[03:53 - 08:56] Perestroika's Unintended Consequences and the Collapse of the Soviet System

Actually, the main theme was war. Well, like you and everyone else, of course, experienced this period of the collapse of the Soviet Union. How did he feel about it? Again, did he have great hope for the better? Was he disappointed in how development after the collapse of the Soviet Union, how it then evolved? How did he relate to all this? As I understand it, there was rather a strange mix of a romantic politician and the hopes of the intelligentsia, because, of course, Yuri fully supported Gorbachev. Everything concerning Perestroika, because Perestroika was practically a revolution. And Perestroika did not imply the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's Perestroika, in fact, implied completely different things: a gradual transition and bringing the former republics to a certain mode of independence. Through glasnost, through the fight against negative phenomena, especially in the Caucasian republics—localism, corruption, nepotism—through raising people's living standards. That is, to bring everyone up, and once they become independent, they will decide for themselves what they want. So, first raise them up, and then let them go. But in essence, the collapse of the Soviet Union happened at a moment of universal poverty, when a dog was fed and fed, then, well, at least they didn't shoot it. They untied it, kicked it out of the house, and said: 'Well, go, you wanted freedom here, somehow, just do it yourself there.' And so, whoever could manage on their own – not everyone succeeded immediately. That is, with what we call the collapse, yes, it's the movement of huge human, intellectual, military masses; it's the removal of the entire contractual process by which the machine called the Soviet Union actually worked. When cotton was planted in Uzbekistan, and in Kazakhstan, there were spinning mills that made threads from this raw material, and in the Moscow region and Belarus, they made fabrics, and in the Baltics, these fabrics were processed, patterns and textures were applied, and then sold. And when these chains collapsed, it was unclear where to run and what to do. When a very poor quality of life begins. And you understand, since textiles are my profession, I can talk about this endlessly. When textiles disappear, well, fine, we somehow survive on old stuff, right? When children's toys disappear, well, okay, we figure out how to make them for a child. But when medicines disappear... And this was a period when there were no medicines, because these chains were also destroyed and broken. And then there was a period when Yuri, being a deputy, and essentially observing this collapse from within, tried to save people in some way. These were endless calls: help the sick, secure pensions for those who, because people were moving from republics, they were left without means of subsistence. Now, perhaps, when students, the younger generation, come to me, and I start explaining the basics to them in detail, like to you, they don't know this. They were born in the 2000s, in more prosperous years. They can't imagine, they say: 'How is that? He had to manage without support? What about a social package when getting a job?' Children over 20 ask me this. Because their parents already repeat these words at home, that there is a social package, there are, so to speak, certain guaranteed household rights and guarantees. And how do they say? What does this mean? They came to him? Did one have to go online, put up an announcement on the wall, via social media? Listen, guys, there was no phone! There were payphones for two kopecks on the street. And they stopped working overnight. Because the components and parts for these payphones were not produced in Russia. And those who produced them, their ingredients weren't entirely their own either. And this constant reassembling of oneself, which was happening before our very eyes.