A close person

The stenographer Irina Vagina tells how she worked with the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee. March 2 - Birthday of Mikhail Gorbachev

- Irina, you never told anything about him, although you were one of the people closest to Mikhail Sergeyevich - in any case, “spatial”. Why?

- Well, my profession is not such a public - a stenographer, although then my position was called solid: the referee of the Secretariat of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. When I was just hired in 1983, we were warned: to dress modestly, not to chat much. There was also control behind us - often I had to work with secret documents.

- How did you get to the Central Committee? Probably, they didn’t take there right from the street?

- No, what are you. We were checked for a long time, for two months. I had a high qualification - after the school of typewriting and stenography, I still completed special stenography courses, then, without interruption from work, the editorial faculty of the printing institute. And before the Central Committee, I worked for six years in the magazine "Communist", my acquaintance was sung by my mother.

- And how did you get to Gorbachev?

- When Mikhail Sergeyevich was elected general secretary, he updated his apparatus, and engineers and stenographers were needed there. This is a rather individual matter - it is necessary to adapt to the dictation manner, and to disassemble.

- Probably, he still liked you with his modesty.

- I don’t know ... He himself was a modest man, although he constantly joked and even sang ditties - sometimes not quite decent. But it’s not a shame, this is for discharge.

He sometimes dictated for five hours, although the stenographers should change every fifteen minutes. When I started working with him, I began to eat very quickly. My old friends were surprised: what are you so? I myself did not notice this for myself, and I usually did not say to my friends where I was working, so it was difficult to explain.

- Did he make you so much, did not let you take a break?

- Yes, he did not force, but simply Mikhail Sergeyevich himself was like that. Everything is scheduled in minutes, come on! .. We are just so used to it when we worked with it. Several times I torn my hand - my wrist, this is a professional illness with us and the pianists ... He could have called something home. But usually ourselves, even at work - we had a direct phone. Previously, always through the secretary: “I connect! ..”, and when the general himself became directly, it was unusual. Only if he did not find me during the time, then the guard already.

Once they pulled me from Shashlykov on Sunday, found in the dachas. They brought, the guards of the nuts are pushing, this is still the fight against alcoholism, and there he has a whole Politburo. Mikhail Sergeevich asks: "Are you so red?" “I tanned,” I say, “summer.” - “Ah, okay” - and let's work. Another time, I went to the graves to put in order the cemetery, the guard reported him, and he: “Well, she will not stay there? ..” Everyone laughed, but it was already in the fund.

-It turns out, after all, he traveled to you?

- Yes, not on me - on the whole device, but we worked in three shifts with it, and he brought one, at ten in the morning, we took away at ten in the evening. But they worked together, they did not notice fatigue. I almost immediately got to the State District in Volynskoye, where they prepared a report for the XXVII Congress. The main thing was Yakovlev, everyone called his foreman. There were Sitarian ( the first deputy chairman of the State Planning Commission. - L.N. ), Aganbeyan, Medvedev, Shakhnazarov, Chernyaev, Bickenin, Volsky, Boldin, Tatyana Zaslavskaya came once ... Then many times the same teams worked in Novo-Ogarsel and Zavidovo-such a carousel that now everyone could not remember.

- They probably cursed among themselves in the process, did you write it down? I wish you to see if such records are preserved.

- No, I don't think. They argued without us, then everyone prepared their part and dictated to us, in my opinion, only Bickenin wrote. Dictate faster. We printed it, and they argued again. Mikhail Sergeyevich could come at any moment, this was what a schedule he had, but most often in the evening. Then everyone again converged and began to read and argue their pieces to him. He encouraged it, but said: "You let, speak out, but I will decide." But they usually didn’t argue with him, I remember, Shakhnazarov and Chernyaev objected, but here I can miss someone and offend someone. Then Mikhail Sergeyevich took all the pieces and dictated his own. He always missed everything through himself, he never used foreign texts directly.

- To Gorbachev, everyone has their own personal attitude. Even those who have never seen him, and many who worked with him for a long time, later were offended. Why? Here is Yakovlev - in his memoirs about Gorbachev there is a lot of poison, I'm not talking about Boldin ...

- So I don't understand this either. Well, he is to everyone on “you”, and to him “you”, but this is such a party ... He always treated us very smoothly and delicately. But our work is technical, and in their creative part there was always jealousy. Later, in the fund, Mikhail Sergeyevich demanded that I locate a key, when I have deciphered and print his last option so that no one would have found out ahead of time, whose proposals he took as a basis. But they can’t wait, they knock: "Ira, what are you doing there? .. Mikhail Sergeyevich instructed you?" - "No, Raisa Maksimovna." I also told him: “Mikhail Sergeyevich, it’s not good - you make me lie” ...

- And what is he?

- And he: "Well, what can you do, we have such a job." In general, the team was always friendly, and Yakovlev later returned to us. And Boldin ... It was just a shock. When Mikhail Sergeyevich returned from Foros in 1991, he only asked him and asked: "How did Boldin behave?"

- Tell us more. You were at this time? And how did the rest behave?

- I was in Foros with him in the nineties, and in the ninety -first another employee went, she left us later ... Usually, assistants and the device went on vacation with him, but I stayed in the Kremlin that time. On August 19, we began to look for Boldin, he is a leader, and he simply disappeared, and we know nothing.

Special communications were immediately turned off, the encryption-telegrams and other documents stopped wearing, and someone from the apparatus, just in case, stopped greeting me. I was advised not to come to work: there is still nothing to do.

But how is it - I could not leave my post. I came, the twentieth demanded a car with a miletic, so that the assistants who urgently return from the Kremlin to the Old Square, take the documents ... Tanks around - it’s scary, suddenly we will be arrested too - it’s not on foot with encryptions ...

-Gorbachev changed when he returned from Foros, did you notice something?

- No, it was noticeable according to Raisa Maksimovna, and Mikhail Sergeyevich had an excerpt - nothing is noticeable on him. And the carousel immediately spun again - now there was an allied agreement, a meeting at the meeting, they brought me by 8 in the morning and took me at one in the morning, because no one trusted anyone, but I still need to print, there were no computers then ...

-Have you started to say hello again with you?

- Of course, just in case. But I didn’t talk about this to Mikhail Sergeyevich, I am not such a person, but he only asked about Boldin. What do I know about Boldin? Gone - and that’s it.

- You and Gorbachev worked in the Kremlin until the last day?

- I am with him at all until the last day, then still in the fund. And on the last day in the Kremlin, when Yeltsin had come to demand an office before the promised, we also sat there on the third floor with another employee, and suddenly these new ones bring a cart with things: notebooks, pens, all kinds of nonsense and boots of Mikhail Sergeyevich. I could not stand it and began to cry - well, you can’t ...

- Then he also dictated his books to you or wrote himself?

- He dictated to the chapters, he was so used to it, and then ruled. At first he traveled a lot, made lectures, then ran to the presidency of Russia in 1996 ... since we were in America, in 1994, it seems, the year. We took electric and mechanical cars with us just in case, because the plane has nowhere to turn on the plane. All the time we flew back and forth, just take off - and down, and Mikhail Sergeyevich still managed to dictate something in fifteen minutes, but then I had to reprint.

We arrived at the US Congress in Washington, there was no time to look for a table, I put a machine on a chair, myself on the floor. Americans: “Oh! Russian heroism! .. ”When she entered the hall, everyone began to shake my hand. They asked to sell this machine, but I said: no, she will go to our museum. The first laptop was presented to me then ...

When we were dispersed, some of the people went into commercial structures. I was also called to Lukoil, there is five times more salary. I don’t know how he found out about it - maybe he just felt. I dictated-dictated, suddenly stopped and asks: “Irina, will you really leave too? ..” I said: “No, I won’t leave.” And that, too, she said: “I will not go to look, and do not call me anymore. I'm not working for money. ”

His last book ( “Alone with him.” - L.N. ) He dictated to me for more than one year, ruled and dictated again. Sometimes with tears in her eyes - when about Raisa Maksimovna.

When she died in 1999, he called us on March 8 in a row for work - he could not at home alone. There only a cat, Wilka, lived for thirteen years.

Then, before the very end, he fell under the car, but they did not speak to Mikhail Sergeyevich. He left and left - that in vain to upset ...

- Do you miss Mikhail Sergeyevich?

- Certainly. At first I dreamed of almost every night, I all thought: what is it, maybe he was bad there.

“But it’s already good there.”

- Well, I thought - he sees what was happening here, and it is unlikely that he could like it. I was advised to put a candle in the church for the rest, I am not very on this matter, but I went - I put it. I stopped dreaming, I hope I calmed down.