-Semite. That's what I'm asking.

The Soviet Union was a society founded on the idea of friendship of the people's intolerance of intergroup conflict. We had jokes about the idea of friendship of the peoples. They asked in Armenian, what is friendship of the peoples to you? He says, it is when a joke, Georgian, an Armenian, a Pole, a Frenchman and a Russian get together, have a glass of vodka together and go and beat up an Azerbaijani. So what you're saying is Soviet society didn't succeed? It tried everything it could initially to accept everyone and to stunt nationalism.

But stunting nationalism takes centuries, not decades. The Soviet Union ran out of time. And that's why, even towards the end of the Soviet Union, which is the period we're talking about, someone would be prevented from studying because he was officially a Jew. Yes, at the chemistry faculty where I studied, we had official Jews, but the mechanics and maths faculty didn't. Dima, my classmate, was extremely disappointed. He returned to Tashkent to study.

Eventually, he became a successful mathematician. in the US. And now he watches this show. So big shout out to him. We started this part of the conversation with me asking if you were a communist and you said you didn't join the party because you didn't want to. I'd like to get a better idea of what you meant. I would have had to do a lot of things I didn't want to do if I'd become a communist. For example, I wasn't a communist in terms of my beliefs, but I would have had to act like a communist. How did a communist have to act? It's a long story.

It was different for everyone. You had to obey an extra layer of party managers, give orders to others, take on lots of social work. I didn't always want to do that. What does social work mean? I'll give you an example. We started talking about more,

my life journey and we haven't yet got to university. At uni, I had social work that I voluntarily took on. In my first year, I made a big mistake. I signed up for a so-called operations unit, like a student police officer. Why does a university need student police officers? To maintain order, to be on watch in dorms, to prevent crime.

etc. I just want our audience to understand there were students whose job it was to go around the university and maintain order. It was their social work which was additional to their studies and everything else. So in addition to their studies, two nights a week, they'd have to be on duty in this operations unit. And it was a big mistake because because it was not a pleasant job for me to do because you had to use force against people.

They may well have been guilty, but I had no desire to be the one to tie their hands. I didn't want to be a policeman. So being a communist and a party member meant at some point you'd become a weapon of the system. Yes, a weapon of the system. You had less freedom. Against your fellow citizens.

It might have been against wrongdoers, But it's just not my nature. Some people like beating up people who deserve it, and some don't. So being a party member meant either physically or metaphorically beating people. It was like serving in the army. I am not a military person. I can do my duty. For example, when I was a student, we did reservist training.

Based on that, I became a reserve lieutenant. But honestly, it's... not my nature. Okay, got it. I'm also not a police officer. But I did sign up for this operations unit and worked there up until

the 1980 Olympics as a member of the Olympics police force. We were even on duty in Red Square at one point, which was very interesting, but after that, I quit. You realized it wasn't for you. It wasn't for me.

Then I became editor of the World newspaper. Your audience knows what that is. Now, wall newspapers were small private newspapers published on a piece of cardboard, on the wall somewhere. I became an editor of the chemistry faculty's wall newspaper, and that turned out to be important social work, and because of that, I was asked to be a member of the student council. Because of that, I was allowed to go to Berlin as part of a student construction. Brigade. In the USSR, if you were allowed to go abroad, you were very lucky. Not everyone got so lucky.

Why weren't you allowed to go abroad? Thus, that was the deal. It went something like this. Our people live here. Other places are wrong and dangerous. Anyone who goes there must be a professional trained to ensure they are not affected by it. Going to other countries is harmful for Soviet citizens. Why? Because you'll be indoctrinated with harmful ideas. Such as? That America is better than the Soviet Union.

That's indoctrination? Of course, it's a lie. They'll indoctrinate you otherwise. That was the official line. I was allowed to go to East Germany because it had and still has strong links with Russia. It was a very friendly place. with a similar mindset, but it was still a foreign place. So you were allowed to go there as a reward for your achievements? I was allowed to go there because I was considered worthy, reliable.

I did important social work. I was a member of the student council. You couldn't be corrupted by the enemy's hostile ideology. No, okay. I'm just... just trying to finish this thread of the conversation. It was a pain in the ass. Not awful. Being a party member? It was a pain in the ass.

Also, my parents weren't members of the proletariat. My parents were both lecturers, scientists, the intelligentsia. They weren't from the proletariat. I see. It made things hard for me. For me to become a communist, it would always be a pain in the ass. Forgive the expression. I wasn't prepared to do that.

Whereas another classmate of mine with whom I participated in Chemistry Olympics, he was better than me and a couple of years younger. He was enrolled into the party in his first year of university. By force. What do you mean?

He was told, we've decided you are worthy and you have been accepted into the party. What would have happened if he'd said no thanks? He would have. been in so much trouble, he never would have said that in the first place, he would have been

expelled. So he understood if he refused to join the party, he'd be punished? He understood he'd be kicked out of university and he'd become a labourer. And then eventually he'd probably have to join the party anyway. But as a labourer... So he joined the party, he eventually got the Lenin Bursary. The Lenin Berseri was 2.5 times the usual bursary. Because he had excellent grades and was a party member, it was great for him, but he had to do a lot of work for it.

Do a lot of work or eat a lot of shit. There's a difference. A lot of work as a communist. I'm certain it involved things he didn't want to do. So what I said... By this point, we weren't quite the faithful communists. We were quite atheistic in relation to the religion of communism. You know, the funny story I told you about the coats with the holes.

It was hard to have faith in that. Yeah. You'd see it in one city, go to the Lenin Museum in another city, and see the exact same coat there. It's surprising. So we're now rapidly approaching the collapse of the Soviet Union. Before we do, let's complete our discussion of the Soviet communist period by touching on the Cold War.

Then we should start with World War II, not the Cold War. Okay, say what you wanted to say about that. I just want to say that the entire history of this socialist state began with the Russian revolution. Then the global reforms, which included Stalin's purges, which cleaned out all the country's leaders in three sequential waves. I'm sure the point of the purges was to eliminate the revolutionaries they weren't needed anymore. Why would you want revolutionaries when you're trying to stabilize things? A state doesn't need revolutionaries, but creating a state requires revolutionaries. That's why they have to be shot. That's what happened.

This was Stalin's idea. Not just Stalin's. Stalin would have been executed just the same by his rivals, for the same reasons. For the same reasons, yes. But I wanted to ask you about the Cold War, the period of time we're talking about, the decline, the growing atheism towards communist ideology it occurred in parallel with. In the West, this period is seen as a period of active struggle with the Soviet Union, which it basically was, right? Before that, we fought against Hitler and Nazi Germany together. Of course. There were lots of other things.

There was a time when the Russian Empire used its fleet to protect the US from Britain. That's not what I'm talking about. There were many different events in history. But inside the Soviet Union, by this point, as I said, this was the Khrushchev-Breshne period, during which there was a decline. so-called stagnation. Stagnation was after. Stagnation was the late Brezhnev period.

What I'm trying to ask is this. Did you have the sense that you lived in a country that was engaged in a struggle with a mortal enemy? I wouldn't say I felt we had a mortal enemy. This is a very primitive way of thinking about it because we can be allies today and enemies tomorrow. We'll talk about civilizations later. We're rapidly approaching the period when you left Uzbekistan and went to Moscow State University.

You were a talented student, especially in natural sciences. Chemistry was your speciality. Before I went to grade seven, I was given a chemistry textbook for grade seven and eight. I read it from cover to cover before school even started because I found it fascinating. Then I read a lot of other chemistry books for kids. Then I started reading chemistry books for adults. Then taking part in Olympiads, I went to Moscow because in my last year of school, I got a pretty good result at the old Soviet National Chemistry Olympiad,

and I was invited to be considered to represent the country at the International Olympiad. And everyone in that group was allowed to join any university in the country without taking an entrance exam. I had a choice to make. I thought about going back to Tashkent. It was clear studying chemistry. There wouldn't work for me, so I would end up being a doctor. I had an offer to become a surgeon. there was a wonderful man, one of the best surgeons who was interested in teaching me from the first year of university.

Or I could continue with chemistry at Moscow State University. After some thought, I picked the capital. The only thing was coming from Tashkent with its hot climate, Moscow winters were horrible. It was very hard to get used to them, but obviously I'm happy I got the education I did because it was the best university in that era. That was good. I wasn't the best student at my faculty, but I was pretty good. I am very happy I was taught to think like a scientist. It's not the only useful way of thinking, but you cannot do without it. You have to be able to think like a scientist.

I'm glad I was taught this. And to this day, I remember a lot of chemistry. I remember when I was a little boy, if you wanted to show off a bit, you'd tell me you could make a bomb out of basic household ingredients. I can still do that now, but what would be the point? I understand. What I mean is you had a practical understanding of chemistry. Well, I worked with poisons. I worked with explosive and radioactive substances. I worked with bacteria and viruses. I was a virologist when I worked under academician Chumakov at the institute.

All this whilst you were a student. Yes. And my work experienced training after a graduate. Where did you do your work experience? The polio and viral encephalitis Institute under academician Trumankov. He was still alive. I worked in his lab. First of all, we regularly made a special flu vaccine for the elderly and children for the most vulnerable. The rest of the time we did various types of research, including trying to find a universal solution for all viruses. One of the ideas we tried, made a little progress, but my work experience ended, and by that point I wasn't that interested in it. But we had some initial results. It was very interesting. This is a serious

detour, but I wanted to discuss this with you. We all know that in recent, recent years, vaccines became controversial because of what was done. As someone who made vaccines, what can you say about it? I published an article about this on Facebook, actually, right at the beginning of the panic about COVID. My view is that vaccines aren't some sort of sacred thing. I don't think we need to vaccinate everyone against everyone. I also don't think every vaccine is dangerous and I don't agree with people who are against vaccines outright. My view is based on pragmatism. If your risk from being ill is significantly

higher than your risk from being vaccinated, you should get vaccinated. You need to be vaccinated against certain illnesses because you'll die, or you've got a 30% chance of dying if you are unvaccinated. In that case, get the shot, but we shouldn't be vaccinating children against diseases that used to kill kids in the 19th century because we have drugs. A child that catches one of the diseases,

like measles or whooping cough, can be treated. In the 19th century, they would have died, but now they can get treated so they don't need to be vaccinated. There are other nuances. Not all vaccines last your full life. Some last eight years on average many viruses change over time. The flu changes every year. So every year you need a new vaccine for it. The cycle lasts about 60 years before an old very various. comes back again. If you were vaccinated 60 years ago, you might be immune to the old variant, which is now back. COVID is the same, but the change is less frequent. The flu is different. It changes every year, whereas COVID changes in a different way and not as frequently. During the pandemic,

there was the idea everyone had to take a vaccine. That was wrong. The real idea seems to have been to earn money. That's my cynical view. We didn't need to vaccinate everyone. What's more? There are serious concerns that the majority of people who died of COVID in hospitals weren't killed by COVID. They died because of incorrect ventilation. It's complicated. But my view is that it's important to get vaccinated against dangerous diseases, especially regional ones. If you're going somewhere, you should get vaccinated against the lethal disease that's prevalent there. But getting vaccinated against every disease possible is also wrong. You don't need to do that. One of the things that people are saying now is that they were conducting gain of function

research in a lab in China. I don't know if you're familiar. with it, but it's when the virus is manipulated in such a way that it is enhanced or something is added to it. It's not just the Chinese who are doing such research. I disapprove of this very strongly. My view is that it's one area of research that should be voluntarily discontinued by all scientists coming together and deciding that we won't do such research because it can have. harm humanity. We may mean well, but the result will be harmful. We want more knowledge, but will create disaster. The same is true of serious modification of humans. It would be a great evil, even though the reason people will do this will be positive. I don't think we should be doing this.

do people do such research because of the arrogance of scientists who think we'll do it because we can there are people who do it for that reason but i think the real reason is that there are people who are willing to pay for such research why is that in the hope of making more money during your work experience training you worked with explosive substances bacteria and so on Do I have it right that after that you worked at a nuclear facility? Yep, it was part of the Nuclear Physics Institute in Tashkent. We handled radioactive materials there and made radioactive products that were sold to hospitals. Sold in the Soviet meaning of the term.

The state took them from us and gave us money and then distributed them to hospitals. We were well paid. My wife and I both worked there and earned very good money for that time. So you got your chemistry degree at Moscow State University and go back to Tashkent to work at the nuclear facility. First, I did work experience for two years at the Polio Institute on the outskirts of Moscow. It was on the road to Vunovo Air Base. Then Marina and I, she graduated from university, I finished my work experience placement, I negotiated for us to both be employed at the Nuclear Physics Institute, and we worked there for

several years. You lived with us in Tashkent then? Yes, I'd already been born. You weren't even that small at this point. Yes, I would have been four when we moved back to Tashkent. So how did you end up going back to Moscow again? I'll tell you very briefly. My university grades meant that I was sent to write and defend my dissertation at one of the best biochemistry institutes in the USSR. The plan was that I would stay there to do my PhD.

But by this point, my father was in serious trouble with the KGB and all members of our first. family were punished, including me. I was given a C grade in an exam for no reason for a political subject and my PhD recommendation was taken away. What was the exam? The exam was called scientific communism. So they failed you on purpose? At the exam, they listened to me in silence, then asked me to go out without telling me what grade I got. When the examination ended, they put a sign up showing who'd got which grades. I had a C. That same day, I was called to the party committee of the faculty

and informed that my PhD recommendation had been withdrawn. That was my unofficial punishment for my father being a dissident. So let's talk about my grandfather, your father, being a dissident from the beginning. Yes, he was a dissident. The first time he really got in trouble was in 19. At that time, the Soviet Union was having problems with the Czech uprising, which was put down by East Germans, Poles. The so-called Prague Spring. Yes. At that time, my father was doing his PhD at the physics faculty of Moscow State University.

He also went there from Tashkent in his day to do his PhD. They had a so-called English club where they spoke English and discussed the Soviet response to the Prague Spring. They were critical and naturally one of the people there was an informant. He reported everyone to the authorities. They were all interrogated. As far as I can tell from the documents, my father refused to answer any questions. and so he was told him he'd be held responsible for everything. In the end, he finished his PhD program, defended his dissertation, but he couldn't find employment as a physicist.

He was forced to look for other work, to support his family. And so that's how he became a great translator of science. literature into English. He brought almost every great physics book available to the English-speaking world with his translations. That was his first incident. Let's just zoom in on it a little bit. Some people watching and listening might be thinking, well, it was 1968, so not the 80s yet. Why wasn't he shipped off to a psychiatric hospital? Why didn't he get a really severe punishment? Well, he wasn't too hard-core dissident.

He was an amateur dissident. And he was punished accordingly. Professional dissidents. As far as I know, he decided he couldn't become a professional. A professional dissident? Yes. he understood that his family would be punished very severely and he can't afford to have his wife and daughter

suffer like that for his desire to be a dissident. So he never became a career dissident. The punishments he got were commensurate with it. So at that point, these so-called amateur punishments consisted of him not being allowed to pursue his career in his field. Yes, they said to him, You can't work as a physicist. You're not one of us.

We can't trust you. Go work somewhere else. So he found a job at some institute where he worked as a researcher, but it wasn't physics. It wasn't his level. So he was prevented from having a career. His wife was also fired, right? Not at that time. That was the next time.

So at this point, it was just his career that got taken away? He was told being a physicist wasn't for him. physics requires loyalty to your country and you are a dissident. That was the first time. The second time was when you and the whole family were punished as well. My father underwent pretty unpleasant interrogations. There were some serious informant allegations against him. And to be fair, they had this group of amateur dissidents

who were openly and harshly critical of the Soviet Union communists and everything else. I listened to their discussion sometimes, but never took part. I just listened and realized they are just as crazy as the communists. And why was that? Why? Because they were extreme. They had the strong convictions, but no thinking, just beliefs. Sacred beliefs.

This is evil. This is wrong. This guy is evil. What about... No, I said this is evil, so it is. if Ivanov said it's evil, then it is. I am not a fan of that. It's important to think for yourself.

So this was 1968, and the next time... Here's what happened. He was interrogated, tortured. He refused to answer questions. Tortured? Let's not mislead people. He wasn't tortured like he would have been under Stalin. They used sleep deprivation.

They would interrogate him all night. And in the morning he'd have to be at work. They kept this up for a long time. This was very unpleasant. And when these people are interrogating you, they're scaring you. They're threatening with things that are worse than what's actually going to happen. That's something you have to endure, to suffer through. After that, they said, no, okay, you bastard.

You don't want to cooperate. Then everyone will suffer. They couldn't do it. anything else to him because he was completely independent of the Soviet Union. By this point, he worked exclusively with foreign clients for his translations. They couldn't take that away from him unless they put him in prison and they had no grounds to do that. And the period where you could put people in prison for no reason was over. So they told him everyone else is going to have problems. They fired his wife. Hold on. This second incident was when? I was in my fourth year

of university, so it would have been 1984. And this was because he'd been critical. And this was because he'd been of the war in Afghanistan. I'm not sure about... Why was it? It was because they had the club of these anti-Soviet amateurs. They got together in the evenings. I'm sure there were informants there too. This was pretty standard.

If 20 people get together and shout some slogans, one of them then goes and writes a report. That was pretty normal. So his wife was fired from her job at the physics faculty. His daughter, my step-sister, was kicked out of Moscow University. She was in her first year there. The formal reason was that she had engaged in dishonorable conduct, incompatible with being a Soviet student.

They claimed she had forged medical. documents or something. This was all an excuse. She wasn't even an adult. It was totally illegal. And by this point, the power of the KGB was waning and the people responsible for children's rights got involved and said, you have no right to do this without our approval. Reinstate her immediately. And she was reinstated. As for me, they just gave me a in the exam on scientific communism for no reason and told me I can't do my PhD if I got a C in this exam. Bye. So there was a whole big mess. And ultimately, I ended up doing work experience with academician Chumakov. He was a wonderful man. And I'm very proud to have worked under him.

After that, you went to Tashkent. Yes. We worked at the Nuclear Physics Institute for a while, and then I realized the Soviet Union was coming to an end. Hold on. Let's definitely talk about that. How did you know the Soviet Union was coming to an end? What year was it? It was 1989 in the very end of Perestroika. What did it coming to an end look like? You know, I can't give you specific indicators. Everything just seemed to indicate that complete chaos is coming and the system won't hold. There were very strong nationalistic eruptions in different Soviet republics.

Basically, the central imperial power looked like it was gone. Basically, the central imperial power looked like it was gone. It couldn't hold it altogether. At this point, Gorbachev was in charge and it was his last year too. There were lots of issues. People in the republics were starting to avoid doing what they were told. All sorts of problems and as always nationalism started rising. So I decided that as non-Uzbeks staying in Uzbekistan wasn't the smartest thing to do. Besides, it became clear that my job was a dead end.

it became boring. I had lots of materials. The equipment was great, but there was no great purpose. There was no mission. No mission. So I decided to go back to doing my PhD and went back to the chemistry faculty to do that.

But it wasn't the course for promising students. It was one where employees could be sent. So the Nuclear Physics Institute sent me to do that. But it was the radiation chemistry department, which wasn't my thing. I am a biochemist. I really didn't like what was happening there. And at this time, the country began its capitalist experiment. And because me and some guys had already been working, we were earning money in a semi-Soviet way.

What does that mean? It means we were an association. I've forgotten the word. Cooperative? Yes, cooperative. We fixed cracks in apartment block walls. we filled them in using suspended platforms. I wasn't allowed to go onto the platforms. They said, why don't you manage this operation?

Go here, go there. I ended up doing 48 circles around Moscow with the driver and Giguli, the cooperative, provided. So how did, you a PhD student end up? This was before when I was just a student. When I started doing my PhD, a friend called me and said, let's set up a bunk.

Hold on, this is the part I always tell people. So I decided, hold on, hold on. This is the part I always tell people that they don't believe. So let's go through this properly. In the Soviet Union, there was an article of law. which dealt with what in English we call entrepreneurship. I've forgotten the word in Russian. Entrepreneurship.

So entrepreneurship was illegal. That law was repealed. When was that? At the end of the perestroika period. They decided to allow private banks and private companies. They announced that capitalism was now allowed in our society. It was no longer a crime. So capitalism stopped being a crime.

Okay. How did you go from filling cracks and walls to the idea of opening a bank? Well, there was basically one bank in the Soviet Union. Well, no. There were several. There was the state bank, and it had the savings bank for the people. an international bank for something else, but it was a single system. And it wasn't a banking system in the capitalist sense.

There were no capitalist banks in the Soviet Union. So when they allowed capitalism and banking, someone had to create them. Why not? But what does a biochemist like you have to do with it? I was a biochemist, but my colleague, who headed this cooperative was younger than me by a few years. He had the idea of starting a bank, a stock exchange and a bank. Wait, wait, wait.

So a biochemist and a physics student got together and started a bank and a stock exchange. Sorry, what? What do you mean? What? We were smart, well-educated people. We had degrees from universities. So what? We were smart people with a broad and good education.

We weren't chemists, we were educated people. Today, if you only get taught your subject and nothing else, that's not a real university. That's a technical college. A real university is where you're given a wide range of core subjects and the ability to think independently. That's the type of people we were. So you were people who were well educated, erudite and well-rounded, who understood...

We understood how a bank was supposed to work. We knew how to do it. We thought it through and registered the bank, set it up. It was one of the first, maybe the third or fourth private bank. I can tell you that nobody watching who didn't live through that period has any idea what you're talking about. There were no banks. There was a need for banks.

I get it. But can you explain to people who are used to the idea a bank is an institution that has existed for hundreds of years? How is it possible that some kids... Well, it's a problem

that in the US the last new bank was set up in the 1960s. It's a problem. That's a problem. different issue. What I'm asking is, how is it possible for there to be a society where banks are founded by a bunch of kids with science degrees? Well, who was supposed to set them up? For example, the former state bank, which became the new state bank, was doing stupid things. Lots of stupid

things. When we founded our bank, we had a problem. The value of the currency changed rapidly. If you needed 1,000 rubles before, now you needed 500,000 rubles. And all of these transactions were made in cash at that time. So you went from needing a briefcase to carry it to needing a truck full of cash. It was very inconvenient. And it was the central bank that was supposed to fix it. But it didn't. We did it instead.

So you found a bank. Okay, let's take another small detour. I want to understand the experience of a normal person living through this moment. Everything is crumbling around you. In the Soviet Union, scientists, military servicemen and other professions were the most respected and the best paid. The party bosses were the best paid and government officials. And after them, scientists, military service. Right?

Military servicemen, then engineers, then scientists. Then it all comes crashing down. I remember going to school where I would take a bus, then the metro, and then walk. I remember walking past people, some of whom may have been scientists, who were selling their belongings, furniture, clothes, etc. Yes, that was the case. If the state stops funding research, scientists can't earn a living.

At that time, the state stopped funding many things due to the general confusion. So they stopped funding some things that they used to fund? The idea that we must do everything ended. We can't afford this, we can't afford that, we don't have money. That was for a while. The understanding of what needs funding came back after about three years.

For that three-year period, I took part in various rescue missions. Like the International Chemistry Olympiad team, which I took to three Olympiads without any government support. So individuals like you had to do things they cared about. Our bank did lots of things that the government should have been doing. They kept saying, we'll do it, but not now. We recently reached a huge YouTube milestone with everything. million subscribers. Amid the celebrations, however, there have been a few cynical voices too. Some people are asking, how do two guys with weird hair and no obvious talent managed to create

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You're not going to get one, but at least you'll be able to afford one. Good point. Click the link and join 40,000 people like you to make the show you love better again. So you found a bank. So everything's going well at a certain point. We wanted to do lots of things. We wanted the bank to become the main bank, working with Russian security services. And we managed it.

That's how we ended up living in those country houses that you mentioned. That's where I was going. Everything was going well. and at a certain point, the banks' executives and their families, including you, ended up living in government country houses. Not all of us, it was around four or five of us, out of a team of 12. So four to five of you lived in government country houses? We lived in the government country house of Politburo member, Comrade Pelsche.

Next door was the country house of Comrade Bresnev. So what can you tell us about Comrade Pelsch in his country house? There's not much to say about Pelshi. He was a member of the Politburo, one of the 15 most influential people. I think he was Latvian, a communist through and through. He got his country house for a reason. So about the house, you saw it yourself. It was a small two-story house.

Small house? What you want to say it was a palace, it wasn't even close. Let's go through it. ground floor dining room and kitchen. Dad, come on. How many people could sit in that dining room? You could sit around 30 people at that table. With room to spare, it was a huge room.

You were a small child, that's why it seemed huge. I wasn't that small. It was a huge room. It was a big dining room. I wouldn't call it huge. Big enough for 30 people? Anyway, the first floor had a cinema. and a billiard room. The size of the room we're in maybe a bit bigger. A sitting room,

and upstairs there were two bedrooms on each side and an office. And in the basement, there was room for the staff, storage, and so on. There was a swimming pool. Swimming pool. It was two meters by 1.5, not a real pool. Swimming pool? That's about pretending to be a swimming pool. It was a swimming pool. It was a tiny pool. Let's talk about the staff since you're trying to pretend it was a tiny little house.

Well, in terms of stuff, compared to the houses today's rich people live in, it was a very small mansion. What made it big was something else. It had six hectares of forest all around it for security. very important. It had a security detail there around the clock. There was a duty chauffeur for the owner. Several drivers on rotation. There was a duty chauffeur for the owner's wife and kids. So you had your vehicle and a vulgar for your family. There were up to three gardeners who looked after the forest. I did the maths. There was a staff of four. 40 for one of the top 15 people in the country.

So let's say 600 total for all 15. That's nothing. Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, it is all very modest. 40 stuff, that's very modest. Well, for someone who's effectively the king's senior advisor, that's very modest. That's not what I'm talking. talking about. I'm saying you were just living in a two-room apartment.

No, for me. Well, that's what I'm talking about. And I'm talking about the social situation. For me, of course, it was an amazing house. The best thing was that at one point, some Chechen criminals tried to raid our bank, to get back something they'd lost. It was their own fault. I said, tell them to come to my house for a cup of and we'll sort everything out. They came to this country house, had a cup of tea, in complete silence, and then left with the words, we have no issue with you. Afterwards, the people who were tracking them for us said that they went back to their bosses and said,

we nearly came into conflict with the people who run this country. They let us live, so let's get out of here and make sure we never cross them again. that's how things were back then so that's how it was back then and how conflicts got resolved my childhood memories are that things were going along nicely and then suddenly we were back to the two-room apartment yes because there was a rebellion by the people who had joined our business group

later on as a result our main leader left the country. They tried to kill him. It was a big mess. I left the bank because I obviously wasn't wanted anymore and I didn't want to stay. I wasn't part of the gang that won. And that gang tried to take everything?

Their argument was, why make long-term plans? plans. Let's just split the cash right now. Whereas he said, we have enough for now. Let's invest. They said, no, let's split it now. He was also wrong. I don't think he was a saint and they were evil. They were evil, but he was also seriously wrong. In the end, the team split apart and the bank went downhill pretty quickly after that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the leader, he ran away to the US and took almost all the money, right? Well, there wasn't that much to take. There wasn't a lot of cash specifically. He went to America and took some money. Yes, he thought he'd be able to handle them.

He only left to avoid being killed, but he couldn't handle them. and so he and two of us who were his closest associates, we lost. We were forced out. With nothing. Not with nothing. One of them even wanted to take my apartment. Not the one where we lived, but the one the boss bought for me as a gift. for my good work. They wanted to take it but didn't.

So you kept the apartment but no money? No money, no job, but I already had connections at this point. And two days later I was put forward to be the vice president of an international fund where I worked for some time until my colleague, the vice president of this other fund, was appointed a government minister and he asked me to be his deputy. So you created a bank, it grew rapidly and then exploded rapidly. There was a power struggle and it fell apart. In the space of just a few years?

Yes. So you ended up kind of with nothing, but you had connections so you found a new job where you were doing well and earning good money. And then you're asked to become a deputy minister for relations with CIS countries. Yes, because my colleague who appreciated my work a long time before. that Boris Yeltsin was sent to work under him and he was told to ruin Yeltsin's career. He was construction minister then, but he didn't. He took pity on him and looked after him and Yeltsin didn't forget. And made him a minister?

Yeltsin made him a minister and he was effectively appointed to challenge the foreign ministry. The foreign ministry would deal with the U.S. and Europe, whereas my boss would deal with former Soviet countries, which were now independent. In my role, I went to Ukraine twice to lead negotiations regarding the Black Sea Fleet. We'll come to that. Let's just get the timeline established. When did you become a minister? 1993 or 1994? 1993, I think. For a Western audience whose only Russian knowledge is Putin, this is way before Putin.

It was under Yeltsin. Under Yeltsin. So you're appointed deputy minister. By the time Putin was appointed, I was no longer in Russia. We'll talk about that. Because there's this idea on the internet that I'm critical of Putin's actions because my father was an oligarch who fled from Putin. I'm no oligarch, and I didn't.

flee from Putin. I left during the Yeltsin era. Okay. So, you're appointed deputy minister. For finance and economics, there were two issues. Each deputy minister was responsible for something like finance and economics, construction or transportation, and the second area of responsibility was regional. So I was responsible for finance and economics across all the regions and for all matters, for Belarus and the Baltic states. I see. For example, the union with Belarus, this single country idea, I worked on that.

So what were the goals you were set? What was Russia's foreign policy towards former Soviet countries at this point? I didn't accept the job because I had dreamt of being deputy minister. The minister showed me a decree signed by Yeltsin on his request, which made it clear that our ministry was no longer just there to resolve conflicts. arising from the U.S.S.R.'s collapse, its job was now to advance Russia's interests in former and future neighboring countries. So what were Russia's interests at this time, as you understood them?

The main interest was, for example, with Belarus, we wanted to create a single country. Another union. The countries in it would have more independence, but it would have been a union. We wanted to recreate our country. That's why I agreed to take the job in accordance with the decree. It wasn't well paid, was it? Not only that, they even took my car away that I was supposed to have as a deputy minister. I used my own. So you gave up money to do this?

Well, I was spending the money I'd saved. I was paid a salary. How much? It was a decent salary by the standards of that time. But how much? I don't remember. It was a long time ago. Was it $100 or $100,000?

I don't even remember how much it was in rubles, similar to what a university professor would have been paid. Okay, but compared to the salary you had in your previous job. Oh, it was ridiculously small. I agreed to work there for way less than I was earning before, because it was what I wanted to do. You wanted to recreate the USSR? Yes, to end the negative effects of the collapse. What negative effects exactly?

Well, the worst thing that happened was mortality went way up. The population of Russia fell in comparison to projections in a similar way to how it fell during World War II. It was terrible. Because mortality went up, not because some countries split off. It was mortality. Russia lost 20 million people. Correct, yes. This was due to alcoholism and drugs.

murders and other things. Criminality. To put it simply, life became very hard. Average life expectancy fell sharply. The number of deaths spiked huge losses. It hadn't yet happened fully, but you could see it coming. Those were terrible years. I can tell you that as a deputy minister,

formerly people in my position weren't being assassinated because murderers still had fear and respect for government officials, but still, every time I went home, I knew local criminals could be waiting to stab me to death near our apartment block. Why? What for? Just like that.

Because maybe I had money in my pocket. And when leaving work, I would call my wife saying, I've left. Arriving home before getting out of the car, I would say I've arrived at the entrance. I'm getting out. You see, that's how it wasn't easy. So the country was really struggling across the board. Yes. Was the first war in Chechnya already happening? Yes.

So you've got war, criminality, terrorism, prostitutes everywhere. I remember it was like that. It was terrible. Absolutely terrible. It was good for people who wanted to become super rich. If you tried really hard and managed to survive, if you weren't killed, you could become super rich. But for normal people, it was terrible. Did you know people who were killed during this period? There was a guy whose apartment I asked to stay at once

because of the problems I had. Later on in the story, he took me to an empty apartment. He used to live in. I spent three days there and then gave the keys back to him. The next day when he came back to the apartment with those same keys, someone shot him dead, a professional hit. Why was he assassinated? A lot of people owed him money,

and one of them didn't want to pay it back. It was easier to kill him than to pay him. am back. Yes. So the country's down in the dumps. Then you're appointed minister? Deputy minister. They wouldn't have made me minister. So it's all terrible. But what does this have to do with you and former Soviet countries? How is all this related? The country's decline and what you could do to rebuild the USSR? The decline of the country was a consequence of what was going on and led to the collapse of the USSR. If you remember, and you probably don't,

every country in the USSR voted on ending the USSR. In Ukraine, everyone voted to stay in. Can you imagine that? A few years went by and we've got a different situation. but that applied to everyone. Me too. I thought I had a chance to remedy the mistakes. That's what I tried to do.

The agreement with Belarus was an example of something I took part in. I can't say it was just me doing it, but I was very involved. It's still relevant today. Why did the USSR collapse? Why did the USSR collapse? I can't tell you easily. Sorry, I mean I can't tell you easily. There were many reasons.

One of them we've mentioned. The Soviet Union was rotting and the system which held it up had been breaking down for a long time. For example, under Khrushchev, they began to promote hiring of local people in the republics. Gradually, they began to give preference to local nationalities in everything. Basically, they encouraged local nationalism, which was in contradiction to the Soviet system. Basically, an empire can't survive this. The end result was that by the time I was a young man in Uzbekistan, it was a

became impossible to get to the top if you were not Uzbek. You're not an Uzbek, so you can't be a manager here. You can be his deputy, but not the top manager. The manager must be an Uzbek. This is crazy. Not because there's anything wrong with Uzbek. The same in Russia. The top manager doesn't have to be Russian. Yes, an empire can't work like this. It's impossible. Yes, that was how Khrushchev destroyed the empire. So, it was decay of communist ideology, decay of nationalism. A rise in nationalism, yes. What about the economic side of things, the arms race, etc.?

That was damaging too. But if the people who were prepared to take power in their countries by any means necessary, and by their country they didn't mean the U.S. They maintained any territory where they could get to the top, the people who broke apart the Soviet Union from the inside, including Yeltsin, sacrificed the Soviet Union in exchange for being in charge. The price we paid for that was nationalism in each country. Ukrainian nationalism happened because the Ukrainian who signed this thing, with Yeltsin, wanted to be in charge of Ukraine. At least I'll be in charge of Ukraine of something. Yeltsin was the same.

He wasn't worthy. You mentioned the Union with Belarus. How do you assess not your own achievements, but the results your ministry and Russia achieved in rebuilding the USSR? It was a horror show. By this point, Yeltsin was surrounded mainly by people with Western values, who had been given clear instructions to collapse the Soviet Union.

How would you describe the concept of Western values? By Western values, I don't mean what people in the West ought to do. I mean, they believed that Russia should not be a world. a powerful country, that everything in Russia must be subordinate to the West. Westerners, i.e. Americans, came to writer Russia's constitution. I saw this with my own eyes. So the constitution, written under Yeltsin, was written for Russia by Americans. And it wasn't a constitution for a sovereign country. Why do you say that? What made it incompatible with sovereignty?

There were a lot of things. Overall, it had everything it needed to have. To ensure the global dominance of one country. Can you give some examples? I would need the text in front of me. These are boring texts. No, but sorry, you're saying things that require evidence in my view. view. I can tell you that anyone who read the text as I did could see it with their own eyes. Forgive me, but it's been a very long time since I was involved in these things. Sure, I understand, but...

There was a time I read all of this. There are people watching and listening who might be interested. You're saying things they haven't heard and might not agree with. They can read the Russian constitution and see. a lot of interesting things in it, let them read it. I'm not going to prove anything. Why is that? Because I've forgotten most of it. I've proved it many times before. Well, people are just interested.

Forgive me, but since I had COVID, I started to forget things I used to know. I'm forgetting things without COVID too. I'm just saying that if you're going to say, I read every word of that constitution. I am not even disputing what you're saying. But for our audience to understand, you need to explain the mechanism. Not really. It's enough to know this constitution was written by American experts invited to Moscow. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw them.

Fine. But what was the loss of sovereignty? Was Russia stripped of its nuclear weapons? Or what was it? It was stripped of many things. nuclear weapons aren't regulated by the Constitution. That's a military issue. The Constitution regulates the rights of the citizens and the rules for interacting with other nations, among many other things.

The Constitution they offered us guaranteed we would never be able to rebuild the Soviet Union. Yes, and in my view, that was wrong. So it was against the interests of the Russian people? It wasn't even the Russian people. It was against the interests of the Soviet people. There's a difference. At that time, almost all Soviet people voted to keep the Soviet Union together.

Even the Baltic states? Yes. The Baltic states, Ukraine, everyone, because that's what they thought. But after it happened and some years had passed, and certain pro-Western people had been in power in all these countries. For example, almost everyone around Yeltsin was implementing American policies in Russia. That's why there was a big war between them and our ministry, which Yeltsin, for some reason, instructed to conduct an imperial pro-Soviet policy.

And that's why our ministry was ultimately destroyed. Who was the war between? it was with Yeltsin's most powerful associates, the first vice-premier, the prime minister, who were all extremely pro-Western. Yeltsin's closest associate at the time was the first vice-premier. He did everything to get rid of me because I was doing important work. He arranged for my minister to be formally promoted, but he lost any actual power over our mission.

As a result, our vice-premier from our team was sent to work in some business. As for me, he tried to put me in jail. That's why I left Russia. Okay, let's come back to that. So you and your boss were appointed to conduct pro-imperial pro-soviet policy designed to rebuild the USSR. Yes.

You try to do it, but according to you, the pro-Western people around Yeltsin tried to stop you. We fought very hard to be able to do anything at all. It was really hard. I remember when Yeltsin, it's confidential information, so I won't go into detail. I understand I could. probably talk about it now, but it's still not a good idea. It was a state secret of the highest

level Yeltsin gave an order. As you know, the way an order is given is like this. A such and such lead ministry, as well as several other secondary ministries, are hereby ordered to do such and such thing by such and such date. These people are supposed to have a meeting. The secondary ministries are supposed to put forward their proposals. The lead ministry is supposed to combine them into a final version, resubmitted to the entire team, obtain their consent, and then report to whoever gave the order for final approval. So Yiltsin gave an order where our ministry and I personally were the leads. None of the other ministries,

the finance ministry, the economics ministry, basically everyone, other than the customs and defense ministries, which were willing to work with us more or less. Everything else was totally against carrying out the orders of the president. In the end, I had to say, since we've had no proposals from others, this is what I'm proposing. I suggested a way to solve the problem. Everyone was up in arms.

But I sent everything to Yeltsin. And then this guy, the first vice premier, had a chat with the president, and they agreed to forget the whole thing. So you were prevented from doing your job. Okay. So I remember around this time I was already at school in England, calling my mother and noticing that her voice was very strange. Her answers were all monosyllabic. Later, I learned that I'd called just as law enforcement was searching our apartment.

Why did this happen? I can tell you one of my subordinates, at the International Fund. Where you worked before the ministry. Yes, immediately before. He was my direct subordinate. He messed up in his business and a director of a government factory

who lent him money now realized he wasn't going to get it back because this guy went bankrupt. So this director started a huge statement. to make sure he wouldn't be blamed for it and reported it to the authorities. And one of the people they interrogated claimed that they'd sent me money. And these people decided this was a good reason because I had allegedly received money but didn't pay tax on it.

At this point that first Vice Premier gave the order to pursue it at any cost, what's more, even if we pretend this actually happened, it would have happened in 1992 when it wasn't illegal. It became a crime under a law passed in 1995. So they applied a law passed three years after the event had supposedly happened. It was totally illegal. And this was your punishment for implementing policies that were not pro-Western? Yes, they did it.

to get rid of me. You were in the way? Yes. I was a deputy minister who was genuinely creative. I was forced to flee. And the moment I did, they forgot all about me. They didn't look for me ever again. The objective was to get rid of me.

My minister became a vice premier. He was replaced with a complete zero. That is another horror. story. The former vice-premier was sent to work in a business and the ministry was destroyed. So you see what happened to you as part of the successful effort to destroy the ministry you worked in? Yes, which is what happened. That zero left his role as minister within a year and was replaced with some random. A year later, the ministry was shut down. And the moment we were taken apart, the ministry stopped carrying out that order.

It stopped pursuing a pro-Russian policy in the former Soviet Union. A reasonable person might ask, is it possible they simply concluded that you didn't pay your taxes and pursued you fairly under the law? under the law, they could have pursued this as a crime if it had happened after 1995. First of all, they had no evidence. Secondly, it's alleged to have happened at a time when it wasn't a crime. Under the law, it became a crime three years after it allegedly happened. Did anyone tell you this was because of politics? Yes.

The vice premier's assistant told me, don't try to speak to him again. He gave the order. So you went to try to see him? Yes. I wanted to see him to say, come on, enough. How can we sort this out? But I was told, no, he gave the order and that's it.

I also talked to the investigator of the case. I said, what are you doing? You're breaking the law? He said, we've been given the order to get this to court by any means necessary. Yes, we know it's against the law. The court will decide. I understood at that time the judge could be given an order just like the investigators, to put me in jail by any means necessary.

That's why I got on a plane. Russia wasn't a country with blind justice at that time, let's say. Justice was extremely not blind. So Lady Justice had both her eyes open. To be honest, the idea of blind justice is as much of a myth as communism. There's no such thing. A judge is only human. So he can be influenced.

He has his own interests. And if he's clever enough, he can work out a way of doing everything to his benefit. So they had an order to get the case to court. The court likely would have had an order to put me in jail no matter what. And that's why you decided to leave? Yes. I was fired thankfully. I tried to resign three times.

I said, let me go handle this. And then you can take me back if you want. They rejected my resignation and then fired me with pomp and ceremony. with the Prime Minister saying, we got rid of the bastard, the people can now rejoice. What was the outcome of the case in the end? It just sat there for many years with no follow-up and was eventually annulled together

with lots of other unlawful cases like it. On the order of the current president, not Yeltsin on his order they closed all these open unlawful cases so the case has been closed for many years

I am not a suspect but it was enough to stop me from doing what I was doing and that's my story so we will leave the story here and we'll continue in our next conversation In the second part, we focus on history, theories about geopolitics and tribal dynamics,

as well as Lev Gumelov's theory of ethnic group dynamics and a lot more.