The current Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, A. N. Tkachev (born December 23, 1960), has come a long way as an economic manager: from a mechanical engineer at an agricultural processing enterprise to the director of this plant, and then, after nearly a decade and a half of leadership of the Krasnodar Territory, he was co-opted into the government RF
Origin
Where did Alexander Tkachev, Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, begin his life? His biography began in the Kuban, in the relatively young village of Vyselki, which was formed at the turn of the 19-20 centuries. According to Tkachev himself, said in an interview with the famous TV presenter Vladimir Pozner, his father is a Kuban Cossack, and his mother is Ukrainian. In the documentary film “Bread for Stalin” by Aleksey Pivovarov, Alexander Nikolayevich claims that his father’s parents were dispossessed during collectivization as owners of five horses.
The origins of the welfare of the Tkachevs
But by the time of his birth, father Nikolai Ivanovich Tkachev (by the way, who managed to fight on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, despite his youth (born in 1926), already held a considerable position in the Vyselkovsky district executive committee - he was deputy chairman. When Sasha was only 14 years old, his father was assigned the construction of a feed mill in Vyselki. It was successfully completed (how else could it have been in the USSR?), And Nikolay Tkachev in the early 80s became its director. The plant had the status of inter-farm, that is, it was built with the money of several collective farms, and the activities of its director were controlled by a council of their chairmen. This enterprise has become the foundation, the cornerstone of the current agro-industrial empire, which is owned (albeit informally) by Alexander Tkachev, Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, along with his relatives.
Children and teenagers
Sasha’s childhood was cloudless. The tall handsome boy was a universal favorite, like many Soviet youths of the 80s, was fond of playing the electric guitar, graduated from music school, sang in the youth ensemble, was engaged in athletics (even received a master of sports) and played basketball for the Vyselkovo team (nature rewarded its truly basketball growth).
After school, Alexander Tkachev entered the Krasnodar Polytechnic University, and after graduating from it in 1983 and having received the qualification of a mechanical engineer, he distributed himself at his father’s factory in Vyselki.
Work experience and the beginning of political activity
How did Alexander Tkachev, Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, begin his career? His biography in production began in the factory boiler room, which he soon became the head of. Who knows the production firsthand, he agrees that this is a troublesome business. What distinguished the current Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Tkachev at the beginning of his career? His biography (production) was swift, but rather short. After a couple of years, he was appointed the chief mechanic of the plant, and his former colleagues were more remembered as an active participant in the amateur performances, guitarist and accordionist. A young and promising specialist drew the attention of Alexei Klimov, the first secretary of the Vyselkovsky district committee of the CPSU, and already in 1986 Alexander Tkachev became the head of the Komsomol district committee in the same settlements.
We did not know how the years of perestroika took place in the remote Kuban province and what the Vyselkovsky Komsomol members were doing then. They say that at first Tkachev could not work in harmony with his deputies - in the year he replaced five of them. However, he remained in his post for four years. And the 90s came …
In the early dashing 90s
How did Alexander Tkachev, Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, continue his career? His biography at this difficult time made a turn, and he suddenly turned out to be the director at the factory with his father, who became deputy to his own son. How could this happen? Obviously, by 1990, the young party leader had "intuitively" that the struggle for the cause of Lenin was unpromising. 64-year-old Nikolai Tkachev from the height of his life experience already realized that soon thousands of hungry and desperate “guys” would appear in the country, from whom the only family asset at that time in the form of the Vyselkovsky feed mill would have to be protected (by that time it had absorbed the closest enterprise "Meat industry", therefore it became known as "Agrocomplex"). And only son Sasha can do this.
Alexander Tkachev, the Minister of Agriculture in the current government of the Russian Federation, came to the secretary of the district committee Klimov and said that he no longer wanted to lead the Soviet people (within the Vyselkovsky district) to the victory of communism, but wanted to engage in agriculture. And he peacefully released him from a responsible post in free swimming through life.
Nowadays there are no independent agricultural enterprises in the Vyselkovsky district, all arable land (except for a few dozen farms) with an area of 200 thousand hectares, all enterprises processing agricultural products belong to CJSC Agrokompleks, which now bears the name of N. I. Tkachev. In fact, the largest latifundia in the country has been created, with 22 thousand employees. And given that Alexander Tkachev is the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, it may well expand to an all-Russian scale.
How did it all begin?
How did Alexander Tkachev, Minister of Agriculture in the current government of the Russian Federation, achieve such an unprecedented commercial success? His biography as an entrepreneur is quite rich. Until 1993, “Agrocomplex” survived only thanks to preferential state loans, but then everything was fine.
Return to politics
Throughout the 90s, it was Alexander Tkachev, the Minister of Agriculture, whose biography is the subject of our study, who formally headed the fast-growing company. However, the true leader and master was still Tkachev Sr. Working together, the family has achieved considerable success.
The time was interesting. The land for almost 5 years (since 1996) was headed by the charismatic leader, the communist Nikolai Kondratenko. He strongly opposed market transformations, fought desperately against the dissolution of collective farms, but missed another danger - the expansion of large private agricultural enterprises that "ate" the Kuban collective farms in one sitting along with their lands, livestock, production assets and people.
It is noteworthy that a year before the victory of Kondratenko in the regional elections, it was Alexander Tkachev who defeated him in the State Duma elections as an independent candidate. To defeat the rival Communist, he used just pro-communist rhetoric in agitation, which was rather strange for a large businessman, but this time it worked.
Having become the regional leader, Kondratenko took an independent position in relation to the federal authorities and tightly controlled all processes within the region, so he had to establish relations with him. Therefore, Alexander Tkachev in his political views at that time was very “field”. The Communist Party asserts that at that time he was a member of it (Tkachev himself denies this). At least in the next State Duma elections in 1999, it was Tkacheva who nominated the Communist Party and supported the governor.
Regional Head
With the coming to power of Vladimir Putin, the “free-run” for local Russian leaders has ended. After the new president, along with the Russian army, “crushed” the Chechen separatists, Alexander Kondratenko, who, after the Khasavyurt agreements, “flirted” with the leadership of the so-called Republic of Ichkeria and even opened its pseudo-diplomatic representation in Krasnodar, it was made clear that his time in power has expired. Kondratenko did not argue and refused to participate in the election of the governor in 2000, supporting the hero of our article as his successor.
What was remarkable about the time in which the region was headed by Alexander Tkachev, Minister of Agriculture? His biography (a photo of Tkachev at the beginning of the governorship period is shown below) as his regional leader began with very decisive measures aimed at limiting the influx of illegal migrants from the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia into the Kuban. Today, when world media is full of reports about the struggle of the European Union against illegal entry of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa into its territory, few Russians think that the Kuban (like the neighboring Stavropol Territory) has been in this regime for the entire post-Soviet period.
What is characteristic is that during the Soviet period the problem of migration was not so acute, in principle, all Caucasians could live normally on their lands, everyone had enough work and wages. But after the collapse of the USSR, the economic situation in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia sharply worsened. How do the representatives of the Turkic-speaking and Semitic peoples behave in this case, we see today with the example of Europe. In the same way, the Kuban and Stavropol Territory are under constant migration pressure from the East.
What did the new regional leader Tkachev do in this situation? He turned to the old Cossack traditions, made fellow countrymen recall that the Kuban Cossacks were a kind of border guard between the Caucasus and Russia. The peasants in the villages began to distribute kubanka, whiskers and trousers with stripes, to combine them into Cossack squads. The reviving Cossacks became a real force in the region, which, along with the power structures, maintains public order in it.
Member of government
When last year Russia began to openly infringe on many issues, when there was a problem of restricting food supplies from abroad in response to the economic sanctions of the West, the president needed in the government not just a skillful and energetic manager (there are many of them anyway), but a real Russian a patriot who is not afraid to express and defend his national position, even different from the generally accepted one. And Alexander Tkachev, the Minister of Agriculture, whose biography has always been associated with agricultural production, was in the new position just in time. His determination to resist pressure was reflected in sending smuggled food under the tracks of bulldozers, which clearly showed all of Russia's enemies: there would be no retreat.
Now Tkachev is actively engaged in the policy of import substitution in Russian agriculture. Of course, he sees this very substitution as the creation of many firms similar to his own “Agrocomplex”, because he simply has no other experience in the countryside. Good or bad for Russia, time will tell. In any case, at this stage, his efforts are welcomed by the president and the majority of the population, and this is the main thing.
