Anatoly Sobchak will be honored in St. Petersburg

February 19 will mark 25 years since the death of the first mayor of St. Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak. On this day the city will host significant events, Izvestia correspondent reported.

Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of Leningrad in 1991, at which time residents voted to return the city to its historic name.

"He very clearly felt the pulse of the time, boldly put forward new views on the development of our state and society," said Sergei Naryshkin, head of a department in the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office Committee for Economy and Finance in 1992-1995.

According to associates, Sobchak was offered to run for president, but he returned to Leningrad.

"He said he did not want to be mayor of Leningrad, he would be mayor of St. Petersburg," Lyudmila Narusova said.

After the past referendum on renaming, the city, like the rest of the country, faced a test - a putsch of the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP).

Then Sobchak was able to agree with the commander of the military district, Viktor Samsonov, that the military would not take active measures. The politician addressed the people directly from the window of his office in the Mariinsky Palace, urging them not to obey the illegal decisions of the GKChP.

Then, in the winter of 1991/92, against the background of the destruction of old economic ties in St. Petersburg there was a threat of food shortages. The mayor negotiated with suppliers, including foreign countries, and thanks to this the city was provided with the necessary supplies.

"Inflation in the first year, in 1992 - 1400%. This, of course, was a very serious shock to the population. He would take me and we would go right into the thick of things - to the transport workers, gather doctors and discuss how we could live together in this situation," recalls Alexei Kudrin, former first deputy mayor and head of the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office Economics Committee.

Already in May 1992, St. Petersburg was the first in the country to cancel food stamps and begin to resettle emergency communal housing, in 1994, the third international "Goodwill Games" were held.

"It was only under Sobchak, because I think he appealed to the leaders of countries then, there were all the leading countries, athletes from all the leading countries: the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and other countries," pointed out Viktor Zubkov, former deputy chairman of the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office External Relations Committee.

Sobchak became a mentor for many members of today's political elite. In 1996, he lost the election by a paltry 1.7% of the vote due to media harassment. Then Sobchak's deputy Vladimir Yakovlev won. Many of the politician's associates tried to distance themselves from him after this defeat.

"Alexei Kudrin, German Gref, Dmitry Kozak, Vladimir Putin not only did not turn away, they categorically refused to work with Yakovlev and at Yakovlev's place when he offered, and Vladimir Putin even said such a phrase: 'No, it is better to be hanged for loyalty than for betrayal'," Sobchak's widow Lyudmila Narusova shared with Izvestia correspondent Roman Ishmukhametov.

"Sobchak was writing the history of the first phase of modern Russia"

On the 25th anniversary of the politician's death, Izvestia talked to his associates and recalled how he became one of the symbols of change

Earlier in the day, Izvestia talked to Narusova, who told about his personal and business qualities, how the first mayor of St. Petersburg became one of the political symbols of modern Russia and how he stood out from the "gray mass" of his colleagues.