Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin

Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin was a Soviet and Russian statesman. The future politician was born on 9 April 1938 in the village of Chyorny Otrog in Orenburg Oblast. He received an engineering and technical education at the Kuybyshev Polytechnic Institute and an economics education at the All-Union Correspondence Polytechnic Institute. He later earned the degree of Candidate of Technical Sciences. He began his career as a fitter at the Orsk oil refinery in 1957. After serving in the army he returned to the plant, where he held various positions up to head of a technical unit.

 

Chernomyrdin's political career began after he graduated from the institute. He worked in the Orsk city party committee, headed the Orenburg gas processing plant and served as deputy minister and then minister of the oil and gas industry of the USSR (from 1985). In the post-Soviet period Chernomyrdin chaired the board of directors of OJSC Gazprom. On 14 December 1992 he became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Government of the Russian Federation. From 1993 to 1998 he served as Chairman of the Government of Russia. In 1996 he acted as President for one day during Boris Yeltsin's heart surgery. Later he was a deputy of the State Duma (1999–2001), Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Russia to Ukraine (from 2001) and an adviser to the President of Russia (from 2009). Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin died on 3 November 2010 in Moscow after a long illness and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.