Gulag survivor, world authority on Old Russian literature, moral conscience of late Soviet society
Solovki, autumn 1929. Warned that an arrest squad was coming for him, he hid all night among the woodpiles, listening to execution volleys. At dawn he understood: "Someone else was taken instead of me — I must now live for two."
Philologist and cultural historian from St. Petersburg. Arrested in 1928 for counter-revolutionary activity, he spent four years at Solovki camp. After release, he joined the Pushkin House, becoming the world's foremost authority on Old Russian literature. He led studies of The Tale of Igor's Campaign and edited the 12-volume Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus'. Elected Academician in 1970, he served as first chairman of the Soviet Cultural Foundation (1986–1993). He never joined the Communist Party, opposed Sakharov's Academy expulsion, and was called 'Russia's conscience' while a People's Deputy during perestroika. In 1998 he became the first recipient of the restored Order of St. Andrew.
Career timeline
1928–1932Arrested for counter-revolutionary activity; Solovki camp and Belbaltlag
1938Research fellow, IRLI (Pushkin House), USSR Academy of Sciences
1947Doctor of Philology
1953Corresponding Member, USSR Academy of Sciences
1970Full Academician, USSR Academy of Sciences
1986–1993Chairman, Soviet (later Russian) Cultural Foundation
Last President of the USSR Academy of Sciences and pioneer of computational mathematics in Siberia
“Science is a single living organism, not a conglomerate of autonomous mechanisms. Unfortunately, neither the politicians nor the scientific community have the concept of saving domestic science.” — 17 December 1991
An applied mathematician who built the centre of computational mathematics in Siberia and rose to the pinnacle of Soviet science administration. He pioneered nuclear-reactor calculations, atmospheric and ocean modelling, and mathematical immunology, laying the foundations with splitting methods and adjoint-equation theory. In 1964 he founded the Computing Centre in Novosibirsk, the USSR's first large-scale numerical-modelling centre. As GKNT Chairman and Deputy Premier from 1980, then Academy President from 1986, he steered Soviet science through perestroika. He became the last President of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Career timeline
1953–1962Head of Mathematics Dept, Physics Energy Institute, Obninsk
1964–1980Director, Computing Centre, Siberian Branch, USSR Acad. of Sciences
1975–1980Chairman, Siberian Branch & Vice-President, USSR Academy of Sciences
1980–1986Chairman, GKNT & Deputy Chairman, USSR Council of Ministers
Author and technical director of the 'Shelter' that encased Chernobyl's ruined Reactor 4
He personally climbed into a 'bathyscaphe' suspended from a crane hook to survey the ruined reactor.
A Soviet nuclear construction engineer from Tambov, he joined VNIPIET in 1953 after graduating from the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineering and spent his entire career at that one institute. He led the project to remediate the 1957 Kyshtym disaster, and in 1986 became the author and technical director of the 'Shelter' (Sarcophagus) that sealed Chernobyl's Reactor 4 in just 206 days: he personally surveyed the ruined reactor suspended in a 'bathyscaphe' from a crane hook and devised engineering solutions without world precedent. He later served as general director of VNIPIET (1989–1998), contributing to the recovery from the Arzamas explosion and the Kirovakan earthquake.
Career timeline
1953Joined VNIPIET as an engineer
1957Led the Kyshtym (Chelyabinsk-65) accident remediation project
1985–1989Chief engineer, VNIPIET
1986Author and technical director, 'Shelter' (Sarcophagus) project, Chernobyl Reactor 4
1989–1998General director, VNIPIET
1996Awarded Honoured Builder of the Russian Federation
The arms-control negotiator who secured the INF Treaty and managed the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan
"Over two and a half years we brought the positions so close that we managed to sign a treaty on the complete elimination of the most modern weapons of that time. Thank God I had the chance to participate in that process — I'm very pleased about it." — on the 1987 INF Treaty
A Soviet and Russian diplomat who served as First Deputy Foreign Minister (1986–1990) under Eduard Shevardnadze, anchoring late Cold War Soviet diplomacy. As Ambassador to Afghanistan (1988–1989) during the troop withdrawal, he secured guarantees from mujahideen leaders that they would not fire on departing forces. As chief arms-control negotiator he helped deliver the 1987 INF Treaty eliminating intermediate-range nuclear missiles. His career spanned Chargé d'Affaires in Washington under Anatoly Dobrynin, ambassadorships to India and France, the last Soviet Permanent Representative to the UN, and Russia's first post-Soviet Ambassador to the United States (1994–1998). After retiring from diplomacy he served as UN Under-Secretary-General, coordinating the repatriation of Kuwaiti missing persons and property until his death.
Career timeline
1952–1963MFA posts: European Dept, International Organizations Dept, UN Mission
1966–1977Counsellor and Minister-Counsellor, Soviet Embassy, Washington; Chargé d'Affaires
On 24 May 1990, in a Supreme Soviet session broadcast live nationwide, Ryzhkov said bread and food prices were unjustifiably low and had to rise. As ration cards appeared in hundreds of Soviet cities in 1989–1990, the televised statement shattered public confidence in his government.
Born 28 September 1929 in the village of Dyleevka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, into a miner's family, and died in Moscow on 28 February 2024 at 94; his family background is described as Russian. He rose from general director of Uralmash and first deputy chairman of Gosplan to chairman of the Council of Ministers in September 1985, holding office until the Council of Ministers was dissolved on 26 December 1990 while remaining formally head of government until Pavlov took over on 14 January 1991. After a December 1990 heart attack he ran in the 1991 Russian presidential election, finishing second to Yeltsin with about 13.36 million votes. He was elected to the State Duma in 1995 and joined the Federation Council in 2003.
The last chairman of Soviet state science policy and a uranium geologist
Receiving the Global Energy Prize in 2009 he observed: "The Earth has always alternated between cold and warm periods, and humans have lived through only a very short moment on the geological time scale."
Soviet geologist and science administrator. His work on uranium deposits across Central Asia and Russia established the resource base for the Soviet nuclear fuel cycle, and in the final perestroika years he served simultaneously as chairman of the State Committee for Science and Technology (GKNT) and Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers: the last person to direct Soviet science and technology policy. As Vice President of the Soviet and then Russian Academy of Sciences from 1988 to 2013, he led the Earth sciences section and became a leading authority on radioactive waste disposal and Arctic research. He authored over 700 scientific papers and 28 monographs.
Career timeline
1958–1966IGEM uranium deposits lab, researcher → head
1966–1972Deputy Chief, Administration of Scientific Research Organizations, USSR Ministry of Geology
1968–1972Director, All-Union Geological Fund (VGF)
1972–1983Chief, Administration of Scientific Research Organizations, USSR Ministry of Geology
1979Corresponding Member, USSR Academy of Sciences
1987–1989President, Academy of Sciences of the Kirghiz SSR
1987Full Member (Academician), USSR Academy of Sciences
1988–2013Vice President, USSR / Russian Academy of Sciences
1989–1991Deputy Chairman, USSR Council of Ministers
1989–1991Chairman, USSR State Committee for Science and Technology (GKNT)
1991Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR and Minister for Science and Technology
The last deputy general secretary before dissolution
On the morning of 21 August 1991, with the coup clearly collapsing, Ivashko telephoned Vice President Yanayev from the Central Committee building and requested a plane to see Gorbachev. Refused, he was forced to board the flight to Foros alongside the very putschists — Yazov, Lukyanov and others — whose coup he had refused to endorse.
A mining engineer and economist from Kharkiv, he spent two decades in the Ukrainian party apparatus before succeeding Shcherbitsky as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party in 1989. In 1990 Gorbachev created the post of Deputy General Secretary for him, the only person ever to hold it. After the August 1991 coup, Gorbachev's resignation made Ivashko the final leader of the CPSU, but within five days the party's activity was suspended, and Soviet communism ended with him.
Career timeline
1989–1990First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party
1990–1991Deputy General Secretary of the CPSU
1991.08Briefly acting party leader after Gorbachev resigned
A liberal economist who helped design the transition from a planned to a market economy
In 1968, watching Soviet tanks crush the Prague Spring, Yasin later recalled: 'It all became clear to me in 1968.'
Yevgeny Yasin was an economist who developed reform proposals for moving the late Soviet planned economy toward a market economy. As a co-author in the Shatalin group’s 500 Days programme, he helped formulate a blueprint for rapid market transition, then worked in the reforming Russian state after the Soviet collapse. As Yeltsin’s economy minister, he represented the liberal reform line while confronting disputes over the transition’s social costs and the state’s capacity. He later shaped economic policy education and public debate through the Higher School of Economics and the Liberal Mission Foundation.
Career timeline
1957Graduated from the Odesa Institute of Hydraulic Engineering; bridge-construction engineer
1963Graduated from Moscow State University, Faculty of Economics
1964–1973Head of department and laboratory at the Research Institute of the Central Statistical Administration
1973–1989Headed a laboratory at the Central Institute of Economics and Mathematics, USSR Academy of Sciences
1989–1991Department head at the USSR Council of Ministers’ State Commission on Economic Reform; co-author of the 500 Days programme
1994–1997Minister of Economy of the Russian Federation
1998–2021Academic supervisor of the Higher School of Economics
2000–2019President of the Liberal Mission Foundation
Constitutional Assembly chairman and first elected mayor of Saint Petersburg
"Volodya, just don't turn to bronze" — last words to Putin, February 2000
Anatoly Sobchak was a legal scholar and democratic reformer who became the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg (1991–1996) and co-authored the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation as chairman of the Constitutional Assembly. A popular Leningrad State University law professor whose students included Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, he was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies in 1989 and co-chaired the Inter-Regional Deputies Group alongside Andrei Sakharov and Boris Yeltsin. During the August 1991 coup he organized resistance in Leningrad, negotiating with the military commander to keep troops off the streets and rallying 200,000 citizens on Palace Square. Corruption allegations forced him into exile in Paris from 1997 until Putin, then prime minister, secured his return in 1999.
Career timeline
1989–1990USSR People's Deputy
1989–1990Co-chair, Inter-Regional Deputies Group (with Sakharov & Yeltsin)
The Supreme Soviet chairman who stood with Yeltsin against the coup, then fell to Yeltsin's tanks
During the October 1993 siege of the White House, when Yeltsin offered safety guarantees, Khasbulatov replied: 'I need no guarantees, I can offer guarantees to Yeltsin myself.'
Ruslan Khasbulatov was a Chechen-born Soviet economist and Russian politician who became the last chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. On the day of the August 1991 coup, he was Yeltsin's closest ally: he personally drafted the appeal 'To the Citizens of Russia' and helped organize the defense of the White House. After the Soviet collapse, however, he turned the parliament into the center of opposition to Yeltsin's economic reforms and concentration of power, leading to the 1993 constitutional crisis in which he and Vice-President Rutskoy commanded the parliamentary resistance until tanks shelled the building and they were arrested. Amnestied in 1994, he left politics and returned to academia, teaching world economics at his alma mater.
Career timeline
1965Graduated from the Faculty of Law, Moscow State University
1970–1990Professor and head of the Department of International Economic Relations, Moscow Institute of National Economy (Plekhanov)
1990.03Elected RSFSR People's Deputy from the Grozny constituency
1990.06–1991.10First Deputy Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet
1991.07–10Acting Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet
1991.10–1993.10Chairman of the RSFSR/Russian Federation Supreme Soviet
1994–2023Head of the Department of World Economics, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics
Russia's only vice president: stood with Yeltsin against the coup, then fell to Yeltsin's tanks
During the shelling of the White House on 4 October 1993, Rutskoy shouted live on radio: "If the pilots can hear me, get your combat machines up! This gang has settled in the Kremlin.… Save the perishing democracy!"
One of the last Heroes of the Soviet Union and the only vice president Russia ever had. A combat pilot who flew 485 sorties in the Su-25 over Afghanistan, was shot down twice and captured, and received the Hero of the Soviet Union title in 1988. Elected RSFSR vice president in 1991 as Yeltsin's running mate, he helped organize the White House defense during the August coup, delivered a letter to Lukyanov demanding a medical examination of Gorbachev, and persuaded Patriarch Alexy II to declare the Church's support for Yeltsin. He later broke with Yeltsin over economic policy and power concentration, sided with the parliament, and was proclaimed acting president during the 1993 constitutional crisis before being arrested when tanks shelled the White House.
Career timeline
1971Graduated from Barnaul Higher Military Aviation School
1980Graduated from Gagarin Air Force Academy
1985–1988Afghanistan: commander, 378th Independent Attack Aviation Regiment; deputy commander, 40th Army Air Force
1988Awarded Hero of the Soviet Union
1990RSFSR People's Deputy, member of the Supreme Soviet
1990Graduated with distinction from the General Staff Academy
1991.07–1993.10Vice President of the RSFSR/Russian Federation
1993.09–10Proclaimed acting president by parliament; arrested
He recalled interpreting as searching for the threads connecting two languages.
Pavel Palazhchenko is an interpreter and writer whose work documents the decisive conversational spaces of late Soviet diplomacy. As the English interpreter for Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze, he took part in the US-Soviet summits at Geneva, Reykjavik, Malta and elsewhere. His memoir records not only leaders’ words but also the working processes of arms-control negotiations and the growth of trust, offering a Soviet-side account of the peaceful end of the Cold War. He later continued as an international-relations analyst and press official at the Gorbachev Foundation.
Career timeline
1966–1972Studied translation and interpreting at the Maurice Thorez Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages
1972–1974Completed the UN interpreter courses, then taught and interpreted at his institute
1974–1979Worked in the Russian section of the UN Secretariat interpretation service
1980–1985Worked in the USSR Foreign Ministry’s interpretation and US-Canada departments
1985–1991Chief English interpreter for Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, participating in US-Soviet summits
1991Worked in the office of the President of the USSR
1992–presentInternational-relations and press official and analyst at the Gorbachev Foundation
1997Published My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze: The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter
A Russian general shaped by obedience and uncompromising war
In August 1991, three protesters died when the armored column he commanded collided with a barricade in a Moscow tunnel.
Sergey Surovikin is a Russian military commander who began as a late-Soviet officer and rose to the highest levels of the post-Soviet armed forces. During the August 1991 coup attempt, he led a Taman Division BMP battalion into a Moscow tunnel where three protesters died in the confrontation; he was detained, but charges were dropped on the grounds that he had followed orders. He later commanded in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine, gaining recognition for operational effectiveness alongside scrutiny over civilian harm. His career traces one route by which the Soviet command structure survived its state’s dissolution and reappeared in Russia’s militarized power.
Career timeline
1987Graduated from the Omsk Higher Combined-Arms Command School; platoon and company commander in the Taman Guards Motor Rifle Division
1989–1991Served in Afghanistan; commander of the 1st Motor Rifle Battalion, Taman Division
1991Commanded a BMP battalion deployed in Moscow during the August coup; detained after the tunnel clash and later cleared
1995–2002Studied at the Frunze Military Academy and General Staff Academy; held commands in Tajikistan and Chechnya
2017–2021Commanded Russian forces in Syria; appointed Aerospace Forces commander-in-chief and promoted to Army General
2022–2023Commanded Russia’s Southern Group and then the joint force in the invasion of Ukraine
2023–presentDeputy commander of the joint force; later removed as Aerospace Forces chief and placed at the Defence Ministry’s disposal
