Viktor Khristenko: biography, professional activity

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

Viktor Khristenko (date of birth - August 28, 1957) is a well-known Russian statesman of recent decades. Previously, he held senior positions in the government, today he leads the central governing body of the EAEU.

An amazing family story

Where did Viktor Khristenko start his life? His biography began in Chelyabinsk, but the family in which he was born has its own unique and noteworthy story. His father, Boris Nikolaevich, was born in Harbin, the capital of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in the family of a railway worker. In 1935, together with tens of thousands of other Harbin employees of the CER, the family of Boris Khristenko (parents and two sons) returned to the USSR. And then the same nightmare began, which was possible only in the country of victorious socialism. All Khristenkos were arrested, the father of the family was immediately shot, his mother was tortured in the camps, and Boris's brother went mad in the NKVD prison. Boris himself survived a ten-year term in the camps and was released only after the war. Already a pensioner, Boris Khristenko, at the request of his son Victor, described his life ups and downs inan autobiographical book, which, although it was not published, still had some circulation among the people with whom Viktor Khristenko communicated. It also fell into the hands of the famous screenwriter Eduard Volodarsky, who, on its basis, wrote the script for the series “It all started in Harbin”. It is worth watching, because everything that is shown in it is not just pure truth, but an almost documentary retelling of the real life story of Boris Khristenko (they only changed his last name in the film).

Even more surprising is that Viktor Khristenko's mother, Lyudmila Nikitichna, also comes from a family of the repressed: her father was shot, and she herself escaped arrest only because she was then only 14 years old. Such is the family story.

The start of the journey

Could all these unusual circumstances have not affected the fate of such a well-known person in our country as Viktor Borisovich Khristenko? His biography, however, looks quite usual for a Soviet person born in the late 50s. First, a school, then the construction department of the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic University (by the way, his father, Boris Nikolaevich, was an assistant professor at this university at that time).

After completing his studies, Viktor was assigned to his native university, worked as an engineer at the department, studied in absentia at the Moscow Institute of Management, then became the head of the laboratory, taught and in the late 80s was already an assistant professor. So Victor Khristenko would have continued his path in the footsteps of his father, but changes broke out in the country.

Startgovernment careers

In 1990, a young scientist Viktor Borisovich Khristenko ran for election to the city council of Chelyabinsk and defeated his rivals. An educated and energetic specialist quickly moves up the career ladder, becomes a member of the presidium of the council, heads the commission to develop the concept of Chelyabinsk development. However, the time of "soviets" was already drawing to a close, and Viktor Khristenko was going to work in the executive branch - the city executive committee, where he de alt with the management of the city's property. After the collapse of the USSR, he was appointed deputy, then first deputy governor of the region. He does not waste time, he studies at the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation. Politically, he is an active supporter of Boris Yeltsin, heads the Our Home is Russia party in Chelyabinsk.

1996 presidential election

Today, few people remember those events when the Russians decided who would become the president of the country - Yeltsin or Zyuganov. Khristenko Viktor Borisovich did everything in his power to ensure that the people of Chelyabinsk cast their votes for the re-election of the incumbent president for a second term. During the election campaign, he was a confidant of Boris Yeltsin, actively spoke at rallies and meetings, campaigning for him. After the re-election of the president for the second line, Khristenko is appointed as his plenipotentiary representative in the region.

The beginning of a government career

In the summer of 1997, Khristenko moved to Moscow and held the position of Deputy MinisterFinance of the Russian Federation in the government of Viktor Chernomyrdin. Crisis phenomena were growing in the country, which in the spring of 1998 led to the resignation of Chernomyrdin and the formation of a new Cabinet under the leadership of Sergei Kiriyenko. The new prime minister, who, like Viktor Khristenko, only moved to Moscow from the provinces (from Nizhny Novgorod) in 1997, offered his peer the post of deputy prime minister responsible for developing financial policy.

After the default in the Russian Federation and during the ensuing crisis, Khristenko headed the government for a couple of months as acting. (so there is also a prime minister position in his biography!) until Yevgeny Primakov came there.

All prime ministers need a good special

The new prime minister did not expel the "valuable personnel" - he returned Khristenko to the post of deputy finance minister. Stepashin, who replaced Primakov eight months later, again offered him the post of First Deputy Prime Minister. Vladimir Putin, who soon sat down in the premier's chair, did not move him either. Kasyanov, who came after him, left Khristenko in the same position in which he had been until March 2004, when the government was left without a prime minister for half a month. And again, even if only for a couple of weeks, but Viktor Khristenko becomes acting. Prime Minister of the Russian Federation - the second time in his career.

Fradkov, who headed the government, moves Khristenko to the post of Minister of Energy and Industry, which the latter retains even under Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov until May 2008. Vladimir Putin, who again headed the government of the Russian Federation, leaves him in the same ministerial position.

Transition to work in supranational structures

During that period, international cooperation between the Russian Federation and Belarus and Kazakhstan was actively developing within the framework of the Customs Union, the creation of the EAEU was being prepared. Prime Minister Putin considered that Viktor Khristenko could be entrusted with leading the executive body of the emerging community. In November 2011, he was elected chairman of the Board of the Economic Commission of the EAEU, which is a kind of analogue of the European Commission. So the post held by Viktor Khristenko is approximately the same as that held by Zh. K. Juncker. His term expires in December of this year.

Viktor Khristenko's family

Even in his student years, he met a girl, his classmate Nadezhda, with whom he tied his fate for two long decades. In this marriage, they had three children, a son and two daughters. But Viktor Khristenko, whose biography, family and life principles seemed unshakable, at the age of 45 takes a new turn in his life path. He divorces and enters into a new marriage in 2002 - with Tatyana Golikova, who was his colleague in the Ministry of Finance for many years. In the second government of Putin, she became the Minister of He alth and Social Policy, and is now the head of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation.