Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin
Виктор Степанович Черномырдин
Last Soviet gas minister who turned his ministry into Gazprom
When the Orsk party committee sought to pull him from the factory floor into the apparatus, Chernomyrdin later recalled: 'I felt I was a production man and wanted to stay at my native factory. But life decided otherwise.' He considered himself a production man, not a party functionary, all his life.
Born into an Orenburg Cossack family, Chernomyrdin rose from mechanic at the Orsk oil refinery to director of the Orenburg gas-processing plant, and in 1985 became the Soviet Union's Minister of the Gas Industry. While minister he also served on the CPSU Central Committee (1986–1990) and as a deputy in both the USSR and RSFSR Supreme Soviets, emerging as a central figure in late-Soviet energy administration. In 1989 he abolished his own ministry and transformed it into Gazprom, the state gas concern that would become the world's largest gas monopoly, a pioneering conversion of a Soviet planned-economy ministry into a state-owned corporation that became the cornerstone of Russia's post-Soviet economy.
Career timeline
- 1960–1973Mechanic and operator at Orsk refinery, deputy chief engineer and director of Orenburg gas-processing plant
- 1973–1982Industrial administrator in Orsk party committee and CPSU CC heavy industry department
- 1982–1985Deputy Minister of Gas Industry of the USSR, head of Tyumengazprom
- 1985–1989Minister of Gas Industry of the USSR
- 1989–1992Founded state gas concern Gazprom, first chairman of the board
- 1984–1990Deputy of USSR and RSFSR Supreme Soviets, member of CPSU Central Committee