In the chaotic history of Russia between the late Gorbachev years and the 2000 elections of Vladimir Putin, there was at least one constant. As a behind-the-scenes adviser and diplomatic mediator, and then the chief spy, foreign minister and briefly prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov rewarded this troubled period with illusory stability.
Childhood
Evgeny Maksimovich Primakov was born on October 29, 1929 in Kiev. Soon after the birth of his son, his father left the family, and later in 1937 he was repressed. Together with his mother, a doctor, he moved to Tbilisi to live with her relatives, Georgia, where he grew up and received his secondary education.
Career
After graduating from the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies in 1953, he worked on radio before becoming a journalist for the newspaper Pravda. Fluent in Arabic, he became the newspaper's special correspondent in the Middle East and head of the Cairo bureau, a position that in Soviet times inevitably obliged him to cooperate with the KGB. During this time, he personally met many Arab leaders, and until his death, Primakov was considered the main expert in our country on the affairs of the Middle East.
In 1970, he left Pravda, after which he held various leadership positions in the think tank of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for almost two decades. It was only in 1989 that he began his political career when, at the height of perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev, he was elected head of one of the two chambers of the Soviet parliament.
Primakov never belonged to Gorbachev's inner circle of reformer advisers, but they tried to use his rich Middle Eastern experience by sending him to Iraq on the eve of the first Gulf War, in a vain attempt to persuade Saddam Hussein to withdraw his troops from Kuwait, alas, but this attempt failed.
Seven months later, in August 1991, after the putsch, Primakov was appointed first deputy chairman of the KGB. In this position, he met the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. But Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation, decided not to waste valuable personnel and appointed him head of the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Primakov held this post until 1996, after which he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. In his new position, Evgeny Maksimovich worked for two years. During this time, he has earned great international respect as an experienced and cunning defender of the interests of his country. In August 1998, an economic crisis hit, in which Russia defaulted on $ 40 billion in debt and devalued the ruble.
A visibly fading and deeply unpopular Yeltsin named Primakov as prime minister, a few months in office that marked the pinnacle of his political career. Thanks to his harsh disposition and measured style, he quickly won popular love and became the country's most popular politician.
Many argue that this is why Yeltsin fired him eight months later, in May 1999, seven months before his presidential term expired. Primakov was replaced by Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who by then was Yeltsin's preferred successor.
That summer, Primakov announced his plans to run for president, agreeing to lead a powerful electoral coalition opposing the Kremlin, and was the clear favorite for a while. But he turned 70 and his health left much to be desired. In December 1998, Primakov announced that he was giving up the fight for the presidency.
But his professional skills were still in demand. In 2003, when another Gulf War broke out, Putin sent him to Baghdad to persuade Saddam to step down and hand over his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations. As in 1991, his mission failed.
He was acutely worried about the collapse of the USSR and the fall of Russia's international prestige, and was an ardent supporter of a multipolar world to oppose the power of the United States. He proved this in 1999, when he received a message over the mid-Atlantic on its way to Washington that NATO had begun bombing targets in Yugoslavia to drive Serb forces out of Kosovo - after which he ordered the plane to turn around and return to Moscow. The maneuver was named "Primakov's Loop".
His favorite Western writer was John Le Carré, whom he met during a visit to London in the mid-1990s.
December 19, 1999 was elected to the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the third convocation. Chairman of the Fatherland - All Russia faction.
Two terms, from December 2001 to February 21, 2011 - President of the RF Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
On February 21, 2011, he announced his resignation from the post of President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, arguing that he had already held the post for two terms, and that was enough. On March 4, 2011, at the VI Congress of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he officially resigned as president.
Since November 23, 2012 - Chairman of the Board of Directors of OJSC RTI
For the last fourteen years of his life, Primakov was the chairman of the "Mercury Club", which includes veterans of "big politics." After each meeting of the club, Evgeny Maksimovich wrote an analytical note, which was then delivered by the courier to the Kremlin to the president. According to the memoirs of ex-official Valery Kuznetsov, Vladimir Vladimirovich regularly consulted with Yevgeny Maksimovich on various political issues.
In the highest political circles of Russia, Evgeny Maksimovich had the nickname "Primus". On Primakov's last birthday, October 29, 2014, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin presented him with a 1980s primus with the inscription "Record-1".
Death and burial
Evgeny Maksimovich Primakov died on June 26, 2015 in Moscow after a long illness - liver cancer. In 2014, Primakov underwent surgery in Milan, then underwent treatment at the Blokhin Russian Cancer Center. He was admitted to the hospital again on June 3, 2015.
On June 29, a civil funeral was held in the Column Hall of the House of Unions, then there was a funeral service in the Dormition Church of the Novodevichy Convent, which was performed by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. After that, Yevgeny Maksimovich was buried with military honors at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. Although Primakov himself wanted to be buried next to his first wife and son at the Kuntsevo cemetery
