Aleksey Kudrin - long-term head of the Russian Ministry of Finance

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:42

Kudrin Alexey Leonidovich (born October 12, 1960) is a Russian statesman who headed the Ministry of Finance for more than 10 years. He remains one of the most promising figures in Russian politics and the informal leader of the liberal-democratic trend in it.

Childhood and years of study

Where does Alexei Kudrin lead his life from? His biography began in Latvia, in the family of a military man. During the first seventeen years of his life, Alexei had a chance to wander a lot with his family across the vast expanses of the Soviet Union, but this was the fate of the families of most Soviet officers. From Latvia, eight-year-old Lesha goes all the way to Mongolia (can you imagine what a contrast!), then, at the age of eleven, to Transbaikalia, then, at the age of fourteen, to Arkhangelsk, where he managed to finish school.

The first attempt to enter in 1978 for a full-time education at the Leningrad State University for Alexei was unsuccessful, he was offered to receive education in the evening form, at the Faculty of Economics. But over him hung the possibility of being drafted into the militaryservice, and in order to avoid it, his father advised Alexei to get a job at a military university - the Academy of Logistics and Transport of the Ministry of Defense. Having turned the nuts for a couple of years in the engine laboratory of this institution, Alexei Kudrin is successfully transferred to the full-time department of the university. He successfully graduated in 1983.

Career start

After defending his diploma, Alexei Kudrin is assigned to one of the Leningrad academic institutes dealing with economics, and has an internship there for a couple of years. Apparently, having proven himself well, in December 1985 he entered graduate school at the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences and a couple of years later defended his Ph. D. thesis. Then he returns to his native Leningrad Institute and until 1990, to the best of his ability, develops Soviet economic science.

Coming into civil service

In 1990, in Leningrad, around the newly elected Presidential Council of Anatoly Sobchak, who the next year became the first mayor of St. Petersburg, a team of promising young managers began to form, to which Alexei Kudrin was also invited. He leaves his scientific activity and goes to work in the executive committee of the Leningrad City Council, where he leads the Committee on Economic Reform. Until 1993, Aleksey Kudrin worked in various positions related to economics and finance in the city administration. Then he was appointed First Deputy Mayor, Chairman of the Committee for Economics and Finance of the St. Petersburg City Hall. During the same period, as deputy mayor next to himVladimir Putin also worked.

Civil service in Moscow during Boris Yeltsin's presidency

After the defeat of Anatoly Sobchak in the mayoral elections in 1996, his team broke up. Alexei Kudrin was invited by Anatoly Chubais, who was then in charge of the presidential administration (AP), to Moscow for the post of head of the Main KRU AP. Soon, he invited Vladimir Putin, a colleague from the St. Petersburg mayor's office, to the post of his deputy in the KRU. Since March 1997, he became the first deputy finance minister of Chubais in the Chernomyrdin government and retained this position during the short premiership of Sergei Kiriyenko. But the famous Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who overcame the crisis of 1998, clearly did not like Alexey Kudrin, and he forced him to leave his post. After serving half a year in RAO UES of Russia under the wing of former patron Chubais, our hero waited until the decrepit Yeltsin removed Primakov, who was rapidly gaining popularity, and returned to the Ministry of Finance as first deputy after Stepashin was appointed prime minister.

Finance Minister

After Vladimir Putin took over as president and then head of the government, Alexei Kudrin served as head of the Ministry of Finance from May 2000 to September 2011.

During this period, the macroeconomic situation for Russia was very favorable due to the steady rise in prices for exported oil and gas. Alexei Kudrin kept the additional income from oil exports in a specially created Stabilization Fund. Many loyal to the Russian governmenteconomists defined its creation as one of the main achievements of Kudrin. Nevertheless, other analysts characterized the Stabilization Fund as "dead money" that does not benefit the real sector of the economy. This fund was split into the Reserve Fund and the National We alth Fund in February 2008. The funds accumulated in them, of course, allowed the Russian Federation to relatively painlessly endure the acute phase of the global financial and economic crisis of 2008-2009. And this circumstance once again confirmed the fact that Alexei Kudrin was right in choosing the direction of the Russian government's financial strategy.

Voice resignation from ministerial post

In 2011, after the unprecedented reshuffling of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev as president of the Russian Federation and prime minister in world history, Alexei Leonidovich Kudrin faced a dilemma: to continue working under the prime minister, behind which stands the experience and authority of presidential power, or leave. He chose the second option, however, after a series of serious disagreements with his new boss and the latter's unequivocal offer to resign from the post of head of the Ministry of Finance. President Putin did not interfere in this conflict, and Alexei Kudrin took up teaching at St. Petersburg State University. He remained, according to the president, his friend and a member of his team. Kudrin Alexey Leonidovich, whose photo of the period after leaving the government is shown above, remains a leading Russian economist, is actively involved insocial and political life of the country, leads the public organization "Committee of Civil Initiatives".