Volodya Pitersky, track designer. If you had, perhaps, doubts about who is the No. 1 skier in Russia, then they should have disappeared after the victorious presentation of Sochi as the Olympic capital. Remember when Prince Albert II of Monaco was in doubt: would there be enough snow in these parts for the Olympics. As the captain of our bid team, Vladimir Putin authoritatively answered him: yes, what doubts can there be if I myself skated there quite recently, in May! And then the prince was inspired, and during the voting he pressed the button we needed ...
For the first time, Vladimir Vladimirovich appeared before a relatively general public “on the mountain” in the winter of 1990. In the USSR, they were looking for a place for a long time where international competitions could be held, and as a result, someone's bossy gaze fell on a suitable mountain right under Tashkent - and what do you want, the country was so big. And when the working group arrived to run it in, the country's chief ski coach Leonid Tyagachev introduced them to a certain "Vladimir from Leningrad, a designer of tracks."
Knowledgeable people then doubted a lot: who, what and when were the tracks in St. Petersburg designed, if all estimates were always laid in Moscow, at the Sports Committee, and transferred directly to the competition site? Alpine skiers are a curious people, and they soon managed to find out that in fact this Volodya was a pure KGB officer, one of those who were attached to any sports delegation that was going to travel abroad.
Operation Alpine Tourism
So they met Tyagachev, and then became friends - Leonid Vasilyevich, in fact, had no other choice but to establish warm relations with Volodya, otherwise he could immediately become banned from traveling abroad. Here, for example, how it happened, according to the stories of one of the coaches who directly laid the Uzbek track at that time:
“I remember we discussed there one very fresh case. The youth biathlon team left for Europe, and on the weekend the guys went for a walk around one alpine city, and several people went into the cathedral, which in itself was not great. But even worse, the wedding ceremony was taking place there at that time, and one of ours was going to get married soon, and he liked this church beauty so much that he decided to arrange a wedding as well. And when explanatory notes were collected from them - which, they say, they flooded into the church - someone blabbed about the intentions of a comrade. The “curators” then brilliantly brought this whole operation to the end: they found out where everything would take place, wormed their way under the guise of parishioners, filmed it ... The conclusions were as follows: what to take from the guy, he is young and unreasonable, he fell under a pernicious influence. But where did the coaches look - it was necessary to launch educational work in such a way! But you don’t know how to educate - who will sign your testimonial on a trip ... "
So with the "designer" everyone tried to behave as carefully as possible - however, at that time he was not very interested in his compatriots.
“In the same place, the darkness of all sorts of different hosts rolled in - Germans, Austrians, French ... And Volodya, it was felt, was among them, well, completely his own. If you take the outfit, the person just got off the advertising poster: only his skis, “Fischer-Vacuum”, were worth it! Back then, cooler products were simply not produced in the world - you had to skate for several seasons in the national team so that you would be given such, and in order to buy our per diem, you had to save the same few years. And the video camera is Japanese! Many foreigners, I will say, looked poorer than our "designer". By the way, if you think about it, it’s a win-win reason to make an acquaintance on the mountain: I was shooting the beauties of nature here, and you accidentally got into the frame - would you like to see how you look from the outside? What was it called in the book of one scout defector - Operation Alpine Tourism, right?
But the athletes-observers focused their main attention, of course, not on what their “colleague” rode in, but on how. “Of course, we all expected that he would go down the hill, and crash in all his super outfit. But no matter how: he did not just drive confidently - he drove beautifully. Unless he worked perfectly with his hands, he “pricked” a little, as we say. But this even gave him some kind of originality, he, an amateur, really stood out in such a manner - after all, it is not necessary to connect sticks at every turn. Yes, and with a camera with such equipment, it is much easier to manage ... "
By the way, if someone, having relaxed, asked Volodya Pitersky to show what he shot during the day, he readily responded, especially if the interested person himself got on film. If they asked where the inventory came from, he said that he had recently been in Germany on a business trip - he brought it from there. I could drink beer in the company in the evening - but never, unlike many who had dashed in a day, did not go overboard with this. “Uzbeks then received us so sincerely, as if they felt that we were sitting at the same table as citizens of a common country for the last time, that some people called me ten years later and asked: was Volodya with us, who is now president, or imagined ? I reassured: guys, I don’t know how he will rule the country, but on the mountain this person will always show himself as he should, here I vouch for him.
king of the hill
Then Putin, who had given up designing complex terrain routes, was seen on the mountain only accompanied by guards. And if he kept his mark against the background of professionals, then you can imagine how he stands out here.
“In fact, it looks quite funny,” says one of the eyewitnesses who knows how to ride. - After all, the protection of the president in this case, who should portray? That's right, not who they are, but a kind of "dummies" who, purely by chance, found themselves on the slope at the same time as Putin. He, we must give him his due, usually does not give commands to the people, if he is already riding, disperse - he attaches himself to the lift almost on a common basis. The guards ride, by the way, so-so, so they pass for amateurs. But if one of the local reckless drivers decides, out of mischief, to shorten the distance with Putin, then those passing even closer can inadvertently crash into him. And to explain to the lying one: if you, your mother, once again decide to do the same ... However, I don’t remember that any of the civilians were seriously injured in this way.
But there are cases when the main craftsman accelerated a little and easily left his own "tail" - a habit, where can you put it! Lay a turn abruptly and hide behind a tree. And the guards honestly scratch right, having lost sight of the object and bumping into each other already. But the president, at least for a short time on vacation, can be alone. This among them is called the game of "King of the Hill." Funny, right? Although always with the same, previously known winner.
Soratnikov Vladimir Vladimirovich also attracted many to his hobby. Mikhail Kasyanov, when he was prime minister, presented skis of the Solomon brand for his 45th birthday. And Mikhail Mikhailovich, to be honest, skated on them for a whole season. And then he gave it to someone - as if they had gone out of fashion in a year. Indeed, after all, consumer goods are a checkpoint, albeit from the presidential shoulder.
