Presidents "from Moscow"

It’s all a lie that our education is not rated abroad in any way - many graduates of our university institutes have achieved a lot, if not everything, in life. Thus, General Amadou Toumani Toure recently won the presidential elections in the Republic of Mali. Graduate of Ryazan Twice Red Banner named after. General of the Army V.F. Margelov of the Airborne Forces Institute.
Malian Swan remembers Russian mate
Amadou is now 54 years old.
“The general is very popular among the people, and most Malians pin their hopes for positive changes in the country on his name,” Chargé d’Affaires of the Mali Embassy Mr. Pirama Sangare told Interlocutor. — And he is sometimes called the Malian General Lebed.
Such a parallel is quite appropriate: both Toure and the late Lebed mastered the wisdom of airborne service at the same time. Moreover, their paths crossed there. True, Lebed studied for 4 years, and Amadou for only two, improving his qualifications at the courses for company commanders of the special faculty for foreigners.
“Amadu was a good cadet,” recalls the dean of the special faculty of the Ryazan Airborne Forces Institute, Colonel Alexander Anofriev. “He was most successful in fire and airborne training. In two years he made more than 20 training parachute jumps. I passed my final exams with flying colors. At that time he knew Russian very well. It would be interesting to talk to him.
Alas, the colonel’s dream is unlikely to come true, since, according to Mr. Sangare, the new head of Mali has almost forgotten the Russian language. Of course, he remembers a dozen or two words - military commands. And some profanity, but any foreign student is talented in the latter.
Returning to his homeland from Ryazan, Amadou not only continued his military career, but also began to engage in politics, overthrowing military dictator Mousa Traore in 1991. By creating the “Transitional Committee for the Salvation of the People,” Toure tried to arrange something like our perestroika in Mali. Which cost him the “throne” as a result. But, as we see, the training in Ryazan was not in vain, and 10 years later the general, cursing to himself in Russian, publicly took the presidential oath. A paratrooper is also a paratrooper in Africa.
Iliescu and Li Peng found their wives near the Kremlin walls
Romanian President Ion Iliescu and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Li Peng are the most famous foreigners of the Moscow Energy Institute.
“They studied from 1948 to 1955 in the same group at the Faculty of Hydroelectric Power Engineering,” recalls former MPEI employee Larisa Boyarkina. — Ion spoke Russian fluently, he was, as they say, on board. But Li Peng had a more difficult time in this sense. But the Chinese had an ironclad, probably party-led, attitude - to gnaw on the granite of science, no matter what. It’s hard to imagine more diligent and hardworking students!
For the first two years, foreigners were taught separately, and then combined with Russian-speaking groups and housed mixed in a hostel on Krasnokazarmennaya Street. So the future political leaders of China and Romania ended up as roommates, in which they lived for about three years. The MPEI dormitory was considered exemplary, which is not surprising - the rector of the institute was Malenkov’s wife Kaleria Golubtsova. MPEI did not suffer from a lack of benefits, finances and attention from the country’s leadership. And in terms of the number of foreign students it was third, second only to Moscow State University and Peoples' Friendship University.
Ion and Lee sat happily next to each other on bunks and ate scrambled eggs from the same frying pan until they got married. The chosen ones of both also studied in Moscow: the Romanian Elena Scerbanescu became a chemist-technologist, the Chinese Zhu Lin became an economist. The excellent students returned home as family members.
Iliescu began by working at the Bucharest Hydropower Research Institute and crowned his career with the presidency. Moreover, he won the elections twice: in 1990 and 2000. Perhaps he was inspired by the example of his former dorm roommate, whose career was going very well.
Li, returning to his homeland, worked as chief engineer and then director of two largest power plants in northeast China. In April 1988, he became Prime Minister of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, and now heads the Chinese Parliament. But he still sometimes sings Russian songs when in a good mood.
Dos Santos's love was called Tatiana
The current President of the Republic of Angola, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, studied at the Baku Institute of Oil and Gas from 1963 to 1969. And although it was the capital of the Azerbaijan SSR, everyone at home was sure that Jose had gone to “Moscow” for education: they simply did not know other cities of the Union there.
“He lived in a dormitory with everyone,” Rafael Balaev, dean of the faculty of foreign students, told Interlocutor. — He headed the circle for the struggle for the freedom of Angola. They constantly held rallies, and dos Santos, I remember, even sent a letter to the UN... At the same time, he really loved to play football and wrote poetry.
The future leader of Angola studied passably, but...
“Mostly I got fours and fives,” continues Balaev. - But there was also a three. In chemistry.
However, Jose Eduardo did not work in his specialty for a second, so chemistry was not useful to him. But in the USSR I met my first love. She was called Tatyana. The wedding took place right in the hostel, after which we went on a one-way Angolan honeymoon.
In the USSR, Jose Eduardo dos Santos learned not only the technology of pumping oil from the subsoil, but also managed to undergo a military training course as a signalman. Which greatly helped in the armed struggle for independence on the Northern Front in Angola in 1970-1974.
But his family idyll continued until September 20, 1979, when the Soviet-made oil engineer became president.
“They were forced to separate,” says Balaev. - According to their customs, a Russian woman cannot be the first lady, he had to choose between family and nation. He made his choice in favor of the state, but this does not mean that they separated at all: his new wife, as far as I know, is just a formality. He loves Tatiana, and they can still often be seen together. But traditions are traditions, he could not ignore them.
Dos Santos, with the light hand of one diplomat, is called the African Machiavelli, and he himself has long dreamed of retiring to a quiet presidential retirement. So that there is no war. And with Tatyana.
The head of Mongolia was a canned food specialist
Mongolian President Natsagiin Bagabandi graduated from the Odessa Polytechnic Faculty of Canning in 1972.
“He left us with honors, without a single B,” says the university’s vice-rector Georgy Angelov. — We are very proud of our graduate. He recently came to us and presented us with a painting of a Mongolian landscape.
During his studies, Bagabandi headed the Odessa community of Mongolian students, of whom there were plenty during the USSR. Returning to his homeland, he worked a little in his specialty, then became the speaker of the People's Khural (analogous to our Duma), and now he rules the country for the second term in a row. Whether his canning skills help him in leading the state is unknown.
Rita Bolotskaya, Mikhail Yakovlev, Igor Ryazantsev.