№ 98 (3248)

21.06.2006

Many books have already been written about the President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaymiyev. It seems that his way to the heights of power was studied to a dot, yet there still are many people keen to give their own reading of the biography of the first President of the Republic. So the former press secretary of Shaymiyev prepares his book "The last President of Tatarstan" for the press. Irek Murtazin offered its newspaper version to The Evening Kazan. We find that our readers will be interested in the views of a person, who is still quite young, who has known Shaymiyev very close and who is now absolutely independent of him.

On the 12th of June 1991 Tatarstan elected a president. It was its first President and the last one. Toward the 12th of June 2006, the fifteenth anniversary of getting one of the signs of sovereignty – an elected president, the current state of the Republic is so that the next leader, whenever they call him, will not be a President. Not only for a President recommended by Moscow is nonsense. A virtual appointment of the Tatarstan’s head officer by Moscow results from the fact that the Republic returned to the state of the centre-dependency after a dizzying historical pirouette. The current state is similar to the state at the end of the eighties years of the last century.

The first link in a chain of the events, which led to the election of Mintimer Shaymiev as Tatarstan’s President on the 12th of July 1991, was the unexpected advance of Gumer Usmanov. On the 27th of June 1988 the ХIХ USSR Party Congerence took place. The leader of Tatarstan’s communists came down on Boris Yeltsin then. The speech was noticed by Mikhail Gorbachev. In a year Usmanov became a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He could not decline it. And on the 23th September 1989 the plenary meeting of the regional committee of Communist Party of the Soviet Union took place. Akhmet Bulatov, the secretary of the Regional Committee, had to become a successor of Usmanov, this choice was agreed with Moscow.

Yet it was Perestroika time, and the non-competitive elections would not be right-on. The first secretary of Almetyevsk city committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Rinat Galeyev (who became the head of "Tatneft" in 1990) had a task to imitate an alternative. Yet at the day of the plenary session, unexpected for many people, first of all for presidium members, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Mintimer Shaymiyev was also on the list of candidates. The disqualification of self by Galeyev and his appeal to vote for Shaymiyev were also surprising. Usmanov, Bulatov and other uninitiated had nothing to do, but to make as if everything would proceed according to their plan.

The real scriptwriter and director was Khalyaf Nizamov, the head of the organizational section of the Council of Ministers of the Republic. Nizamov understood that Akhmet Galimzyanovich Bulatov will forget Shaymiyev, if he becomes the head of the Tatar district committee, and Nizamov himself will be forgotten too. The secretary of a district committee played a much more weightily and high-powered part then a Chairman of the Council of Ministers. And Bulatov did not let slip any chance, to pick Shaymiyev’s methods to pieces. What was it - fidelity to his party’s principle or the despoty of a chief? – I do not judge, yet the apprehensive of Khalyaf Mukhametovich about future purge of the ranks was not groundless. So he started to act.

Nizamov knew all the members of the district committee – abut 120 people - like the back of his hand. It was his job – his professional duty was not only personnel administration, but also the supervision of the security agencies which controlled everything then. The information about the low-down of all the party leaders was, of course, "not for public use", or even secret. Yet Khalyaf Mukhametovich was one of the people who could access to secret "personal files" classified as "not for public use" or "secret". Nizamov conditionally defined every member of the district committee as a "friend", a "foe", or as "morass". The "friends" got the instructions about the right course of action on the plenary meeting. The "morass" was brainwashed. The plan was covered up from the "foes".

Nowadays you can get at Kazan from everywhere in the Republic in several hours. Yet roads were worse before, and even the members of the district committee had no personal limousines. They had to come on the eve of every meeting. Coming to the plenary session, the members of the forum lived in two hotels "Tatarstan" and "Kazan". In the night before the historical voting the head of the restaurant "Kazan" Dzhaudat Minakhmetov (later he became the head of the Vysokogorsky district administration and then of the Republic’s installation of gas service found) prepared some grocery-wares, which the followers of Khalyaf Nizamov, brought to the members of the district committee. In the hotel rooms the question about Mintimer Shaymiyev destiny was prejudged, and so the Tatarstan’s development, for many years. By the way, Shaymiyev himself did mot took part in this "operation". He totally trusted Khalyaf Mukhametovich. So if the plot would be uncovered too early, he would not be involved into any troubles. Anyway, we know how Bulatov behaved to Shaymiyev, so we know that neutral position would not help him to keep his post.

But the following has happened. Shaymiyev did not want to take the power; he did not want to act rude, blankly, and pragmatically. Nizamov did it for him. And from his point of view, he did it right, and did not loose the chance to bring his inside man to the power. Shaymiyev became the head of the district committee of the Party, then the Supreme Soviet, then he became a President, and Khalyaf Nizamov had the power behind the throne for long years. No serious question in Tatarstan was solved without him. The almost boundless influence of Khalyaf Nizamov was probably depended on the fact that he knew many things about Shaymiyev which are not even suspected by many people nowadays. What is meant here are not incriminating evidences, but the personality of Mintimer Sharipovich: his character, temperament, direction in thinking and his way to make management decisions.

Irek MURTAZIN.

(To be continued)