Finance Minister of the Russian Federation Anton Siluanov. Biography, activity

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

Anton Siluanov, aged 52, is a Russian politician and economist. For the last four years he has headed the Russian Ministry of Finance and represented the interests of the Russian Federation in international financial organizations: the IMF and the World Bank.

Origin and years of study

Where was Anton Siluanov born? His biography began in Moscow in 1963, in the family of a responsible worker of the then Union Ministry of Finance. So we can say that Siluanov is a hereditary financier. Nothing is known about the childhood and youth of the current minister, because before his appointment he was an absolutely non-public figure. But you must admit that it is difficult not to assume the decisive influence of his father on Anton's choice to follow in his footsteps and enter the Moscow Financial Institute, which he successfully graduated in 1985.

Many are interested in the question "what is the nationality of Anton Siluanov?". With a purely Russian surname and the absence of pronounced Jewish features in appearance, one can often find unfoundedaccusations of belonging to the Jewish people (as if it were a crime!). The name of his mother, Yanina Nikolaevna (remember the charming Belarusian Yanina Zheimo, who played the role of Cinderella in the classic Soviet film fairy tale), or his father, German Mikhailovich (by the way, Reverend German is one of the founders of the Valaam monastery) is exaggerated. Of course, some lover of physiognomy can find in Siluanov's appearance some signs of the presence of "Jewish blood" (such zealots of "national purity" would probably deny Pushkin the right to be called Russian), but he himself never mentions about this and does not participate in the work of any of the many Jewish public organizations.

The beginning of a career in the Soviet period

From August 1985 to March 1987, Anton Germanovich Siluanov served as an economist, and then as a senior economist at the Ministry of Finance of the RSFSR. In March 1987 he was drafted into the Soviet Army. In fact, this is a very remarkable fact of his biography. Surely an employee of the central body of state administration, and even in the presence of a high-ranking father in the same system of the Ministry of Finance, could, as they say, “get off” from army service. But the future Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov honestly preferred, like millions of his other compatriots, to pull the army strap for two years (albeit in the KGB troops, and as the head of the finance unit), which, in the author's opinion, characterizes him very positively.

Returning from service in May 1989, he until January 1992continued his career at the Ministry of Finance of the RSFSR, going from senior economist to deputy head of a subdivision and consultant to the Ministry of Finance in less than three years.

Career in the 90s

How did Anton Siluanov get settled in the new Russia? His biography turned out to be inextricably linked with the Ministry of Finance. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new Russian authorities were seized by a reformist rage. The financial system of the state did not remain outside the field of their transformations. So, already in November 1991, it was decided to merge the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation with the simultaneous liquidation of the USSR Ministry of Finance (and after all, USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev was still sitting in the Kremlin!). The new department was named the Ministry of Economic Finance. Anton Germanovich Siluanov was appointed to the position of deputy head of the department.

However, the newborn ministry lasted only three months and in February 1992 it was again divided into the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Finance. It is quite natural that our hero stayed to work in the latter. From February 1992 to October 1997, he was deputy head of the budget management department, then deputy head of the budget department, and finally became head of this department.

An interesting fact is that together with Anton Siluanov at that time his father, German Siluanov, who in 1996 was deputy head of the credit and monetary circulation department, worked in the Ministry of Finance. Soon this department was merged with another one dealing with macroeconomic policy, so that a new department of macroeconomics and banking was formed, whichand headed by Anton Siluanov. His biography in the 90s reached its career peak on this.

It should be noted that in 1994 he received his Ph. D.

The Russian Ministry of Finance as a breeding ground for executives

Having worked all the "dashing 90s" within the walls of this department, Anton Siluanov probably avoided many temptations and dangers that threatened his peers, who entered the slippery slope of Russian business at that time. Employees of the Ministry of Finance simply did their job with all the changes in Russian reality that took place outside the windows of their building. The country was shaken by defaults, strikes, political crises, even two Chechen wars, and despite all this, the financiers continued to pore over their estimates, distributing the meager Russian budget among the regions.

At the same time, the Ministry of Finance raised a whole galaxy of leaders who managed to prove themselves in a number of other areas. So, Tatyana Golikova and Viktor Khristenko found each other in its corridors. Yegor Gaidar and Mikhail Kasyanov passed through the post of head of the Ministry of Finance to the premier's chair. Anatoly Chubais, who is now nurturing the young Russian nanoindustry, has "draped" as Minister of Finance and unsinkable despite all the Russian changes. And how many well-known bankers, like the current president of VTB 24, Mikhail Zadornov, have left the bowels of the Ministry of Finance, you can’t count them.

Here are somefamous people probably crossed the current head of the Ministry of Finance Anton Siluanov.

Career in the new millennium

March 22, 2001 Siluanov joined the board of the Ministry of Finance. From July 2003 to May 2004 he was Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. His tasks included overseeing relations between the budgets of the subjects of the federation. In May of the same year, a specialized department for these issues (interbudgetary relations) was created in the ministry, headed by Siluanov. From December next year, he again took the chair of the Deputy Minister in charge of relations between budgets.

In general, this area is considered Siluanov's specialization in financial circles. This is a very troublesome business, with a very strong addition of politics to ordinary accounting (on the scale not of an enterprise, but of the state, of course). Judge for yourself, reader. There are as many as 85 equal subjects in the Russian Federation. And the authorities of each of them strive to use their budgets as they please, arguing their costs with the needs of the region. Subjects tend to enter into relationships bypassing the federal center, because they can be close geographically, but, figuratively speaking, “half the world” from Moscow. Unfortunately, different people come to power in the localities (the recent story with the leadership of the Komi Republic, who unanimously moved from positions of authority to prison bunk beds, very clearly confirmed this). So from the federal center behind these transactions you need, as they say, an eye and an eye. And such an “eye of the sovereign” was Anton Siluanov. In this capacity, knowing everythingundercover moves of the regional authorities, he often accompanied Prime Minister Putin on trips around the country. At the same time, State Duma deputies, in particular, from the Just Russia faction, speak of him as an honest person who has not been seen lobbying for anyone's commercial interests.

Kudrin's resignation

In September 2011, after it finally became clear that Dmitry Medvedev would become the new prime minister, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin resigned from his post. True, he tried to present his resignation as the result of some fundamental disagreements with the top Russian leadership, emphasizing the inadmissibility of an excessive (in his opinion) increase in military spending (I wonder if Kudrin would use the same argument today?). But it was clear to anyone with even the slightest understanding of the alignment of forces in the new configuration of Russian executive power: Kudrin was too accustomed to working directly with Putin, either the president or the prime minister. And he did not want to (or could not) adapt to the new prime minister, and even with presidential experience.

Appointment to a ministerial post

As a result, on September 27, 2011, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appointed Siluanov acting. Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation. At the same time, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation Igor Shuvalov assumed Kudrin's duties as Deputy Prime Minister responsible for the economic bloc. So Siluanov got only Russian finances from the sphere of Kudrin's duties and powers. He also replaced his predecessor in the ministerial post on the councilGovernors of the IMF, the World Bank and the EurAsEC Anti-Crisis Council.

After taking over as prime minister in December 2011, Dmitry Medvedev appointed Siluanov to the post of head of the Ministry of Finance on a permanent basis

Activities as Minister of Finance

How did Anton Siluanov prove himself in his new high post? His biography (already ministerial) developed quite normally in the first two years of his work. Oil and gas prices made it possible to reduce the budget without a deficit, so everything seemed to be fine. True, there was one snag. Having assumed the office of the President of the Russian Federation in 2012, Vladimir Putin issued a series of decrees, popularly known as the "May" decrees, aimed at improving the living standards of Russian citizens, primarily public sector workers: teachers, doctors, professors. That is, the president did not have enough of a deficit-free budget, he demanded an increase in spending on social needs and directed this demand specifically to the Ministry of Finance, that is, to Siluanov. However, the implementation of the "May" decrees turned out to be unbearable for the country's financial system, and Siluanov repeatedly stated the need to postpone them, causing the president's displeasure and mentioning "public political personal responsibility" on his part.

It is not known how this constant delay in fulfilling presidential election promises would have ended for Siluanov, but at the beginning of 2014 Ukrainian events erupted, followed by the annexation of Crimea, Western sanctions, then the war in Donbass, tightening sanctions, and everyone inIt became clear to Russia that in the coming years the country would be “not up to fat”. The topic of fulfilling the “May Decrees” naturally disappeared, but life did not become easier for Siluanov. After all, the Russian budget has become in deficit (for two consecutive years, its deficit has exceeded 2.5 trillion rubles). To cover this deficit, Siluanov had to empty the Reserve Fund, created at the time by Kudrin.

This autumn, Siluanov sounded the alarm. He publicly announced that this year the size of the Reserve Fund will be reduced by more than half, and next year its funds will be exhausted. And what's next - the reduction of social benefits? There is no answer yet, but Prime Minister Medvedev, in his interview to Russian TV channels in December of this year, hastened to reassure the Russians, calling Siluanov a “bad cop” and himself a good one, hinting that Anton Germanovich was exaggerating. I wish I could believe it.

On what other issues concerning the majority of Russians did Anton Siluanov speak? The retirement age, in his opinion, will inevitably have to be raised, and the sooner this happens, the better. The opinion, of course, is debatable, but it must be taken into account that Russians retire almost before anyone else in the world.

A few words about the minister's personal life

Anton Siluanov's wife also works in the financial sector. They have a 16-year-old son Gleb. The Siluanovs like to dine at a good restaurant on weekends, they spend their holidays in French Courchevel.