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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Hey, Chuck, you ended

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Speaker 2: the last one. You want to start this one.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Charles W. Chuck Bryant.

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Speaker 1: To my left is Josh Clark. Jerry's here in spirit

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Speaker 1: and in reality this time. So this is part two

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Speaker 1: of the Fall of the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 2: Bravo.

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Speaker 1: I hated doing that, by the way, Oh you did. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: This feels like Robin putting on Batman's outfit or something.

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Speaker 1: This is very strange.

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Speaker 2: How do you know it's not Robin who announces the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Or whatever Batman putting on Robin's outfit, although I heard

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Speaker 1: he did that on the side as a kink.

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Speaker 2: He did. But who hasn't. Who among us hasn't dressed

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Speaker 2: up like Robin from Batman?

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Speaker 1: That's true? Or Josh Clark from Stuff you Should Know,

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Speaker 1: which is one and the same. Yeah, I dress up

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Speaker 1: like you you do. Yeah, I have shirts and cute sweatshirts.

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Speaker 2: I have to say you're you have stepped up your

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Speaker 2: style game lately and it's it's nice. Hey, thanks, your

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Speaker 2: traveling outfits are.

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Speaker 1: Well. I was always into clothes growing up, and then

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Speaker 1: I wore T shirts and cargo shorts for twenty five

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Speaker 1: years and then remembered, Hey, I like fashion, so I

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Speaker 1: back it.

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Speaker 2: You brought it back. Yeah, you're basically the Tom Ford

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Speaker 2: of the podcasting world.

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Speaker 1: All right, So where we left off December eighth, nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety one, the USSR is formally dissolved by decree by

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Speaker 1: the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. No one knows

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Speaker 1: what's going to happen next with Russia. We've kind of

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Speaker 1: covered the satellite states and the Soviet States themselves and

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Speaker 1: what happened there, but everyone was sort of like, all right, well,

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Speaker 1: Russia's still there, and like, what the heck is going

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Speaker 1: to happen? And who rolls into town but Boris Yelston

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Speaker 1: with a bottle of Stoli in his hand.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and another one in his belly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.

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Speaker 2: So Boris Yeltsen was the first president of Russia, which

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Speaker 2: is kind of confusing because we said that Gorbachev was

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Speaker 2: the president of the USSR. But remember Russia and the

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Speaker 2: USSR were not one and the same. So for a

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Speaker 2: little while there, Russia itself had pretty much two presidents

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Speaker 2: at the same time. For a couple of months while

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Speaker 2: Gorbachev was still in power, and while Yeltsen, who had

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Speaker 2: been popularly elected in June of nineteen ninety one, while

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Speaker 2: he was like, I'm President of Russia. So there was

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Speaker 2: a what you could call a bit of a power struggle.

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Speaker 2: And despite that, it wasn't until a three day coup

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Speaker 2: was mounted, and they didn't plan for three days. They

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Speaker 2: didn't know how long it was going to go on.

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Speaker 2: It just turned out to be a three day coup,

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Speaker 2: I guess, is what I'm trying to say. It wasn't

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Speaker 2: until that was mounted against Gorbachev that his power was

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Speaker 2: eroded enough to take his position away and for Yeltsin

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Speaker 2: to take over and take Russia straight into the hands

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Speaker 2: of the West, the open arms of the West. And ironically,

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Speaker 2: that coup was by hardliners who wanted to keep who

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Speaker 2: wanted to save communism and the USSR, but instead they

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Speaker 2: managed to remove the power from the one guy who

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Speaker 2: conceivably could have still helped that happen and gave it

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Speaker 2: to the guy who was diametrically opposed to making that happen, Yeltsin.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And it was ended up being a failed coup. Technically,

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Speaker 1: but it had the result of finally sort of getting

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Speaker 1: Gorbachef out of power, so in a way it kind

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Speaker 1: of worked, but it was technically a failed coup. What

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Speaker 1: happened was, you know, Gorbachev came in with all these big,

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Speaker 1: sweeping reforms, and so the conservative elites that he had

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Speaker 1: previously worked with were terrified, obviously because they're existence depended

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Speaker 1: on the Soviet Union being the Soviet Union, so they

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Speaker 1: were like, Gorbachev is a trader. In nineteen ninety one,

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Speaker 1: they put him under house arrest while he was on

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Speaker 1: vacation in Crimea, and they sent tanks in to Moscow

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Speaker 1: and took control of the government. They didn't storm the

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Speaker 1: parliament building, but they lined up outside the parliament building.

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Speaker 1: And then they made a mistake in that they let

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Speaker 1: Boris Yeltsin, I keep saying, Yelston Yeltsin get on one

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Speaker 1: of those tanks and address the people. And this is

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Speaker 1: a time where they had not jammed the TV signals

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Speaker 1: coming from outside the Soviet Union. So all of these

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Speaker 1: Soviets all of a sudden are watching this unfold on

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Speaker 1: the BBC or CNN, and they're seeing this Yeltsin guy

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Speaker 1: sitting on top of a tank talking to them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, basically saying like, look at what the Communists are doing.

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Speaker 2: They send in tanks to take over your government. Can

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Speaker 2: you believe someone would do that? And it was not

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Speaker 2: a good look for the Soviet Party, and not only

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Speaker 2: did it make the party look bad, it made Yelton

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Speaker 2: look really good. So remember he'd already been popularly elected,

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Speaker 2: but there was a power struggle between him and Gorbachev

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Speaker 2: going on. When the coup was overrun, the leaders were jailed,

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Speaker 2: Gorbachev managed to come back to Moscow. But now he

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Speaker 2: came back and like his authority had been directly challenged,

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Speaker 2: and even though the coup had failed, it had had

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Speaker 2: a huge impact on removing his legitimacy while at the

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Speaker 2: same time boosting Yeltsin's legitimacy. And so Gorbachev was like,

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Speaker 2: it's clear, I can't hold power any longer. So he

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Speaker 2: very very peacefully, to his great credit, very peacefully handed

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Speaker 2: over power and did away with any office that he held.

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Speaker 2: Somebody else could have come along and filled and tried

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Speaker 2: to challenge Yelton. He made sure that there would be

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Speaker 2: no further political chaos. As much as he could manage.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was like, I'm not president of the USSR anymore,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, there is no president of the USSR.

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Speaker 1: That office that I created no longer exists, and technically everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'm the only guy to have ever done that. So

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Speaker 1: just you know, keep that in your back pocket. And

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Speaker 1: he said, here's the nuclear codes, Boris, please take care

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Speaker 1: of those. Any Communists that are in public office. Well,

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Speaker 1: there is no Communist party, so you're not even a

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Speaker 1: valid member of that party because there is none. So

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Speaker 1: you're not even if you were elected, because there's no

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Speaker 1: such thing. Then you're out of your your seat. And

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Speaker 1: Russia is now the Russian Federation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I didn't see what happened to those people.

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Speaker 2: Was it just like I guess I'm independent all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden, not by choice, or if they were like

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Speaker 2: I guess I can't hold this office anymore. Who knows.

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Speaker 2: But like that was just one small component of the

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Speaker 2: sweeping political chain is that took place over the course

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Speaker 2: of a few days. I think the whole thing really

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Speaker 2: kicked off on December twenty fifth, nineteen ninety one, and

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Speaker 2: by the turn of nineteen ninety two was basically over.

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Speaker 2: I mean Russia became the Russian Federation, and that same

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Speaker 2: anti communist spirit of renewal and revolution and like change,

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Speaker 2: the winds of change you could even almost call it,

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Speaker 2: had swept through Russia itself.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they were immediately no longer a superpower, all that

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Speaker 1: national identity. You know, we talked about some of this

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Speaker 1: stuff in Part one with Promise of More and that's

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Speaker 1: right now because for a lot of the people in

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Speaker 1: Russia it was like the fall of communism was a

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Speaker 1: great thing, but for a lot of others that was

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Speaker 1: you know, the Soviet man was labeled and it was,

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Speaker 1: I guess a pejorative term, but Homo Sovieticus. That was

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Speaker 1: just sort of the the average Soviet man who is

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Speaker 1: you know, probably works in a factory and has lived

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Speaker 1: his whole life with this ideology, this communist ideology and

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Speaker 1: independent thought like which they you know, a lot of

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Speaker 1: them voluntarily sort of bought into this thing. And so

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Speaker 1: once that identity was removed and there was a vacuum

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Speaker 1: in its wake, it was they were unmoored and did

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Speaker 1: just like everything they knew was gone and they didn't

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Speaker 1: know what to do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like the patriotic of the USSR, like everyday citizens

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Speaker 2: consider themselves one part of this larger collective, the Soviet experiment,

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Speaker 2: and that was their identity. That's what a lot of

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Speaker 2: like the way they thought came from basically, like you

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Speaker 2: were saying. And so when you pull that out from

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Speaker 2: underneath somebody, especially when it happened suddenly and essentially without warning,

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Speaker 2: it just comes out of nowhere, like, it's really hard

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Speaker 2: to put yourself in that position, like, yeah, how would

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Speaker 2: you handle that kind of thing? You know. And certainly

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Speaker 2: there were plenty of people who will see who were

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Speaker 2: rejoiced at this change. They were glad communism went away,

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Speaker 2: but there were a lot of people who were not

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Speaker 2: happy that Communism had gone away, or that the Soviet

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Speaker 2: Union had gone away.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know, religion helped fill a little

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Speaker 1: of that void. The recovered Russian Orthodoxy became a little

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Speaker 1: more popular to help fill this moral vacuum that was

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Speaker 1: left in its wake. But there was a guy in

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Speaker 1: Dresden at the time. He was a KGB lieutenant colonel

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Speaker 1: in his villa and dressed in Germany, and this was

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Speaker 1: before a reunification. This was a nineteen ninety just sort

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Speaker 1: of a mid level officer who as far as you know,

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Speaker 1: criticism of the USSR in the Soviet way was very

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Speaker 1: prideful and very much defended it and got really mad

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Speaker 1: apparently super short views when it was criticized. His name

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Speaker 1: was Vladimir Putin, and he saw everything that was going

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Speaker 1: on around and there's a quote from him that kind

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Speaker 1: of sums it up. He said, nothing different was proposed.

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Speaker 1: That's what hurt is. They just dropped everything and went away.

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Speaker 1: So you know, he sensed this vacuum, and you know,

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Speaker 1: over here in the United States, like it felt like

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Speaker 1: I felt like it. It kind of was a victory,

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Speaker 1: like we won. The Cold War is over. Their experiment

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Speaker 1: failed democracy wins, you know.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure. The problem was is that the

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Speaker 2: West wasn't like we're going to help. We want to

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Speaker 2: dig in here, we want to help you, like rebuild.

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Speaker 2: We want you to be a great nation and you know,

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Speaker 2: a great partner to Europe and the rest of the

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Speaker 2: West and the rest of the world. And one of

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Speaker 2: the reasons why the United States didn't react like that

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Speaker 2: at a really really crucial time, which was nineteen ninety

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Speaker 2: one nineteen ninety two, was that President George H. W. Bush,

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Speaker 2: who was a Cold war, if there ever was one,

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Speaker 2: was leading the United States, and I saw it described.

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Speaker 2: I think it was on a site called History Guild,

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Speaker 2: which is magnificent by the way that he foiled his

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Speaker 2: arms and turned his back and was basically like, good luck,

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Speaker 2: We're glad you fell over, but we're not gonna help you.

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Speaker 2: We hate you. We've hated you for decades now, so

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Speaker 2: we're not really gonna step in and help you rebuild.

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Speaker 2: Just figure out how to do it yourself. And that

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Speaker 2: had that gone differently, who knows what Russia would be

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Speaker 2: like right now. Who knows, We have no idea. Could

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Speaker 2: be worse, it could have been better, It could be

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Speaker 2: it could have played out exactly the same. But the

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Speaker 2: fact that the West only helped in the most like

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Speaker 2: specific economic terms and didn't in like a spirit of

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Speaker 2: friendship and cooperation, really step in and basically basically the

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Speaker 2: United States was a sore loser of the Cold War.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like most of that was sort

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Speaker 1: of aimed at Russia's typically because I don't know how

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Speaker 1: much they financially helped the former Russian states and satellite

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Speaker 1: states and things like that, But it seems like the

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Speaker 1: just the spirit of it all was more aimed directly

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Speaker 1: at Russia and like, hey, these other countries are finally

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Speaker 1: out from under your grip, so like good for them.

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Speaker 2: Right exactly. I think we failed to say in the

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Speaker 2: first episode, but Kyle helped us out with this our

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Speaker 2: man in Great Britain or the UK or England even Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he provided the basis, and then when we started

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Speaker 1: digging in, we were like, there's a lot more to

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Speaker 1: this that we need to double up. And then you

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Speaker 1: finished the job, buddy, in grand fashion.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. So he found a movie called Goodbye Lenin

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Speaker 2: from two thousand and three. It's a German film and

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Speaker 2: it's a parody of this Time where it's about a

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Speaker 2: man who tries to keep he tries to shield his mother,

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Speaker 2: his East German mother, from finding out that communism has collapse. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and I guess it's probably hilarious. I gotta go see

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Speaker 2: that one because I love a good German comedy like

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Speaker 2: anybody else, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I should see that too. So let's take a

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Speaker 1: break and we'll talk a little bit about sort of

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Speaker 1: the economics of this all in Russia right after this,

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Speaker 1: all right, So we promised talk of economics and finances

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Speaker 1: and the New Russia, or I guess the Russian Federation.

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Speaker 1: Gorbachev at least was trying to instill like a gradual reform,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of funny now looking back, because there's

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Speaker 1: nothing gradual about it. But Boris Yeltsin was like, he

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Speaker 1: really wanted to hit the gas economically, so he embraced

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Speaker 1: this economist name I'm gonna pronounce at yegor Gaidar or Gaydar.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's pronounced g ai dar. But he,

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Speaker 1: along with some Harvard economists that were like, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do this. He had an idea called shock therapy,

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Speaker 1: which was kind of crazy when you look back at

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Speaker 1: like this was the idea because, like I said, you

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Speaker 1: can't just flick a switch overnight and be like, all right,

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Speaker 1: we're a free market now. They had no infrastructure for that,

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Speaker 1: no history of doing that or what that looked like.

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Speaker 1: They didn't know how to manage that, and so out

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Speaker 1: of nowhere, all of a sudden, they said, all right,

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Speaker 1: rushes open everybody. They flipped a sign in the window

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Speaker 1: around and said we're open.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So here's here's basically how it worked. There

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Speaker 2: were several points. This is just a few of them.

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Speaker 2: And this is just such a back of the envelope

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Speaker 2: sketch of this whole thing. But right, some of the

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Speaker 2: high points were, Remember the ruble was not recognized internationally,

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Speaker 2: the Soviet ruble was. Well, now we had the Russian ruble,

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Speaker 2: and to become recognized as currency on the international market,

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Speaker 2: it couldn't be artificially propped up by the government any longer, right,

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Speaker 2: it had to basically sink or swim on its own. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: with maybe a little bit of monkeying like everybody does,

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Speaker 2: but not one hundred percent monkeying with it. So that

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Speaker 2: was a big one.

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Speaker 1: Right, right, Yeah, that was a big one. They needed cash,

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Speaker 1: like immediate inflow of cash, so they couldn't like take

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Speaker 1: their time to ramp up stuff like that just by

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Speaker 1: saying they're open. So the state owned businesses, we talked

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Speaker 1: about them being privatized, which meant they were available for

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Speaker 1: the rest of the world to invest in. They removed

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Speaker 1: the terrace on foreign import so like trade could flow

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Speaker 1: and the West did step up. I don't know, did

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Speaker 1: the United States contribute at all to this?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying, very narrowly and economically, Okay,

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Speaker 2: In basically in exchange for whatever it was asking for.

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Speaker 2: The United States helped them that respect. It wasn't like

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Speaker 2: any magnanimous way, is what I was trying to say.

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Speaker 1: It was about twenty billion dollars of the West in

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Speaker 1: emergency loans, just like an infusion of cash, just to

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Speaker 1: keep them from completely collapsing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I didn't see how much of that actually

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Speaker 2: came through, but that was the proposal, right, right, So

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Speaker 2: this is all like major high level macroeconomic stuff. To

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Speaker 2: get more on the micro level, what they came up

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Speaker 2: with was a voucher program, and they basically said, hey,

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Speaker 2: here is a voucher for a bunch of shares or

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Speaker 2: say ten shares in each of these state owned enterprises.

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Speaker 2: We're going to privatize them. They're going to start selling

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Speaker 2: this stuff on the world market, and we're going to

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Speaker 2: distribute these vouchers equally among I think like ninety five

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Speaker 2: percent of the Soviet citizenry. I didn't see why the

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Speaker 2: other five percent had to sit out, But basically everybody

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Speaker 2: got shares in all of these amazingly soon to be

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Speaker 2: wealthy companies.

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Speaker 1: And just to be clear, it wasn't like, you know,

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Speaker 1: when they were making TVs. It was like our oil industry,

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Speaker 1: in our steel industry, like big big stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so the point was that they could benefit

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Speaker 2: directly from this new, amped up, juiced up Russian economy

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Speaker 2: that was about to explode. Yeah, none of this went

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Speaker 2: at all. Well, the shock therapy went so poorly that

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Speaker 2: a lot of Russians at the time and probably still

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Speaker 2: today believed that it was deliberately inflicted by the West

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Speaker 2: to keep the USSR hobbled so that it couldn't possibly

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Speaker 2: come back. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Was it like the these Harvard economists and stuff. Was

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Speaker 1: that the deal?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they were very much in league with Jegol or

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Speaker 2: guide are okay for sure.

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Speaker 1: Well, what this led to was hyperinflation because their currency

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Speaker 1: was like completely devalued, and a lot of Russians, like

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know the number, but I feel

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Speaker 1: like a majority of the average Russians life saving just

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Speaker 1: went away. Basically we've talked about the hyper inflation. Was

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Speaker 1: it a whole episode on hyper inflation?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know we've talked about it many times,

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Speaker 2: but we did we did something I think just on it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was it was one of the worst

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Speaker 1: cases of hyperinflation, like in world history. Consumer goods went

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Speaker 1: like up in price by like four hundred percent. These

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Speaker 1: state owned businesses, and we kind of touched on this

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Speaker 1: in Part one, but it was an inside job. They

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Speaker 1: were being pillaged from the inside by these ministers who

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Speaker 1: had overseen them as part of the Soviet Union, and

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Speaker 1: these vouchers. You know, a lot of the citizens were

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Speaker 1: just like, this is I'm going to trade it for bread,

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Speaker 1: like this means nothing.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, and they did. So there were people out there

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Speaker 2: who were like, sure, I've got some bread. Here have

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Speaker 2: some bread, give me your vouchers. And they started getting

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Speaker 2: their hands on as many vouchers as they possibly could.

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Speaker 2: Because those vouchers were eventually able to be traded for shares, right,

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Speaker 2: they weren't shares themselves quite yet, because things had to

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Speaker 2: be organized a little more. So people ran around collecting

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Speaker 2: these vouchers, and as a result, when those shares started

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Speaker 2: coming out on the market and parts of these companies,

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Speaker 2: these actually industries, were being auctioned off, they ended up

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Speaker 2: in the hands of just a few people who had

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Speaker 2: managed to collect a bunch of vouchers concentrate this stuff,

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Speaker 2: and then they got together and said I got a

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Speaker 2: bunch of vouchers. You have a bunch of vouchers. Let's

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Speaker 2: come together form a cartel and we'll actually take over

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Speaker 2: this oil company using these vouchers. Right, And those people

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Speaker 2: became what we now call the Russian oligarchs, who did

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Speaker 2: not exist before this, It just did not exist. And

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Speaker 2: now all of a sudden there were eye poppingly wealthy

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Speaker 2: people who just emerged out of the ashes, suddenly growing

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Speaker 2: in size exponentially, just like Apache chief.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. I know you hear that term a

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Speaker 1: lot now, Russian oligarchs. And if you were always like,

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Speaker 1: what the heck is that? Even that, this is where

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Speaker 1: it comes from, the real big like what sent that

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Speaker 1: over the top was this loans for shares privatization situation

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Speaker 1: because they feared that if they had a communist victory

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six that that would be a bit

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Speaker 1: a bad deal to all of a sudden reverse course

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Speaker 1: on what had been happening. And so the government said,

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Speaker 1: all right, all you knew oligarxies, super rich people, we

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Speaker 1: got a deal for you. We'll loan you shares in

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Speaker 1: our twelve biggest state owned businesses in exchange for like

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Speaker 1: quick cash. Now, ended up being about eight hundred million dollars,

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Speaker 1: essentially sort of allowing them to buy pieces of like

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Speaker 1: oil companies and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they were loans like you said, these shares

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Speaker 2: are controlling interests, but they never gave them back essentially,

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Speaker 2: so the government sold it. Like you said, these were

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Speaker 2: oil giants, metal producers, all like. This is where it

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Speaker 2: really got consolidated. Before they were using vouchers and stuff.

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Speaker 2: Now it was like they were buying directly from the government.

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Speaker 2: They went to the wholesaler, right. And Putin was one

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Speaker 2: of those those oligarchs. He had made some they started

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Speaker 2: to make cash, I think, flipping real estate in Saint

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Speaker 2: Petersburg in the very early nineties, and then started a bank,

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Speaker 2: and then by the time this fire sale went on

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six, he managed to secure a controlling

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Speaker 2: stake in a nickel mining company by loaning one hundred

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Speaker 2: and seventy million dollars to the government.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I don't think anyone knows how much

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Speaker 1: money he has today, right, No, and that kind of

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Speaker 1: a mystery.

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Speaker 2: We talked about it in our book.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Will there ever be a trillionaire?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Will there.

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Speaker 1: So these oligarchs were were and are greedy because they

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Speaker 1: were like that wasn't even enough. They were like, you

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Speaker 1: know what, how we can make more money is instead

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Speaker 1: of having these big, great industries like helping out Mother

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Speaker 1: Russia and the Russian Federation, we can actually strip these

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Speaker 1: companies of the raw materials and sell them for more

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Speaker 1: money on these international markets. And so that made them

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Speaker 1: even richer. And then what that did was that that

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Speaker 1: really created a wealth gap like they had never seen before,

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Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, factories are closing and entire

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Speaker 1: towns and villages that were built around this central factory

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Speaker 1: went into ruin and the safety net was gone, and

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Speaker 1: like their their unemployment rate and there was just just

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Speaker 1: like unbelievable, was like twenty two percent in nineteen ninety eight.

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Speaker 2: Forty percent of the population was under the poverty line

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five, just eye popping statistics. Because these

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Speaker 2: oligarchs were allowed to basically pilfer the entire Russian economy

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Speaker 2: for themselves, they carved out the middle classes another way

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Speaker 2: to put it, and so like when they figured out,

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Speaker 2: like we don't need to make stuff at home, we

401
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Speaker 2: can sell that stuff for we can just sell the

402
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Speaker 2: raw materials on the market and make more money. Yeah,

403
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Speaker 2: so many people were put out of work. And then

404
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Speaker 2: bear in mind there used to be a safety net,

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Speaker 2: like the Soviet Union was Coluji. I heard a joke where,

406
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Speaker 2: like an old Soviet joke that we pretend to work

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Speaker 2: and the government pretends to pay us. That's just kind

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Speaker 2: of how things went. But you still had childcare, you

409
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Speaker 2: still had healthcare, you still had a free education. Like

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Speaker 2: it might not have been very good, but the government

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Speaker 2: was still doing what it could to deliver that stuff.

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Speaker 2: Right after that, like you said, that safety net was

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Speaker 2: just gone and people were just unmoored in adrift, and

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Speaker 2: it was like good luck, You're going to have to

415
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Speaker 2: go figure out what to do yourself because now this

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Speaker 2: is a capitalist economy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I think I mentioned in part one,

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Speaker 1: like they they slowed the rate of having children just

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Speaker 1: because they couldn't afford it. I think by the end

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Speaker 1: of the nineties there were three point seven million fewer

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Speaker 1: children in Russia than in nineteen ninety so in the

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Speaker 1: course of a decade. And alcoholism was you know, it's

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Speaker 1: always been obviously a thing in Russia. With the free

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Speaker 1: flowing of vodka. But after this it was really really bad.

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Speaker 1: Heavy drinking accounted for two of every five deaths among

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Speaker 1: Russian working age men in the nineties, and their life

427
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Speaker 1: expectancy changed. Like, if you can like literally change a

428
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Speaker 1: life expectancy over a decade, then something terrible has gone wrong.

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Speaker 1: I think the male life expectancy went from sixty four

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Speaker 1: to fifty seven over the course of three years between

431
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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one and nineteen ninety four. Because again, these

432
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Speaker 1: you know, the Soviet men, out of work, no ideals

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Speaker 1: that they had grown up knowing and like believing in

434
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: all of a sudden stripped, so they drank themselves to death.

435
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. I said earlier that a lot of Russians still believe,

436
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 2: probably still believed, they definitely did the time that the

437
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 2: West inflicted shock therapy upon them on purpose. I've also

438
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 2: seen this shock therapy as being labeled as responsible for

439
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 2: somebody like Putin to be able to come along and

440
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 2: get the kind of support as a autocratic nostalgist, basically

441
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 2: in very much the same way that Hitler was able

442
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 2: to rise to power because of the deeply punitive measures

443
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 2: in the Treaty of Versailles that just punished Germany, made

444
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 2: Germany really unhappy with the rest of the world, and

445
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,199
Speaker 2: so somebody came along and said, I'm going to restore

446
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 2: Germany to its former glory. That's how Hitler came to power.

447
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 2: Putin came along and said I'm going to Russia to

448
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 2: its former glory, and so he got support as an

449
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 2: autocrat as well. It's just it's always interesting to me

450
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 2: that you can find so many different streams of like

451
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 2: events and goings on and just different decisions that can

452
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 2: lead to such consequential actions. Yeah, it's like I was

453
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 2: thinking about it, It's like nothing is black and white,

454
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 2: and even fewer things are one sided. And that's a

455
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 2: good example of that.

456
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So the decade that was the nineteen

457
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: nineties over there. In ninety one, you know, we mentioned

458
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: that Yeltsin was elected as the President of the Russian Federation,

459
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: or actually I guess before that he was President of

460
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,400
Speaker 1: Russia and now the official elected president of the Russian Federation, right,

461
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: And he was a you know, he stood up to

462
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: a corrupt system, so he was very popular. You know,

463
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: there wasn't a revolution in Russia like happened elsewhere in

464
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe. They you know, elsewhere the political elites were replaced.

465
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 1: That didn't happen here. They didn't massively distribute or redistribute

466
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: wealth and power like a lot of the people from

467
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: the nomenclatura like they took care of them and they

468
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:26,360
Speaker 1: stayed in that that sort of it was an elite status.

469
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like the oligarchs. It was. It was

470
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 1: now billionaires compared to working stuffs, whereas before it was

471
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: more like sort of upper management versus working stuff.

472
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so yes, so these these people, the Soviet elite,

473
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 2: just were like, oh, we're not communists anymore, but we're

474
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 2: still going to stay elite, I guess. And right, yeah,

475
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 2: wink wink, nudge, nudge. And so though George H. W.

476
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 2: Bush turned his back on Russia, Clinton turned around and

477
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 2: was like, hey, guys, let's get it on. We love you, Yelton.

478
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: He's a lovable guy.

479
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 2: He is. He's got big cheeks, he's like smiling all

480
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 2: the time. And the reason why is because he was

481
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 2: drunk constantly.

482
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, but I remember at the time though, it

483
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: was like this isn't what like the old Soviet style,

484
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: like this is a big teddy bear like you said,

485
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: he's smiling all the time and he wants He seemed

486
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:26,400
Speaker 1: to be very Western friendly, and he was also well

487
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: partially because the alcoholism is someone who I think Bill

488
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 1: Clinton and people in the West knew that they could

489
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: kind of control.

490
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 2: Yes, so he was a party animal, like there's no

491
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 2: two ways around it. There was. There's this one thing

492
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 2: you can look up on YouTube where German Chancellor Helmet

493
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 2: Cole came to visit Russia after the Soviet Union dissault,

494
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 2: and it's a state visit. They're standing there watching a

495
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 2: Russian military parade go by, and all of a sudden,

496
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 2: Yelson just has moved to grab the baton from the

497
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 2: military band conductor and he starts conducting band too, but

498
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 2: like almost cartoonishly. Yeah, yeah, larger than life. He's blowing

499
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 2: kisses at people and it's like when you watch it,

500
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 2: like he's pretty drunk right now. And this is like

501
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 2: an official state thing, and this was not unusual for him.

502
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. There was another famous story where when

503
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: he was on an official state visit, one of the

504
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: first ones, I think it might have been the first

505
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: one to the United States, he was all of a

506
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: sudden turned loose in the US and he was like,

507
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: this is fantastic. So the Secret Service allegedly found him

508
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: out trying to hail a cab in DC on Pennsylvania

509
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: Avenue and his underwear, so he drunk so he could

510
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: go get a pizza, and the Secret Service reins him

511
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: in and they're like, forest, buddy, we'll get you a pizza. Like,

512
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: come back inside.

513
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 2: Again, that's not a legend, like that happened. Oh yeah,

514
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 2: So a lot of people like so, yes, he was

515
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 2: a lovable teddy bearer. He certainly looked that way. But

516
00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 2: and a lot of people point to Putin as the

517
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 2: as the person who started autocratic rule or brought autocracy

518
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 2: to Russia back to Russia. Yeah, as like he's the guy.

519
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 2: And if you dial back history a few years to

520
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, you can see very clearly that Boris

521
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 2: Yelton was the one who kicked it off again. He

522
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 2: because of his antics, because of the just general chaos

523
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 2: of the transition out of the Soviet economy that he

524
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 2: presided over or just failed to preside over. All of

525
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 2: these oligarchs first starting to get super rich off of

526
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 2: the government and off of what's supposed to belong to

527
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 2: the people. He got very unpopular, as we'll see. I

528
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 2: think at one point before he left office, his approval

529
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:48,479
Speaker 2: rating was six percent, yeah, in the tank, and I

530
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 2: assume that that was with the margin of air plus

531
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 2: or minus six percent.

532
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: Him.

533
00:30:54,480 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 2: So he was impeached by the legitimately elected parliament, and

534
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 2: he didn't like that very much.

535
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,959
Speaker 1: No, he dissolved parliament, or tried to as a result

536
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 1: of that, and Parliament was like, no, we're not dissolving.

537
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: So he had the military come in and shell parliament,

538
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: which was I mean, if you want to talk about

539
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 1: an autocratic move, I mean, that's certainly it. But you

540
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: know it was spun. Well, I don't know about spun.

541
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: But in the West it was viewed as more of

542
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: a like, hey, Clinton's like, look at this guy, like

543
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: he's a hero of democracy. Like he's shelling communist parliament.

544
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: Like that's how much he hates communists.

545
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 2: Right exactly. That's how useful he was to the West

546
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 2: that they were just like just tried to save him

547
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 2: anyway they could. He managed to hang on to power.

548
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 2: That Shares for Voucher Scheme, the Great Shares for Voucher

549
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 2: Scheme in ninety six, that was designed to help Yelton

550
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 2: stay into power. He so hated that the Communists were

551
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 2: probably going to sweep the elections that year, and so

552
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 2: I think Kyle with it that people felt cheated twice

553
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 2: by Gorbachew first and then Yeltson afterward. So there was

554
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 2: not a lot of happiness in Russia in the nineteen nineties.

555
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 2: They say, we take our second break and come back

556
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 2: and wrap it up. Let's do it, okay, Chuck, wrap

557
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 2: it up. I'll take it. Do you remember that? So

558
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 2: good though, You're easy to listen to and fun. It

559
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 2: was that the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

560
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, fabulous Thunderbirds. Jimmy Vond Was it Jimmy in that one?

561
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 2: Yeah?

562
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: I think it was Stevie Rayvaughd's brother. Jimmy.

563
00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 2: Oh, Jimmy Vaughan. I thought you were talking about Jimmy

564
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 2: love Bond, Simon Lebon's brother.

565
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: Yeh, all right, So I knew we'd get a few

566
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 1: laughs in here, you know. All right? So where are

567
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: we here?

568
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 2: We are?

569
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 1: With Yeltsin, he had banned the Communist Party. That was

570
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: challenged and that resulted in a nineteen ninety two trial

571
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: that was televised and it was billed as like the

572
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 1: big Russian Nuremberg Trial, and it was basically like, hey,

573
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: we're going to reckon with our past as a party

574
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: because of all the crimes committed under the name of

575
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: communism against the people. The sort of hitch to this

576
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: Nuremberg was that there were no actual defendants. It was

577
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: just sort of a sort of a show. It seems

578
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: like like they didn't actually prosecute individuals. It was just

579
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: sort of demonstrating the history of criminality of communism.

580
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, like they put Soviet communism itself on trial, not

581
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 2: the people who perpetrated it. And so that's a really

582
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 2: good that's good evidence of what you were saying earlier

583
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 2: that the nomenclatura, the party elites just stopped being party members,

584
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,240
Speaker 2: but stayed elite. They were still pulling the levers of power.

585
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:12,839
Speaker 2: So of course they're not going to let themselves be prosecuted,

586
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 2: but they know that again the winds of change are

587
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 2: moving against communism, so they're going to go along with

588
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 2: the show trial. It's also really good evidence of just

589
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 2: how strong those levers of power remained in Russia. Like

590
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 2: the KGB, it was still around. It just changed its

591
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 2: name to the FSB, the Federal Security Service, and there

592
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 2: was I think a member of the Supreme Soviet the

593
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 2: Parliament who suggested a illustration bill lustration is where you

594
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 2: identify and remove public officials who are tainted from their

595
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 2: association with the former regime. That member of parliament was

596
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 2: assassinated in nineteen ninety eight. So there wasn't a lot

597
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:58,359
Speaker 2: of mood among the elites to really actually have some

598
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 2: sort of reckoning, which again that in and of itself

599
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 2: might have helped steer Russia in a different direction, but

600
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 2: the people who had been in charge were still basically

601
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 2: in charge. Outside of Russia, there were it was a

602
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 2: lot easier to do that kind of thing because they

603
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 2: could blame Russia.

604
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 1: Right yeah, saying like, you know, we were under the

605
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 1: thumb of communism as a state, so it was a

606
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: lot easier to sort of rally people around this idea

607
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,240
Speaker 1: that they were free and had a new way forward.

608
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: Yeltsin tried, you know, he tried to pull some other

609
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: levers that weren't like huge economic reforms or whatever, that

610
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: were just like, hey, let me let me readopt the

611
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 1: Imperial tricolor and let me replace the Soviet anthem and

612
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: these are all really divisive moves. I think he was

613
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: trying to sort of he attempted to close the Linen

614
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: Mausoleum and replace Revolution Day, so he was trying to

615
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: say like, hey, let's move forward, and like this past

616
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,439
Speaker 1: is haunting us. But it was a really divided thing

617
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: because after this pretty horrible decade of chaos and like

618
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 1: financial ruin the I feel like sort of the broad

619
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 1: view of your average Russian was like things were better before,

620
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 1: and they started pining for the old days, and there

621
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 1: was a nostalgia that came around, you know, for that

622
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:24,239
Speaker 1: old national anthem that Putin reverted in two thousand and

623
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 1: that's when Putin, like, I mean, I think he really

624
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 1: believed it, but I think he also really saw an

625
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 1: opening there to come in and be like, I'm your guy,

626
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: you missed the old days, just wait exactly.

627
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 2: I saw. There was a Russian joke from the time

628
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:45,359
Speaker 2: that said the worst part of communism is post communism, right,

629
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 2: and yeah, so Putin came along and was like, Hey,

630
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 2: I'm going to bring Russia back, baby, just you know,

631
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 2: trust me. He was appointed prime minister under Yeltsin. He

632
00:36:57,680 --> 00:37:00,720
Speaker 2: was the fourth prime minister under Yeltsin in seven ten months.

633
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 2: So Yeltsin was not doing very well by this time.

634
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 2: This is like the very end of the nineties, and

635
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 2: one of the first things that Putin did was just

636
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 2: pound Chechnya, which was trying to break away from Russia itself.

637
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 2: And I guess Russia had had quite enough of breaking

638
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 2: away for one century, and they just punished Cheeshnia. Under Putin,

639
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 2: he decided that he was going to make an example

640
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,360
Speaker 2: of them, and there were a lot of atrocities and

641
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 2: it was just really bad. But in Russia itself they

642
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 2: were like, oh, we like this guy. He gets stuff done,

643
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 2: he takes no guff from anybody, and that helped support

644
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 2: his ascendency to the presidency in nineteen ninety nine, when

645
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 2: Yeltsin suddenly out of nowhere, was like, I'm not president

646
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 2: anymore of this guy.

647
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: Is yeah, And once he was president, he was like

648
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: he started to reign in some of those market freedoms

649
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 1: that had been installed. He was like, you know, this

650
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 1: freedom of press thing isn't so great after so by

651
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: twenty ten, most of that private media was once again

652
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:08,480
Speaker 1: owned by the government. He did kind of rein in

653
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: the oligarchs, but you know, not completely. Obviously, I get

654
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: the feeling he was sort of picking and choosing. Maybe,

655
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 1: so it seemed like he was. Is that accurate.

656
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,400
Speaker 2: The impression I have is that he brought them all

657
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 2: to heel. He basically made a deal saying like, you

658
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 2: guys can have free reign on your respective industries, but

659
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 2: you have to stay out of politics. That's my industry.

660
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:30,879
Speaker 1: Oh okay.

661
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 2: And they complied, and one of them didn't, Mikhail Kodorkovski.

662
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 2: Basically he was like, no, I'm going to generate a

663
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 2: bunch of political power and try to remove Putin. He

664
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 2: got jailed, his whole asset stripped, the state took over

665
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:46,399
Speaker 2: his oil company, and the rest of the oligarchs were like, oh,

666
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 2: this guy's quite serious. We better listen. And then from

667
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 2: those group or that group, Putin started to develop favorites

668
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 2: and all that. That's my impression of it.

669
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds about right. And the great thing is

670
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: I know that they're people that are real students of

671
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:03,280
Speaker 1: this stuff, and I can't wait to get some listener

672
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: mails on this. But you know, things started to turn

673
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: around financially too, because they had some booming oil expert

674
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: exports happening and experts and that you know, all of

675
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: a sudden, your average living standard was going up. It

676
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: seems like this sort of just the chaos of the

677
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: nineties started to wane and things started to get a

678
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: little bit better enough to you know, for people to

679
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: get behind Putin. And he was like, yeah, I'm restoring

680
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: Russia and our place in the world. Like, get behind me.

681
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, because of the nineties were shameful to

682
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 2: the average Russian, Like they did not feel good about

683
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 2: what they had just gone through. And now there was

684
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 2: a guy who was saying he was going to end

685
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:48,359
Speaker 2: at all and he did. I mean in a lot

686
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 2: of ways. I mean, he inherited an economy that was

687
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 2: just had just started to get back on course. So

688
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 2: under Putin and what his twenty six year reign if

689
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:06,439
Speaker 2: you count when he was the prime minister to Medevyev's puppet, Yeah,

690
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 2: twenty six years. Like Russia definitely came back financially and

691
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 2: their quality of living increased, and he you know, he

692
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 2: did a lot of stuff that he said he was

693
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 2: going to do. Yet it's still Putin.

694
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:21,919
Speaker 1: I mean, he keeps winning those elections there, right, Yeah,

695
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: fair and squats, that's are all legit, and so yeah.

696
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 2: That brings us to today. Chuck.

697
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean is that it? Are we done?

698
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 2: I think we're done. You did fantastic.

699
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:36,839
Speaker 1: You did too, Man. I really am super psyched about

700
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 1: this one because this is one of those that I

701
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 1: knew so little about because again, it was the end

702
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: of high school in early college for me, and those

703
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:46,279
Speaker 1: those were days where I just wasn't paying attention and

704
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,800
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I was trying to score Pixies tickets.

705
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:52,800
Speaker 2: It was kind of like if this part of history,

706
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 2: we're an iced sugar cookie. As kids, we had just

707
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 2: kind of nibbled the sugar cookie part and now we've

708
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 2: just bid into the first icing and consume the whole cookie,

709
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 2: and we're just in sugar heaven right now.

710
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. I enjoyed these.

711
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a better way to put it, Chuck, just laugh.

712
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 2: So I think we should end this episode, this two

713
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,359
Speaker 2: part episode, and say it's time for listener mail.

714
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: This is about our episode on the UK are shorty,

715
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: hey guys, And this isn't don't worry, this isn't like

716
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: completely scalding us. Okay, hey guys listening to the episode.

717
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: And I thought, and I was thinking I bet they'll

718
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 1: do it, and you did, guys, England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland.

719
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,720
Speaker 1: No Cornwall got about Cornwall.

720
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 2: The thing come up in our research.

721
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: Ooh, I know you guys will see things official website

722
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: saying Cornwall is a county in England, but for one

723
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: it is a duchy, which is a different thing.

724
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 2: You got to pass. Secondly, left hands.

725
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 1: Secondly, Cornwall is a Celtic nation, guys, like Scotland, Whales

726
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: and Ireland, including Northern Ireland. And finally, the UK government

727
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 1: formally recognized the Cornish as a national minority under the

728
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:09,839
Speaker 1: Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities,

729
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: granting them the same status as the Scots, Welsh and Irish.

730
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 2: Wow. No, we did not come across that at all.

731
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 1: I know, guys. Cornwall has its own language, Kernwick, I

732
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: think is how it's pronounced. It's closely related to Welsh

733
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 1: and barely distinguishable from Breton. Yes, Brittany is a Celtic

734
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: nation too, guys. It has its own flag, Saint Piran's flag,

735
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: which is Pirates. I'm not sure you pronounce it, which

736
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:38,839
Speaker 1: is a white cross in a black background and there

737
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: are strong calls to establish the Cornish Assembly, similar to

738
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 1: the other Celtic nations in the UK. I hope you

739
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:47,919
Speaker 1: give this a mention to correct the record. I love

740
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,399
Speaker 1: your respectful and open approach to what you do guys,

741
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,720
Speaker 1: so I figured you'd be interested. And then he posts

742
00:42:53,760 --> 00:43:00,440
Speaker 1: this Colonel beast Vickan which is Cornwall Forever. Don't think

743
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: he's talking about the game, hen you know, and this

744
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: is from G.

745
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 2: Thanks G. That was brand new info for us and

746
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 2: we appreciate it big time. I've always wanted to go

747
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 2: to Cornwall because they have a witchcraft museum there that

748
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to see. Nice, So I'll see you eventually. G.

749
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 2: I'll let you know when I'm there and we can

750
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 2: go to the witchcraft museum if you want to be

751
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:26,799
Speaker 2: like G and give us some brand new information we

752
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 2: had never heard before and didn't run across in our research.

753
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:32,359
Speaker 2: We love that kind of stuff. You can wrap it up,

754
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:34,360
Speaker 2: spank it on the bottom, and send it off to

755
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 2: stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

756
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

757
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple

758
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,720
Speaker 1: Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,