Mykola Azarov (born December 17, 1947) is a Ukrainian politician who was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from March 11, 2010 to January 27, 2014. Prior to that, he was twice First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and even earlier than more than five years he headed the tax administration of Ukraine.
Azarov Nikolay Yanovich: biography, nationality
It would seem that the issue of how nationality of a person, as applied to the hero of our article, would suddenly become especially irrelevant at the present time of globalization. Why is it so interesting for many to know what is the nationality of Azarov Nikolay Yanovich? The fact is that he worked in the political field in Ukraine, a very young country, where this issue has become especially acute in recent years.
So, where did Azarov Nikolai Yanovich begin his life journey? His biography began in Kaluga, a native Russian city. Why, then, does he have such a middle name, Yanovich? The fact is that his paternal grandfather was an Estonian named Robert Pakhlo, all the other relatives (at least in two generations) are original Russian people. According to the recognition of Azarov himself, made in the program of the famous TV presenter Vladimir Pozner, he was born out of wedlock of his parents, mining engineer Jan Pakhlo (a native of Leningrad and a front-line soldier) and Ekaterina Azarova (later married to Kvasnikova). Therefore, at his birth, little Kolya, the mother wrote down on her maiden name, by which we now know him.
In the same program of Vladimir Pozner, recorded in the summer of 2012, to the question of the presenter, what is the nationality of Mykola Azarov, he answered the following: “I am a Russian person, but I have been living in Ukraine for 28 years. Of course, I feel already Ukrainian, that is, a citizen of Ukraine. ” It will take another year and a half, and the so-called “Ukrainian citizens” will very clearly explain to Azarov that between the concepts of “Ukrainian” and “citizen of Ukraine” lies a gulf that, in their understanding, no merits and years lived will not cover.
Childhood and years of study
As you can understand from the recently published book of Mykola Azarov “Ukraine at the Crossroads”, his parents tried to establish a joint life, and the family even lived in Leningrad for some time in the apartment of his father’s parents. But apparently something went wrong in their family life, and Ekaterina Azarova returned with her little Kolya to her parents in Kaluga. There she graduated from a railway technical school and subsequently worked in the management of the railway.
Especially strong influence in childhood on our hero was exerted by grandmother Maria Azarova, apparently one of those Russian women who are able to give love and care to loved ones in any, the most difficult conditions. We can say that thanks to her care, her mother’s love, their many Kaluga relatives (one of the Kaluga suburbs is even called Azarovo), Nikolai’s childhood was quite prosperous. He studied well at school, repeatedly emerged the winner of olympiads in various subjects, was even invited to the special school of academician Kolmogorov at Moscow State University, but refused to enter it, because he was not attracted to her number in the mathematical direction.
Azarov graduated from high school with a silver medal, and then went to "conquer the capital." He entered the Moscow State University at the Faculty of Geology. The student years passed as expected, but there was one episode that Azarov especially notes in his memoirs. This is an incident involving a street fight between Nikolai and his friend with a group of hooligans who attacked the girl. The police officers who arrived at the scene of the incident, without hesitation, stunned Nikolai with a blow on the head with a baton, and then in the department they began to "sew the case of hooliganism." Luckily for him, a police lieutenant drove into the department late at night, who figured out everything and released Nikolai and his comrade. Why does Azarov so emphasize this generally unobtrusive episode of his life. The fact is that once his future patron Viktor Yanukovych was in the same situation, but it was not in Moscow, but in Envakievo, and the thoughtful lieutenant was not in the department. Therefore, according to Azarov, he "treats with errors the youth of Viktor Yanukovych."
The beginning of a career in the Soviet period
Having obtained the qualification of a geophysicist at the end of Moscow State University, Mykola Azarov in 1971 was assigned to the Tulaugol coal plant by distribution, where in five years he went all the way to the chief engineer of the Tulashakhto drainage trust. He proved himself a true innovator, going from practice, made a considerable contribution to the theory of studying coal seams. Passion for mining science led to the fact that in 1976, Azarov Nikolai Yanovich left production in industry science. At first, he works as a laborer in a branch research institute in the city of Novomoskovsk, Tula Region, and defends his candidate dissertation. Soon he became the department head in the same research institute.
The young and promising candidate of geological sciences is becoming closely in his native institute; he needs a new field to apply his mature scientific knowledge. And he can handle the matter in the Donbass, where Azarov is offered the position of deputy director of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Mining Geology. In 1984, he came to Donetsk. Relocation benefited him as a scientist. A couple of years later, Azarov Nikolay Yanovich completes and defends his doctoral dissertation in mining geophysics, and shortly afterwards becomes the director of the institute. He works a lot and fruitfully, his monograph on the geology of gold deposits of Donbass gains wide popularity in the scientific community. In 1991, Mykola Azarov also became a professor in the Department of Geology of Donetsk Technical University.
The beginning of political activity
During the period of perestroika and liberalization of the political system of the USSR, Mykola Azarov, of course, did not stay away from the main processes. He, as the director of an industrial research institute, actively supports the reform wing in the CPSU (the so-called Demplatform), and in 1990 he is considered by party leadership as one of the candidates for the post of the head of the Donetsk Communists (preference was given to Peter Simonenko). In the same year he became a delegate to the XXVII Congress of the CPSU, where he met with Leonid Kuchma, later his long-standing patron. Obviously, by the nature of his activity, Azarov had the opportunity to meet with the leaders of the largest coal mining enterprises of Donbass, the so-called. “Coal barons, ” who will soon become his partners in new political projects.
The first political projects with the participation of Azarov in independent Ukraine
Soon after the collapse of the USSR and the creation of the CIS, a group of intellectuals of Russian origin living in Ukraine from Kharkov and Donetsk created the socio-political organization Civil Congress of Ukraine (GKU), which aimed to transform a fairly loose CIS into a more cohesive Eurasian Union. Among the founders of the congress were Mykola Azarov, a professor of philosophy from Donetsk State University, Alexander Bazilyuk, and a history teacher from Kharkov State University, Valery Meshcheryakov. The captains of the industry of Donbass began to look closely at the organization, by then they had already created their organization - the Interregional Association of Ukraine. Under its influence, in December 1992, the Labor Party was formed on the basis of the GKU in Donetsk, the head of which became the director of the Donetsk plant "Elektrobytmash" (subsequently the concern "Nord") Valentin Landyk, and his deputy - Azarov. This was a time of tough confrontation between Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma, seeking to limit the traditional subsidization of the Donbass mines from the state budget, and the leaders of the Donetsk industry. Powerful miners' strikes organized by the former "red directors" and miners’marches in Kiev forced President Kravchuk to resign. His place was taken by the head of the Donetsk City Council and Executive Committee, in the recent past, the director of the largest mine in Donetsk named after Zasyadko Efim Zvyagilsky. Soon, Landyk left for Kiev as deputy prime minister in his government, and Mykola Azarov led the Labor Party, which was the political pillar of the Zvyagilsky government.
Parliamentary career
In 1994, Azarov was elected a member of the Verkhovna Rada from the Party of Labor. In the same year, Leonid Kuchma becomes president after an extraordinary election and begins a new war against the “Donetsk”. Zvyagilsky escapes from his persecution in Israel, but Azarov has nowhere to run. And he decides to change his political predilections and join the pro-presidential Interregional Deputy Group. His loyalty was appreciated and in 1995-1996 he became the head of the parliamentary budget committee. The new president urgently needed qualified personnel for the new Ukrainian state machine that he created on the ruins of the old Soviet administrative system. In 1996, he invited Azarov to become chairman of the newly created State Tax Administration of Ukraine.
Head of State Tax Administration
Of course, the new appointment fascinated Azarov, because he had to create from scratch a huge in size and authority, and, moreover, a very specific civil service. And he took up this work with all his inherent energy. The results were not long in coming. Already in his first year in his new position, tax collections in the country increased one and a half times, while they began to be collected even from those sectors of the economy that generally had not paid them until then.
Of course, as the incomes of the Ukrainian state grew, so did the number of enemies of the main tax official. He was accused of excessive strengthening of the tax press, but Azarov countered these accusations with the reference to the fact that Ukrainian tax legislation complies with international standards, and those who are used to evading mandatory payments in favor of the state protest most of all.
Until 2000, Azarov worked in his post, having sat on several prime ministers, whom President Kuchma liked to change annually. However, he even refused to participate in the 1998 parliamentary elections, preferring to engage in an already established business.
How the Donbass changed in the 90s
While Azarov led the Ukrainian tax authorities from Kiev, the processes of economic transformation were steadily going on in the Donbass, as a result of which the old elite, which consisted mainly of directors (from Soviet times) of enterprises and shakhty, was gradually replaced by a new one, already generated by market relations. Here the so-called so-called. vertically integrated production concerns, which combined all the stages of the production traditional for Donbass: coal mining, coke production, metallurgical and chemical enterprises, sales and sales units. Examples were the Industrial Union of Donbass, controlled by the Taruta-Gaiduk clan, and the holding System Capital Management, which was controlled by the Akhmetov-Yanukovych group. Using favorable external economic conditions at the end of the 1990s, they significantly increased the export of metal products, which allowed them to concentrate colossal capital in their hands.
New clash between Donetsk and Kiev
This could not leave indifferent the central Ukrainian government, which since the beginning of the 90s sought to limit the basis of the economy of Donbass, which consisted of the old, still Soviet system of subsidizing unprofitable coal mining. The amount of annual subsidies from the state budget exceeded 10 billion hryvnias. Due to these subsidies, the low selling price of coal was kept on the market, which made it possible for coke producers and then metallurgists to reduce the cost of their products. By exporting it and paying taxes to the state, they ultimately offset the initial subsidies to the mines, so that the country ultimately won.
But this is a way of state regulation of the economy, originating in the socialist way of managing, where the goal was not the benefit of an individual enterprise, but the benefit of the whole country as a whole, which is called "infuriated" adherents of a market economy, of which the Ukrainian elite mainly consisted. The government of Viktor Yushchenko made a new attempt to break down the subsidy system for the mines of Donbass in 2000-2001, and Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko became an active conductor of this policy.
How did Mykola Azarov, a politician, scientist and statesman, behave in this situation? He sided with his fellow countrymen, openly opposing the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko course, which focused on the English and American experience of reducing coal production, which led to the complete degradation of mining regions in these countries, such as English Wales or mining towns in the American Appalachians.
Then Azarov managed to win over a number of major Ukrainian politicians. In addition, the presidential ambitions of Viktor Yushchenko pushed President Kuchma from him, who dismissed the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government. But they created opposition political leaders Our Ukraine and BYuT, and began to prepare for the struggle for power.
The creation of the Party of Regions and the beginning of joint work with Yanukovych
The opposite side did not doze off. In November 2006, four political parties, of which the largest was the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine, based in the Donbass, announced their merger into the Party of Regional Revival "Labor Solidarity of Ukraine". In December, Mykola Azarov also entered this party. In March of the following year, it began to be called the Party of Regions, and our hero was elected its chairman.
What is characteristic, among the founding parties was “Solidarity” Petro Poroshenko, a breakaway from the pro-presidential Social Democratic Party. So the current president of Ukraine was one of the founders of the Party of Regions, which he now proclaims guilty of all the troubles of his country (except for Russia, of course). Moreover, for almost half a year he was Azarov’s deputy as the head of the party, but at the end of 2001, with his Solidarity, he transferred to Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine. Here is such a remarkable political metamorphosis.
However, in fairness, it should be said that at the same time, Azarov himself, who remained the head of the tax administration, left the Party of Regions leadership. Under his auspices, an electoral bloc “For United Ukraine” (colloquially called “For Food”) with the participation of the Party of Regions was soon created, but he barely won 11% of the vote in the 2002 parliamentary elections. However, the “European Choice” faction was created in the new parliament, which began to nominate Azarov as prime minister. However, Kuchma made a choice in favor of the Donetsk governor Viktor Yanukovych, at the same time breaking through the appointment of Azarov as first deputy prime minister through parliament. So this tandem of two politicians arose, involuntarily leading Ukraine to the worst crisis in its recent history.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
In the first government of Yanukovych 2002-2004 Nikolai Yanovich combined the post of First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. At the beginning of the joint work, they still did not constitute a worked-out tandem - their life experience and the path to power were too different. With Azarov identified the so-called. "Old Donetsk", immigrants still from the Soviet nomenclature. Yanukovych personified the new elite of Donbass, which rose in the second half of the "dashing 90s" using semi-criminal methods of leadership and capital accumulation.
However, the alliance of Azarov-Yanukovych soon proved its effectiveness. During the first government of Yanukovych, the efforts, first of all, of Azarov, implemented a set of economic reforms, including budgetary, tax, pension and others. During the first term of Azarov as Minister of Finance, the annual GDP growth in Ukraine amounted to 9.6% in 2003 and 12, 1% in 2004 (against 2.7% in 2005) with a capital investment level of 31.3% and 28.0%, respectively (against 1.9% in 2005).
At that time, Azarov advocated closer ties with Russia, the creation of a common economic space between the two countries, and even actively got rid of opponents of such rapprochement like Minister of Economics Valery Khoroshkovsky or head of the State Committee Inna Bogoslovskaya. If Yanukovych could retain power after the presidential elections he had already won in the winter of 2004-2005, then these plans would certainly come true, but the “orange-colored” revolution inspired from outside crossed them out.
In December 2004 and January 2005, Azarov served as prime minister until the appointment of Yulia Tymoshenko to this post. They say that handing over the keys to her office, he half-jokingly and half-seriously asked her "not to touch anything, since everything works so well." It is a pity that his successor did not take advantage of this sensible advice.
Однако история Украины сложилась так, что через два года на пост первого вице-премьера вновь вернулся Николай Азаров. Биография его снова повторила события двухлетней давности после парламентских выборов 2006 года, когда Янукович повторно стал премьер-министром. Этот период характеризовался острой политической борьбой между президентом Ющенко, поддерживаемым в парламенте фракциями «Наша Украина» и Блок Юлии Тимошенко, и тандемом Януковича-Азарова, опиравшегося на поддержку в парламенте фракций Партии регионов, социалистической и коммунистической партий. В результате президент распустил весной 2007 года Верховную Раду и назначил на осень внеочередные выборы, в результате которых к власти в конце года пришло правительство Юлии Тимошенко.
