Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (, ; 9 April 19383 November 2010) was a Soviet and Russian politician and businessman. He was the Minister of Gas Industry of the Soviet Union (13 February 1985 – 17 July 1989), after which he became first chairman of Gazprom energy company and the second-longest-serving Prime Minister of Russia (1992–1998) based on consecutive years. He was a key figure in Russian politics in the 1990s and a participant in the transition from a planned to a market economy. From 2001 to 2009, he was Russia's ambassador to Ukraine. After that, he was designated as a presidential adviser. Many of his sayings became aphorisms and idioms in the Russian language, two examples being the expression "We wanted the best, but it turned out like always." () and "The thing that never happens just happened again" ().
Chernomyrdin died on 3 November 2010 after a long illness. He was buried beside his wife in Novodevichy Cemetery on 5 November, and his funeral was broadcast live on Russian federal TV channels. His other occupations on the plant during this period included machinist, operator and chief of technical installations.
In 1962, he was admitted to Kuybyshev Industrial Institute (which was later renamed Samara Polytechnical Institute). In his entrance exams he performed very poorly. He failed the maths sections of the test and had to take the exam again, getting a C. He got only one B, in Russian language, and Cs in the other tests. He was admitted only because of very poor competition. In 1966, he graduated from the institute. In 1972, he completed further studies at the Department of Economics of the Union-wide Polytechnic Institute by correspondence.
Soviet political and government career
In 1961, Chernomyrdin became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1967 to 1973, he served as an industrial administrator for the city party committee in Orsk. From 1973 to 1978, he was served in an appointed position as the deputy chief engineer and director for a natural gas plant in Orenburg. In 1978, he moved to Moscow to work for the Central Committee of the CPSU,
Chernomyrdin unsuccessfully ran in the 1990 Russian Supreme Soviet election. Gazprom kept assets located in the territory of Russia, and was able to secure a monopoly in the gas sector.
Chernomyrdin's loyalty to the industrial lobby persisted.
According to Felipe Turover Chudínov, who was a senior intelligence officer with the foreign-intelligence directorate of the KGB, Chernomyrdin secretly decreed in the early 1990s that Russia would become an international hub for narcotics trafficking including importing cocaine and heroin from South America and heroin from Central Asia and Southeast Asia and exporting narcotics to Europe, North America including the United States and Canada, and China and the Pacific Rim.
While he had been critical of his predecessor Gaidar, Chernomyrdin largely continued Gaidar's policies.
Alongside U.S. vice president Al Gore, he served as co-chair of the Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission. The commission met biannually to discuss U.S.–Russia cooperation, but produced few tangible results. One outcome was U.S.–Russian cooperation in space exploration. They also reached an agreement for the United States to begin participating heavily in the Mir programme in advance of the launch of the new space station, setting the ground for the Shuttle–Mir Programme.
In April 1995, he formed a political bloc called Our Home – Russia, which won 10% of the vote and 55 seats to come third in the 1995 Russian legislative election.
In 1995, Chernomyrdin signed a decree calling for the development of a national strategy for tiger conservation.
On 18 June 1995, as a result of Shamil Basayev-led terrorists taking over 1500 people hostage in Budyonnovsk, negotiations between Chernomyrdin and Basayev led to a compromise which became a turning point for the First Chechen War. In exchange for the hostages, the Russian government agreed to halt military actions in Chechnya and begin a series of negotiations.
When Boris Yeltsin was undergoing a heart operation on 6 November 1996, Chernomyrdin served as acting president for 23 hours.
Chernomyrdin remained prime minister until his sudden dismissal on 23 March 1998. Following the 1998 Russian financial crisis in August, Yeltsin re-appointed Chernomyrdin as prime minister, and attempted to groom him as his successor. However, the Duma twice refused to confirm Chernomyrdin as the head of the government. Rather than risking a third rejection and thus forcing the dissolution of the State Duma and political crisis, Chernomyrdin withdrew his nomination and the president asked the more popular Yevgeny Primakov to form a new cabinet.
Diplomatic career
During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 Chernomyrdin was a special envoy of Russia in Yugoslavia.
In December 1999 Chernomyrdin was elected a member of the State Duma. In May 2001, Vladimir Putin appointed Chernomyrdin Ambassador of Russia to Ukraine. This action was interpreted by some Russian media agencies as a move to distance Chernomyrdin from the centre of Russian politics. In 2003, he dismissed talk of an apology for the Holodomor Famine made by the Soviet Union.
In February 2009 Chernomyrdin again strained the relations between Ukraine and Russia when he in an interview said "It is impossible to come to an agreement on anything with the Ukrainian leadership. If different people come in, we'll see". The Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a response it could declare Chernomyrdin "persona non-grata" over the row.
On 11 June 2009, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev relieved Chernomyrdin as Russian ambassador in Kyiv, and appointed him as "presidential adviser and special presidential representative on economic cooperation with CIS member countries". In a parting shot at the Ukrainian government, Chernomyrdin stated that Russia should not apologise to Ukraine over voicing its suspicions about Ukraine being unable to pay for its natural gas, and further stated that Russia wants Ukraine to pay for the gas it consumes, and hence Russia is right to be concerned about the solvency of the Ukrainian state.
Death
thumb|right|200px|[[Postage stamps and postal history of Russia|Postage stamp issued by the Russian Post in 2013 depicting Chernomyrdin]]
Chernomyrdin died on the morning of 3 November 2010 after a long illness.
Chernomyrdin was buried beside his wife in Novodevichy Cemetery on 5 November 2010. On 3 November Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed an order to show Chernomyrdin's funeral in a live broadcast on Russian federal TV channels (only the funerals of the former president Boris Yeltsin and Patriarch Alexy II were granted the same right in recent years). The head of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Naryshkin, supervised the funeral ceremony. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, other state figures in Russia and Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich.
Sayings
In Russian-speaking countries, Chernomyrdin is known for his numerous malapropisms and syntactically incorrect speech, somewhat similar to Irish bulls. The phrase was uttered after a highly unsuccessful monetary exchange performed by the Russian Central Bank in July 1993.