The biography of Anatoly Borisovich Chubais is of great interest to anyone interested in the history of modern Russia. The hero of our article played especially great importance in politics in the 90s, having gone from an ordinary deputy to the federal minister of finance. Many political reforms are associated with his name, many of which are still viewed negatively, such as global privatization. From this article you will learn about his biography, personal life and career.
Childhood and youth
The story of the biography of Anatoly Borisovich Chubais will begin in 1955, when he was born into a military family in Borisov. His father later taught the philosophy of Lenin and Marx at the Leningrad Mining Institute. Mother Raisa Khamovna was an economist by profession, but devoted most of her life to raising children. Chubais has a dual nationality - Jewish by mother and Russian by father.
The future politician wasthe second child in the family. His older brother Igor followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a doctor of philosophy. Now he heads the Russian Studies Department at the Institute of Social Sciences.
In the biography of Anatoly Borisovich Chubais, since childhood, there have been many moves to the garrisons due to the specifics of his father's service. Anatoly was brought up with his older brother Igor in strictness.
It is believed that the discussions that regularly arose between his father and older brother about philosophy and politics had a significant influence on him. Apparently, this played a role in choosing his future profession. As a result, he preferred an economic career to a philosophical career, since he achieved special success in the exact sciences from his school days.
Education
Chubais went to first grade in Odessa. Then he studied in Lvov for some time, only by his fifth grade the family moved to Leningrad. Anatoly was sent to school No. 188 with a military-political bias. Later, the politician repeatedly admitted that he hated this educational institution, somehow he even tried to dismantle it into bricks, but the idea failed.
In 1972, a significant event occurred in the biography of Anatoly Borisovich Chubais, when he became a student of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Engineering and Economic Institute in Leningrad. He graduated from the university in 1977 with honors, and already in 1983 he successfully defended his Ph. D. thesis in economics.
Early career
His career began within the walls of his native university. He was an assistant in the department, then an assistant professor.
In the same years, Chubais became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Together with like-minded people on the basis of the institute, he created a circle of democratically minded economists in St. Petersburg. They held heated discussions about how the country should develop, held economic seminars.
The ultimate goal of all these meetings was to promote democratic ideas to the broad masses of the Leningrad intelligentsia. Just at one of these seminars, Chubais met the future head of the government of the Russian Federation, Yegor Gaidar. This meeting became decisive in the development of his future career.
Political activities
In the late 80s, Chubais became one of the leaders of the Perestroika discussion club. Its members were economists, most of whom later went on to key positions in the Russian government. Soon they began to be called "young reformers", they played a fairly large role in society, having managed to attract the attention of the local political elite, which very soon took a key role in the Northern capital.
After Anatoly Sobchak became chairman of the Lensoviet, Chubais was elected his deputy. The hero of our article was nominated for this position as one of the leaders of the democratic movement in the city. In addition, his political views impressed the regional leadership.
In 1991, Chubais received an offer to become the chief adviser on economic development at the Leningrad mayor's office. He agreed, and soon createdworking group, which set about creating an economic strategy for the entire country. His further career developed quite rapidly. In November, he was already the head of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for State Property Management, and the following year he received a place in the team of the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin.
Government work
In his new position, Chubais, with a team of professional economists, developed a plan for large-scale privatization and carried out its technical preparation. This became the main and most resonant project in the career of a politician, which is still being actively discussed, there is still no unambiguous attitude towards it.
As a result of the privatization campaign, more than 130,000 state-owned enterprises ended up in private ownership. Most modern experts are skeptical about how this reform was carried out, considering its results to be extremely unsatisfactory. However, this did not prevent the politician himself from moving further up the career ladder, occupying more and more significant posts.
By the end of 1993, Chubais won the elections to the State Duma from the party "Choice of Russia", and in November he became the first deputy chairman of the government of the Russian Federation. In parallel, he received the position of head of the Federal Commission, which de alt with securities and the stock market.
On Yeltsin's team
It is known that Chubais played an important role in 1996 during the presidential elections in Russia. He wasdirect leader of Yeltsin's election campaign. For this, the Civil Society Foundation was created. An analytical group began to work on its basis. The result of their activities was truly outstanding.
On the eve of the elections, Yeltsin's rating was minimal, but as a result of the use of successful political technologies, he steadily grew. As a result, in the first round, unexpectedly for many, the future president managed to get around the communist Gennady Zyuganov, who was considered the leader of the race. Yeltsin won 35.3% of the vote against 32% for the head of the Communist Party. In the second round, the decisive support was given to Boris Nikolayevich by Alexander Lebed, who took third place with 14.5%. As a result, Yeltsin won with 53.8% of the vote. Almost forty and a half million voters voted for him.
That election campaign was overshadowed by a number of political scandals. It was then that the famous "copier box" incident took place. On the night of June 20, a producer of Yeltsin's headquarters, Sergei Lisovsky, who was in charge of PR, was detained in the White House, as well as an activist from the campaign headquarters, Arkady Yevstafiev. According to a widespread version, which has not been officially confirmed, a box from a photocopier was seized from them, in which there were 500 thousand dollars.
It is known that the initiators of the detention were the head of Yeltsin's security service, Mikhail Korzhakov, the first deputy prime minister, Oleg Soskovets, and the head of the FSB, Mikhail Barsukov. It was an attempt by conservatives from Yeltsin's entourage to seize the initiative from the hands of"young reformers", including Chubais. The plan failed, the next morning Korzhakov, Barsukov and Soskovets lost their posts.
Chubais himself later stated that Lisovsky and Evstafiev had no money, allegedly they were planted by Korzhakov's people.
However, in April of the following year, a criminal case was nevertheless initiated due to illegal currency transactions on an especially large scale. It was closed soon after, as investigators were unable to find the owners of the box.
Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, who was also part of the headquarters, repeatedly spoke about the role of Chubais in the election campaign. According to her, when in early 1996 it became obvious to the environment that the headquarters led by Soskovets was failing, it was Chubais who convinced the president to create a new structure, which they called the analytical group. It was she who played a decisive role in Yeltsin's victory.
In RAO "UES of Russia"
In 1997, Chubais returned to the government to the post of First Deputy Prime Minister, in parallel becoming the Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation. But he did not stay long in this position. Already in the spring of 1998, he left the service, having retired with the entire cabinet of the head of government.
Anatoly Borisovich did not sit without work for a long time. In the same year, he won the election of the head of the board of the Russian joint-stock company "Unified Energy System of Russia". In this position, he carried out a new large-scale reform. Within its framework, he began the restructuring of all the structures that make up the holding, transferring the lion's share of their shares to privatearms. And this policy reform was actively criticized by many. In conservative circles, Chubais began to be called the worst manager in Russia. However, the situation soon changed.
In 2008, the energy company was finally liquidated. Chubais was appointed general director of the state-owned "Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies". Three years later, under his leadership, it was reorganized into the RUSNANO open joint stock company, where Anatoly Borisovich Chubais currently works. The company is considered the leading innovative enterprise in Russia.
Modern experts positively assess Chubais' work at RUSNANO. In particular, over the past decade, the company has built 96 plants in 37 regions of the Russian Federation. Now many are saying that Chubais made himself known as an effective manager.
Anatoly Borisovich himself considers the solar energy development project to be one of the most important and successful in his career. In Chuvashia, RUSNANO built the Hevel plant, which switched from imported technology with an efficiency of 9% to domestic technology, the efficiency of which was 22%. Thus, today the company is in the top three leaders in the world in terms of efficiency.
Another successful project was the development of nuclear medicine. The PET-Technology company has created eleven tomography centers for diagnosing cardiological, oncological and neurological diseases, as well as fortreatment of oncology by radiosurgery.
Attempt
The assassination attempt on Chubais was committed in March 2005. The hero of our article, a few months before, claimed in an interview that he knew about the impending attack. According to him, the assassination attempt should take place for political reasons, as part of the society is dissatisfied with his activities and believes that he "sold out Russia".
On March 17, an explosive device went off on the way of his car near the village of Zhavoronki, Odintsovo district. According to experts, its capacity ranged from 3 to 12 kg of TNT. Immediately after that, the politician's car was fired from machine guns. As a result of the assassination attempt, no one was hurt, as the car was armored.
The defendants were retired GRU colonel Vladimir Kvachkov, two former paratroopers named Naydenov and Yashin, and a member of the executive committee of the "Congress of Russian Communities" Ivan Mironov. According to investigators, the crime was committed because of hostility towards Chubais on the basis of extremist views.
The defendants in the case were accused under five articles, the jury was assembled three times. She finally acquitted herself in June 2008.
Soon the verdict was appealed, the case was sent for a new trial. In September 2010, the jury again acquitted the defendants, this time definitively. However, three months later, Kvachkov was detained again. Now on charges of terrorism and organizing a rebellion. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, later reduced to 8 years.
Income
The fortune of Anatoly Borisovich Chubais is growing. Many media write about it. If in the early 2010s he declared about 200 million rubles a year, then in 2015 his income amounted to almost a billion rubles.
According to experts, the main profit came from operations with securities.
Among his assets are two apartments in Moscow, one in St. Petersburg, another one in Portugal, where Chubais hardly lives now.
Private life
For the first time, a politician married in his student years. His first wife, Lyudmila Chubais, bore him two children. Olga and Alexei became certified economists. The son is now 38 years old, the daughter is three years younger. After the divorce, Lyudmila Chubais started the restaurant business in St. Petersburg.
In the early 90s, Anatoly Borisovich married a second time. His chosen one was the economist Maria Vishnevskaya. Chubais's wife is of Polish nationality. They lived together until 2011, after more than two decades of marriage they divorced.
Currently, the wife of Anatoly Borisovich Chubais is a journalist and director Avdotya Smirnova. Many members of the public criticized the politician for trying to establish a personal life in old age. At that time, he was 57 years old, and his wife was only 43. However, the big age difference does not interfere with the happiness of the spouses.
Now Avdotya Smirnova and Chubais have been living together for six years now. For the wife of the hero of our article, that year, inwhich they played a wedding, turned out to be very fruitful. As a director, she released the short film "Pilaf" and the tragicomedy "Kokoko" with actresses Anna Mikhalkova and Yana Troyanova in the lead roles. In 2018, another of her films was released - the drama "The Story of a Destination".
Avdotya Smirnova and Chubais live in Moscow. They prefer to devote their free time to traveling and outdoor activities. The politician himself is fond of water tourism and skiing, which allows him to keep fit.
Family Anatoly Borisovich Chubais, as he himself admits, is now devoting much more time than before.
