25 years - a quarter of a century - Islam Abduganievich Karimov ruled Uzbekistan. If his daughters could be read in glossy magazines published even outside the country, information about the president’s only son often did not even appear in his official biography. So, who is Peter Islamovich Karimov?
Grandparents
In Uzbekistan, the origin and affiliation of a particular clan decides a lot, so the story of the unknown "presidential son" Pyotr Ismailovich Karimov should start with a short information about his ancestors.
Peter's grandmother, Sanobar, was a tormented housewife who threw herself around all day like a squirrel in a wheel to feed her family, and his paternal grandfather was called Abdugani. He was an ordinary Soviet employee. According to some information, carefully hidden by Ismail Karimov in the Soviet period, in 1937 a man was arrested and convicted of embezzlement of socialist property. Judging by the fact that he was released a year later, the amount by which the state “suffered” was small. In addition, in those days it was possible to go to jail by slander or for the most insignificant negligence. Be that as it may, Abdugani returned to his wife and eight children as a broken man who they did not want to take on normal work.
The family lived half-starving, so in 1941 the Karimovs sent the future president to an orphanage located in Samarkand. A year later, they took the boy home, but in 1945 they returned him back. Most likely, it was with this that the cool relations of Islam Karimov with his relatives and the absence in his mind of the cult of a mother and family were connected, which is not inherent in people born in the East.
As for the maternal grandfather of Peter, he was also called Peter, and at the time of the birth of his grandson, he headed the Moscow Aviation Plant named after V. Chkalova.
First marriage of the first president of Uzbekistan
Islam Abduganievich Karimov was married twice. His first wife was Natalya Kuchmi. He began to meet with her immediately after graduation. Natalia was a biologist and for many years worked at the Institute of Botany and at the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR. As already mentioned, she was the daughter of the Director General of the Tashkent Aviation Software named after V. Chkalova. It was hard to say whether this marriage was a love union or not, but later the father-in-law arranged Islam in his design bureau as a design engineer, although Karimov was an expert in the field of agricultural engineering. After this, the career of a rootless young man from the province who spent most of his childhood in an orphanage went uphill. In addition, soon the only heir was born to Karimov, who was named Rustam.
Divorce
Despite the support of the father-in-law, the marriage of Islam and Natalia was short-lived. The woman did not like to talk about the reasons for the divorce, and Karimov himself tried to completely forget about his unsuccessful experience in building a family. It was rumored that the future president needed a career advancement, since Natalia came from a family of Bukhara Jews, and in those days, contacts with Ferghana clans were required for success.
Be that as it may, after the divorce, Natalia changed the documents and decided to rename her son to Peter, in honor of his grandfather and his father. In addition, the woman wanted to annoy her ex-spouse, who, although he hid, did not like “everything Russian”.
Second marriage
After some time, Karimov got married again. His chosen one Tatyana was a graduate of the Faculty of Economics of Tashkent University. She came from a mixed Russian-Tajik family and gave birth to Islam Karimov two daughters, Gulnara and Lola. The girls grew up in luxury and received an excellent education. True, there was no secret for anyone in Uzbekistan that the president’s daughters owed their career successes to their all-powerful father. The girls gave birth to five grandchildren. They say that Tatyana Karimova forbade her husband to see her son and did everything so that her husband would not remember either the guy or his mother.
"Nonexistent" son
Natalya Kuchmi raised her son from Islam Karimov without his help and support. Only once, as the first secretary of the Kashkadarya regional committee of the Communist Party, he seriously talked with his ex-wife about his son. The fact is that 1986 was in the yard, and the republic was under the gun of Moscow investigators investigating the so-called “Uzbek case”. To avoid accusations of violation of party ethics and abuse of official position, he demanded that his ex-wife send his student son who had health problems to the army. No matter how Natalya convinced him that this cannot be, since everyone knows about the cool relations of the provincial party secretary to his offspring, the man insisted on his own.
As a result, Pyotr Islamovich Karimov went to serve in one of the units of the Soviet Army, located in the vicinity of Leningrad. There, nobody cared about which family came from Uzbekistan. Although there is no information about Peter's service, he brought back a scar on his chin from the Northern capital, which, he said, appeared during a fight with local hooligans.
Study
Peter Islamovich Karimov studied at the Tashkent Institute of National Economy with a degree in Industrial Planning. His performance was good and deserved, although at the university everyone knew that the young man was at that time already the Minister of Finance of the Uzbek USSR. However, Pyotr Karimov never tried to use the “privileged” status and strove to make his way on his own. This young man radically differed from Lola and Gulnara Karimov, who were real party-Soviet, nomenclature "princesses".
Life with mother
Pyotr Islamovich Karimov lived with his mother in Tashkent, in an old-built house located near the Pedagogical Institute, not far from the highway. The apartment was three-room and was located on the ground floor. There were no frills in the house. The only remarkable thing was a Soviet-made video recorder that mother and son acquired in the late 1980s. In addition, it was no secret for friends that Peter dreamed of buying a car. To do this, he even built a garage in the courtyard of the house. True, many more years had to pass before buying a car.
Further career
In the 1990s, the son of Islam Karimov began working at the Department of International Economic Relations of his native university and at the same time studied at graduate school. In the early 1990s, he often traveled to the capital, and then enrolled in study at REA them. Plekhanov.
Later, the man defended his thesis in St. Petersburg and began working as deputy chairman of the National Bank for Foreign Economic Activities of Uzbekistan (Asia-Invest Bank).
At the same time, the son of the President of Uzbekistan Petr Karimov practically did not communicate with his father, although it is impossible to unequivocally state that his successes have no share of patronage. It is possible that people in contact with the “heir”, without any instructions from above, lit him a green light on many issues.
Gossip
Over time, they began to say that Pyotr Islamovich Karimov, whose biography was already known to you in his youth, could be appointed Minister of Finance of the republic. However, this did not happen. Most likely, even if such an offer was received, Karimov Jr. refused, because for many years he was outside the Uzbek environment, did not know the state language, and he was not particularly attracted to Tashkent, since he considered himself almost a Russian.
In addition, everyone who knew Pyotr Islamovich at that time was sure that he understood what he would have to do at this post. The East is a delicate matter, and in most countries of this region corruption is taken for granted. In addition, he would have to vary between local clans, and this required the ability to conduct his game and weave intrigue, which Karimov Jr. did not have.
End of a quarter-century reign
On September 2, 2016, the Uzbek authorities officially announced the death of the president, although the first information that Karimov Sr. had died appeared on August 29. They began to say that this fact was hiding in order to find a successor. And then everyone remembered the mysterious heir, especially since relatively recently, the illegitimate son of Turkmenbashi was his illegitimate son. However, the fears of those who did not want the Karim clan to remain in power did not materialize. Everything became clear already at the president’s funeral. Of his three offspring, only daughter Lola was present at them. Moreover, neither her children nor her husband were, which was another confirmation of the fact that the era of the first president and his family was already in the past for Uzbekistan.
