19.03.2016 – Y. Gaidar’s 60th birthday anniversary

The name of Yegor Gaidar, an outstanding researcher, economist and politician is associated with resolute moves aimed at formation of free market foundations and Russia’s switchover to a fundamentally new way of development.

He is commonly called “the former Premier”, while the market reforms of the early 1990s are widely referred to as “the Gaidar Reforms”, though Y. Gaidar was Acting Premier for only a period of six months -- fr om June till December 1992 -- and held the office of the Deputy Chairman of the Government for another seven months before that and for four months in the 1993-1994 period. However, that was enough for the entire epoch in the Russian history to be associated with his name.

Yegor Gaidar was a courageous, honest and decisive man who in the period of fundamental changes took responsibility for unpopular, but badly needed reforms. Yegor Gaidar was virtually the head of the government when the country faced a real economic disaster. He succeeded in launching the economic and administrative system of this country on a new basis and preventing a revolutionary scenario wh ere a collapse of the previous regime is followed by a full-scale chaos and unrest and much blood is often shed to exit it.

Yegor Gaidar had an outstanding economic intuition and statesmanship based on a profound gift of a historian. He could see a historical perspective in a different way unlike most of his contemporaries. Yegor Gaidar had fortitude to defend his vision despite incomprehension and resistance he met. He became an epoch-making figure.

Apart from being the founder and director of the Institute for Economic Policy, Yegor Gaidar created the entire school of practitioner-economists who are able to calculate

political consequences of economic decisions and take into account the specifics of economic laws in conditions of transformation.

A combination of such qualities as intellectual faithfulness, good morals, genuine culture and fearlessness of hard decisions permitted Yegor Gaidar to secure high authority recognized even by his political and ideological opponents and a position of an indisputable leader of the Russian civil society.