a program about how science will change, including our lives, in the next 10 years, don’t get sick, don’t prescribe antibiotics to yourself, it’s really dangerous, thank you very much, see you in a week, bye.

the life path of the most mysterious secretary general in the ussr. a twenty-year-old young man from the province comes to another province 1.00 km away to drive tugboats along the volga. there are no special ambitions in this. and looking at these volga expanses, where andropov spent his youth, we still cannot fully understand what motivated him in life as a person, which became a symbol of the kgb, the ussr for only 15 months. stood at the helm of the state, this is the same office that served as a springboard for yuri andropov to the highest post of the country, the central place of great soviet mythology, the office of the chairman of the kgb of the ussr. these myths were empowering. with old-fashioned telephones

with magical power, and the man at this table with inhuman power. but few people realized that this office, full of secret power, was not located somewhere in a deep bunker, literally in front of everyone. andropov's office is on the third floor, its windows overlook to zerzhinsky square, now lubyanka, to the main store on the planet for those who grew up in the seventies, children's world. theoretically, all of us who went there to buy toys could see the light of the lamp in this window.

he was generally hard of hearing and almost unrecognizable; this leader of the fighters of the invisible front did not live a life rich in adventures, but full of mysteries. according to academician chazov, when the question arose about his nomination to the post of general. he asked him, he said, well, how long do i have left, i pulled it out and as an attending physician who supervised the health of the members answered: you ’ll have to maintain your ability to work for about five years, but he answered: well, someone should start, i did it. from that moment on, only a few months separated him from the post of general secretary, as the most informed person in the ussr, going to the highest power in the country, andropov understood the conditions under which he... took over the country,

corruption was corrupting management, and the ring of enemies was narrowing. secretary general andropov will face such a familiar word of sanctions. what exactly did he want to start when, despite his illness, he finally decided to accept the post of general party secretary, what did you want to spend your last years on? major general of state security vyacheslav kievkov, who at one time established secret communication channels to prepare negotiations.

andropovo brings analytical notes on the situation in the country to his office: there is total corruption, the party system requires reforms, which the kgb chairman can do in this situation.

“either i’ll crush her, or she’ll crush me.” and in parallel with the rumor about restoring order, other rumors are destroying brezhnev’s potential successors. grishin, moscow the head, associated with the trade mafia, romanov, the first of leningrad, broke catherine’s service in the hermitage, where he organized his daughter’s wedding. it turned out later that there was no wedding in the hermitage, the feast was modest, but a rumor spread, who started it is still a mystery. probably once. “listen, grigory, what is this? nikolayevich, well, you’re an adult , someone needs this, everything, he says, has been crap from head to toe all over the world, is it really such a fool, he says, that i ate in these plates , well

, i'll think about it, i say, so i think, i say, no you look like a fool, so that means that, that is, this was also such a kgb special operation, yes , i think, i think, yes. brezhnev is sick and infirm. in the last year of his life, andropov made an incredible leap up the party ladder. after 15 years in the kgb, he becomes secretary of the central committee instead of the deceased ideologist suslov. by the autumn of '82 , andropov became the main contender for the position of general secretary. when andropov came to power, there was a feeling that a new figure had emerged.

energetic that he had an understanding problems facing the soviet union, because the kgb was the most informed of all the institutions of the ussr, eyes and ears were everywhere. the person who streamlined the security system of a huge country now wants to streamline this disordered country itself, they expect him to restore order, society greets rumors about the first victims of the struggle for this order with enthusiasm, without particularly going into detail about who is really to blame, all officials are thieves, soviet citizens are sure, reveals corruption in krasnodar removing the edge. the positions of first secretary medunov with the minister of internal affairs shcholokov are found during a search, it’s scary to think that paintings received as bribes or bought with bribes are stolen modestly in the ussr at the present time, but even this scale horrifies soviet citizens who were not yet frightened by perestroika.

it is clear to everyone that a lot needs to be changed in the country, but few people know that andropov is leading the country, literally with all his might, for such a sick person, earthly pleasures that... accompanies power are inaccessible, he says, this is what i eat, you he says, you can’t even chew it, i say, it’s completely tasteless, without salt, without this, without this. well, he says, what can you do? that’s how he was, and apparently his whole life was built like this , you know, he’s completely in tune with people’s tastes, he didn’t allow himself anything and didn’t want to, so i got caught by this diet, the first year i made money like that, he says: valery nikolaevich, you have teeth there is, i say, there is, show, i show, i have, he was 58 years old. back then, back in 1972, well , eat, eat this food, i

tried it, i think, how can you eat like that, no salt, nothing, this is a strict diet and then he says, guys, make me scrambled eggs with black bread and lard, well, everything is done, in the evening the doctor calls who fed him, well, that’s it, then a call in about 20 minutes, guys, i’ll call the doctor sold, laughs, there is an impression, but the most interesting thing is that the united states in the late seventies, early eighties, forced europe

to abandon a large-scale contract with the ussr, this contract was related to gas supplies. the americans tried to hit the economy, this is the eighty-second year when they, what they call western european partners twisted their arms, forced germany to withdraw from the contract for... the construction of the western europe-urals pipeline, forcing germany to pay colossal penalties for refusing to fulfill contractual obligations. now, 30 years later, all this looks, of course, much more politicized, energy policy has become, in principle, world politics, america is not interested in what is once called the continent. it would create some kind of union between western europe, central europe and

russia or a eurasian union. however, soviet leaders were too accustomed to leading a powerful empire; when the power diminished, they did not really notice it. journalist juliet keza worked in moscow in 1982 as a correspondent for the italian communist newspaper unita. and i saw that the soviet empire, born of the revolution, became not so much frozen as clumsy. associations arise from the ruins of ancient rome in his homeland. before the fall, rome also seemed eternal, and soviet leaders also made plans for the long term. therefore they had some kind of chinese idea for a long time. yuri andropov also thought that he had time and began to act gradually. and he acted accordingly with these thoughts. he was not a revolutionary, he was...

ways to fight for the protection of state but time flew quickly, developing new interests in the cold war and preparing the army for a hot one, the ussr lost the information war. 300 million people over the course of 5-6 years received huge... they say that the two of them were the first to arrive at brezhnev’s house when he died, and ustinov,

who, of course, was at that time the biggest political heavyweight, he said: “well, yura, now take power into your own hands, take the suitcase, here’s the nuclear one, this is our royal scepter, so come on, take control of yourself, compared to the departed brezhnev , he was taller and seemed healthier, but at the same time...” few people knew that yuri andropov was seriously ill, he had diabetes, he suffered from kidney disease, and he needed regular hemodialysis. what should he spend his remaining years on, because he came to power for something? he remained a mystery until the end. it was not clear whether he wanted to tighten the screws, whether he wanted to return the country to a new stalinism, or, on the contrary, he was the second, dan siping, russian dencio ping, who began to carry out historical reforms in the soviet union from above. having become general secretary, andropov found himself in a place where there was no one to complain to;

he had to do something himself. filming from 1983 records the physical weakness of a person. who has achieved supreme power, i perceive your trust as trust in our leninist communist party, of which i have been a member for more than 40 years, an ideal that i consider myself committed to. even after reaching the highest post in the country, andropov did not advertise some facts of his biography. his mother was raised in a merchant's house as a child.

the fall in history in the fate of the man who turned the lubyanka into a great soviet myth. later, the nationality and social background of the mother would force andropov to make excuses before the komsomol authorities in the thirties. from the explanatory note of yuri andropov. 1939 my mother was taken into the flickenstein family as a baby. i know about this family following. flickenstein himself was a watchmaker and had a watch workshop. in 1915 , during the jewish pogrom, his workshop was destroyed, he himself died, fleckenstein’s wife lived and worked in moscow, and was not deprived of her voting rights. how did it happen that i didn’t know that my grandfather was a merchant of the second guild? i don’t know about this now, but i made attempts to find out. flickenstein herself in 1937,

when i took a document from her, a certificate of non-deprivation of rights, nothing to me about the merchants. for the first time in the history of the ussr, it was not known what exactly general secretary did during the war, only it is vaguely said that he organized the partisan movement in karelia. yuri andropov was born at the nagutskoye station in the stavropol region. there is also very little information about his childhood, he himself

admits this in that very note; the official biography begins with his studies in completely different lands. at the rybensky technical school of water transport. the young man andropov from the north caucasus writes a letter to the upper volga in rybensk and is enrolled. this is what an eighteen-year-old provincial writes to another province from stavropol to rybensky , yaroslavl region. quite a desperate letter to the educational part of the technical school. i lost my father when i was 2 years old. my father worked as a telegraph operator on the railway, my mother died a year ago. due to the long distance, please let me know exactly the time when i should arrive. technical school, i also ask you to provide me with a hostel and scholarships, since i have no means of further subsistence, i am attaching the relevant documents: andropov march 22, thirty-two, he dreams of getting to the city of rybensk, that they will call it a city , even if only for a short time after his death andropov, of course he hasn’t yet suspects, but

does not even dream that he will someday fall behind these walls. from that moment of arrival at the rybensky technical school, his life was like a ship. floats with the flow, the main thing is that the river does not wash it ashore. in rybensk it quickly goes up the komsomol line. yezhov's repressions clear the way for the young. the repressed first secretaries are replaced by more trustworthy second secretaries. however, andropov will remember his studies for a long time and even always cite the sayings of his boatswain as an example. you see, here he is, my work like this he said when he could joke about something, with the driver they were going to... the chairman of the kgb. i saw his back, when i only remember the voice, he said: “eh, yurka, how high you climbed, let’s walk back along the volga.” with him,

for him it was his own father, you understand? the strong word of the volga boatswain and the stern gaze of the marble dzerzhinsky, these are the two worlds between which one has to exist in this office. chaotic russia, ruled by a rude botsman, and russia ordered in... meets the first disappointment, his son from first marriage did not at all correspond to his ascetic principles, he says, here comes my son, he starts

talking there, i always smell him, well, fumes, i say, don’t come to me with this smell, and he sent him away, he ’s a good guy , i love him very much, volodya will drink heavily, serve twice in prison, get a job as a sewing factory mechanic in terrace field and die at the age of 35, but neither his father nor his mother, who remarried,

will come to the funeral. especially reflective soviet intellectuals, who, having heard the abbreviation kgb turned off the light and switched to a whisper, another legend intrigued: anandropov, despite his toughness, is not stalin light at all, he is a liberal westerner, he listens. try to force some dogmatist to study lyricism, you are unlikely to find it anywhere. all this gave food for strange rumors. the most eccentric andropov is

the american musician glen miller. first, when he came to power in november 1982, reagan was already president of the united states. the media spoke very well of him. one washington post article said he loved jazz, jokes and anecdotes about the problems of communism, he danced, he was humane, although all these statements by the western press had no basis, the image of a very good person was created. when for our book we interviewed people who knew andropov in hungary, they said that this was nonsense, but the year

of andropovo’s reign was remembered by ordinary people not for these myths that shrouded the general secretary, but for the prose of life, catching truants in cinemas and shops, during the day employees in civilian clothes checked the documents and asked why not on worker... together again, reality prosaically threw out all the ideal thoughts. this weakness of the system was noticeable even to a schoolboy in 1983. even i remember how, at the exit from this cinema on the northern outskirts of moscow, two people in plain clothes stood and checked the documents of everyone who came out after the afternoon screening. when these serious guys stopped us and asked: why not in class, it was enough to simply say: the teacher was sick. a stern look after, it was... the last weapon - powerful empires. the mystical halo of the kgb, which, by inertia, continued to frighten adults,

us truants. the fate of the early eighties was no longer particularly impressive, the country was still waiting for change and it seemed to it that the former kgb chairman would do something else and show something else. i remember that this was a very important article for the communists, my friends told me, read it carefully, this is an article that contains a lot of interesting things, well, that means it was a lot of traditional words inside.

when he said that, everything almost went wrong got caught, which means that this phrase is also part of andropov’s myth, he wants to understand what kind of state is in charge, where to lead him, but the phrase is not his, the article in the magazine was written by a communist , his assistant. however, the very presence of such an assistant already indicated that andropov had formed an original entourage; his assistants, among them the future foremen of perestroika, as they were called, soviet liberals, among them arbatov, shakhnazarov, burlatsky, recalled that andrpov edited any text personally, conducting real with assistants brainstorming, because all his articles , speeches and even secret notes are the fruit of real collective creativity. some villain made a lie, as if he was spoiling people’s power. all the wise guys have been saying this for many years now, without noticing the misfortune, that more often than not people spoil power. even in

andropov’s poems he is sincere. i didn’t believe that power could be corrected if the right person was put in the right chair. you know, about three years before leaving for the central committee, yuri vladimirovich very actively began to learn english, on sundays we sent car for one teacher, he is a professor, doctor of science, he studied with him for 3 hours, as a rule, he says what a colossal memory he has, how quickly he grasps everything, can you imagine? this is, well, as historians say now, he was 67 then, 68 there . anandropov is an armchair man, his life is moving around the office, well, not counting the kgb safe houses later. he tried to adhere to strict principles, but life forced him to adapt. at the beginning of his party career, andropov plays by all the rules. in in the fiftieth year, when the repressions in the leningrad case were unfolding, the second secretary of the karelian central committee, andropov, easily

testified against it. these are the times, antropov will repent all his life, but he walks through life as if along the volga channel carefully, so as not to run aground, but when necessary, he is ready to steer firmly. soon in the mid-fifties he would become the ambassador of hungary and would not hesitate to suppress the anti-soviet uprising in 1956. however, the decision was not made by andropov himself, but it was he demanded that moscow send soviet troops

into... these panicked telegrams from ambassador andropov are not class fear, but personal shock from what is happening. after khrushchev ’s speech at the twentieth congress, the hungarian intelligentsia receives a signal, you can scold the stalinist past, but what the intelligentsia begins is soon picked up by the masses, and this is no longer conversations in literary cafes, one bullet even flies into ambassador andropov’s office right during the meeting. i am her, so to speak. as soon as it cooled down, i put it in my pocket, it was in my hands for years, 20 years, and maybe more, uh, and then uh, my comrade, uh, hooks, vladimir santovich , andropov’s birthday was approaching, he called me, listen, but you have a bullet somewhere there that flew into his office , let's give it, so to speak, let's give it to yuri vladimirovich, well, i gave it, but the bullet is not the only thing that

the hungarian troubles left as a souvenir. people storm administrative buildings and lynch communists in the streets. the trees on the central streets of budapest are literally covered with executed people. he will never forget this horror. events on the streets budapest, from how this chaos can ruin people’s lives, his wife comes to the window and sees a hanged communist, his body swaying in the wind, andropov’s wife will never recover from this shock, she will suffer from a nervous disease all her life. anandropov will surround her with care and poetry. and let them laugh at the poet, and let them be doubly jealous, because i write sonnets to my own wife, and not to someone else’s. well, he treated beautiful women well, so to speak, but this one kept himself in control, so to speak, he didn’t make any moves for this, as i understand it, well

a man’s life, you know, it’s in the dark, how it was for him, i find it difficult to say, but i think he was missed. after budapest, the future chairman of the kgb will never again call for the direct use of force; it is better to work proactively to avoid disaster. in his office at lubyanka, yuri andropov will more than once return with memories of the hungarian events. the chaos on the streets of budapest, which he saw from the windows of the embassy, ​​the nervous breakdown of his wife, this is what will truly shape andropovo’s politics. he will understand once for... always that there is nothing more terrible than the elements of the masses spilling out onto the street. the fact that order at any cost is more important than chaos will become a real political credo for him. be careful, he will repeat to his subordinates in the kgb, do not let the genie out of

the bottle. be careful, he will already be the general secretary, he will repeat to his subordinates in the central committee. when the movement begins to rebel in poland in the early eighties.

andropov makes such a mistake by bringing gorbachev closer. it is unlikely that the fruits of his activities could please andropov. gorbachev - an ordinary provincial party member, who did not particularly stand out and was not noticed in any political groups, but the same can be said about the young andropov, he apparently

simply found some kind of external similarity in his biography. at the turn of the sixties , andropovo’s position in the central committee was secondary, he oversaw the socialist countries, and then from the sixty-second year. in general, everything is abroad. khrushchev's vacillations, the conspiracy against the first secretary, everything passes him by. andropov does not interfere in the squabbling of like-minded people. he's making a career. and he, if you look at the photographs, he never came to the fore, he stands in the second row everywhere, and i was also the only one who asked, i say, well, how are you the second, third person, well, show yourself, this is exactly what i should do no need, you know, he had a completely clear position, to maintain modesty, and this came from within him, in 1967, leonid brezhnev... appointed andropov to head the state security committee, he was impressed

that andropov, as if on his own, he not adjacent to any kremlin group, well, from the words of andropov himself, when with him personalovich brezhnev was deciding the issue of the direction of the kgb, which he naturally opposed, he said, well, you’ll work there for a little while, well, for 5 years you’ll return to the central committee of the cpsu, that is, something like this... the cheka will return you to the central committee using the same logic. antropov, not yet knowing that he would return from the cheka to the central committee only after 15 years, would write a much less humorous answer. the kgb is known to many, as

they say, not by its lips, and i would have gone to work in this house, probably with difficulty, had it not happened for the future, the hungarian, sad lesson, it was in the kgb that andropov’s talent as an organizer fully manifested itself, he trusts professionals, professionals are grateful to him, he listens to his colleagues, is always attentive and intelligent, andropov sits every day at this table, his jacket hangs up the back of his chair when he comes in to visit...

he allowed him to talk and report to him everything as seen by the specialists tasked with monitoring certain processes, he showed a very great depth of understanding of everyone’s problems, perhaps he was the most read of all the leaders of the soviet era after stalin. however, it was precisely in the fight for the image that the kgb lost, it remained forever in the western press as an organ for suppressing dissent in the ussr, and this is not entirely true: the fight against dissidents, if it could be called a fight, in andropov’s kgb was handled by one department, in number, it constituted an insignificant part of the excellent composition of the staff. dissident and so on, i think. he didn’t oppress them,

he oppressed anyone, but i think he controlled them, do this, do it, that is, what the chinese said, controlling the enemy is the most difficult thing is that the americans provided assistance to certain groups in eastern europe, this assistance had a strong anti-soviet character, but the soviet leadership managed to cope with this. and after this there was no internal interference, with the exception of a few dissidents who were unable to organize anything more serious.

this is his phrase that the intelligentsia is shaped by their brains, and if we don’t find a common language with them, then the brains will be nice. today it may seem that andropov is somehow even superfluous for a security officer, flirting with flaunting intelligentsia, he personally meets with the director of the taganki theater

lyubimov, jokingly thanks him for not taking his daughter, who wanted to become an actress, to the theater; his colleagues recall that andropov was not averse

to agents who met with dissidents, with people , which were later called the civil society, did not actually work until gorbachev came to power. already as general secretary in 1983 , andropov will determine the direction of the main attack; he is not shaky in his views

intelligentsia and not even western ill-wishers of the country of the soviets, kgb information indicates to the enemy general secretary that this is a complete collapse. management of the economy, the collapse in the country is such that even the elevator in the building of the state security committee breaks down and almost cripples the chairman, as soon as they pressed, the elevator says, he went up without stopping, they hit the top, he says that he didn’t understand, he says his hat came off , he says, in gogaririn he managed to say, let’s go, but we didn’t have time, well, he came, called the business executive, called, who is responsible for these things, in the very first months at the helm of the country , andropov changes the cadres who have been in power for too long. he is considering managerial and economic reforms, even says directly in a confidential conversation: we should devote all our efforts to the fight against corruption for at least a year, let the spies walk around for a year, but we would deal with corruption, but he won’t have another year. it’s the last autumn in crimea, a cold wind is blowing,

the secretary general is sitting in this gazebo on the seashore. why did he always go on vacation to north caucasian resorts? chooses autumn crimea. by evening, andropov's temperature rises sharply. he is urgently evacuated to moscow. a long agony begins. all diseases are getting worse, diabetes, kidney disease. the secretary general will not return to full-time work. 10 months of leading the country and 5 months of fading in the hospital. what did he leave behind in life? a country that he barely began to reform, and a team that he never formed. andropov makes a major mistake. he thinks that the youth of the party are educated and selfless, but he brings the stavropol secretary to moscow gorbachev, talkative, energetic, but not noted for anything in his post.

if i knew it would work, for some reason i think that there was some kind of accident here, an accident, then it all became that he said, he said, you will be a successor, they also told me, then, lord, so what of this we need to draw conclusions, right? i don’t know, i don’t know, well, apparently. people, he also has the right to make mistakes. he made mistakes in people, believing that their inner world was the same. his poems are so atypical for the cynical world of pragmatic

politicians. we are mortal in this world under the moon, life is only a moment, not being forever. the globe spins in the universe, people live and disappear. but existence, born in darkness, is indestructible on the way to dawn. others. it is difficult to work with such thoughts about the eternal in a world of people preoccupied with thoughts of momentary success in career duels in the kremlin corridors; with such thoughts it is difficult to be the head of state, and this hypostasis of andropov turned out to be the least intelligible. one suit, one coat, steamed cutlets for lunch, children and grandchildren ride the subway. andropov so followed the principle literally. soviet asceticism, which is indeed somewhat behind the era and society, which was becoming more and more mercantile, in andropovo’s opinion,

order in the country is order within, this is the basis for the security officer, and even if the defectors are sold to enemies for dollars, but it was during andropov’s years that young people came to the kgb , brought up already according to his principles of the state, order, justice, the irony of fate, today are the matured youth of that andropov kgb. forms in many ways the basis of modern political elite. the eternal question of russian rulers, whether to replace nuts until screws are scraped or loosen them until they swing, andropov tried to lead to harmony, as he understood it. his apologists claim that he seemed to be looking for balance for the country, order where it should be, freedom where it is possible. but we know one thing: he left, it seems, without deciding on anything. later, when he was no longer there, i retired, time. i had to think about the questions he asked me, and i came to the conclusion that if

if only he had lived a little longer, we would have followed the chinese version, very close. antropov deliberately delayed the political reform of the country, in conditions of modest economic indicators. political changes can undermine the state; first we need to feed the people, he told those around him, but he did not dare to carry out economic reforms either. in 1983, when androp was in power , filming of the last most popular, truly soviet film began, guests came from the future. soviet children, after 2 years at the beginning of perestroika, see the future is like this: a spaceport in a botanical garden and in 100 years, beautiful'. flag over the kremlin, these dreams of a beautiful distant place will be stopped not in 100, but in 5 years, but...