Boris Akunin: “The plumber is shocked”

“I know that many people shake at the mere mention of Yegor Gaidar’s name, but for me this is a man who moved the domestic economy from rotten socialist rails to new, capitalist ones, and we are, at the very least, rolling along them.

Otherwise, they would have gone downhill, into famine and civil war. And this opinion has not changed after reading the book. But my God, how ridiculous, stupid, pathetic, and sometimes shameful a historical performance looks when you look behind the scenes...

Many tragedies and dramas turn out to be the result of someone’s thoughtlessness or a minor clash of egos. For example, the war with Dudayev. Or the blood that was shed in October 1993. And many of the “victories of Reason” that we so wildly rejoiced at are also explained by a confluence of random factors.”