Little secrets of the wives of Soviet leaders. Owls and larks: biorhythms - myth or reality

If we take statistics for example, they say that most couples with different biorhythms sooner or later break up. But be that as it may, it turns out there is a way out of this situation.

Owls and larks: relationships under threat

In the first months life together This is still not very annoying, especially when the wife gently wakes up her husband. But over time, everything changes and she cannot accept the fact that he walks around the house half the night and then sleeps for half the day. And what should you do in such situations?

Owls and larks: biorhythms - myth or reality?

Lark owl: is it possible to change biorhythms?

When both partners try to make a joint schedule, then both will experience inconvenience. Then they start to quarrel and give it great importance. In such situations, an owl is usually considered lazy, because it sleeps until lunch, and a lark cannot sit at a party or make love. Therefore, the statistics of divorces of couples with different biorhythms is simply horrifying.

Of course, when people marry for love, they do not pay any attention to biorhythms, but sometimes this problem can destroy even the strongest relationships. Quarrels over biorhythms also affect nervous system people, and in a very negative way. Some scientists prove that a person’s internal clock can be slightly adjusted, but no more than an hour and a half in any direction. In some cases, this is enough to avoid further quarrels and misunderstandings between spouses.

Psychologists also say that couples with different biorhythms normal life it is enough just to find a compromise. But not everyone knows how to do this! And to do this, it’s enough just not to ridicule the lifestyle that your partner leads; you shouldn’t quarrel with a lark about this before going to bed, because because of this, he won’t sleep all night. In no case should the morning owl be touched while asleep, because such people need time to finally wake up, otherwise the matter threatens to turn into a conflict.

There are also a few compromises you can make that will make your life less stressful due to the time difference. For example, an owl will be happy to have a cup of coffee in bed in the morning, and a lark, exhausted in the evening, will not refuse help around the house or other attention. You also need to make sure that the owl in the morning and the lark in the evening can rest normally and fully. If possible, then divide your home into parts in one of which you will exclusively relax, and in the second you can do something, but so as not to wake up your partner.

Therefore, you should not immediately argue and swear, because there are many ways out of the situation, you just have to try a little!

About how Sinatra courted Khrushchev’s wife, what Andropov’s mysterious wife looked like, how the unforgettable Ilyich affectionately called his “half”...

Putin's divorce caused a wave of interest in the topic of relations between the head of state and the first lady. And even such an interesting idea appeared, expressed by the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Culture", that the head of state does not need a wife. His people love him, and are not ready to share him with anyone else. And for us this is a good reason to remember the First Ladies, looking back, about 90 years ago...

Vladimir Lenin did not hesitate to call Nadezhda Krupskaya in private conversations by old party nicknames - Lamprey and Fish. Which quite eloquently characterizes both of them...

Stalin's wife - Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Tragic fate, she committed suicide, which is very symbolic...

Joseph Stalin was not the most sentimental person, but he was not without a certain tenderness. So, for example, in letters to his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, he affectionately called her Tatka or Tatochka.

The wife of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was the first First Lady in our usual understanding of the word

Nikita Khrushchev met his second wife in the 20s in Moscow. He called her Nina or Nina Petrovna, but immediately after they met in the 20s, the fashion was different: then they called each other by their last names. That's why Nikita Sergeevich addressed his wife like that - Kukharchuk.

For the first time in history Soviet state she kept her husband company on an official visit to the USA!

Nina Khrushcheva sat at the table between Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra, but had no idea who they were - she only recognized the face of Gary Cooper, who was sitting opposite.

In the middle of the feast, the alarmed Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker entered the hall and whispered something in the ear of Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who was accompanying Khrushchev from the US government.

On the way from the airport, someone threw a tomato at Khrushchev's limousine, but missed and hit Parker's car. Now Parker told Lodge that he did not undertake to ensure the safety of the visitor when visiting Disneyland. “Excellent, chief,” Lodge replied. “If you don’t take it, then we’ll do something else.”

One of the members of the Soviet delegation who understood English heard this exchange and immediately reported to Khrushchev. In his speech, he did not fail to express his indignation at the fact that he was not allowed into Disneyland. Sinatra immediately asked Nina Khrushcheva if she was very upset that she would not be able to visit Disneyland, and, hearing that she was very upset, invited her with his charming baritone to go there together.

Nina Petrovna asked her husband for permission with a note. The answer was, of course, negative. “I tried, honey,” said Sinatra with a dramatic sigh.

The music started playing and film set The dancers ran out, lifting their skirts high. “We were not accustomed to this genre and considered it obscene,” Khrushchev writes in his memoirs. “Why should I fix my attention on this?”

Nina Petrovna with Eisenhower..

That's what she was, First Lady, wife's sister Nobel laureate Mikhail Sholokhova, Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk)

Leonid Ilyich did not often show his wife in public. But it happened.

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev's wife's name was Victoria. Usually this name is shortened to Vika, but Leonid Ilyich called her Vitya.

Nobody knew Yuri Andropov's wife by sight... Here he is with his son, wife and daughter.

Konstantin Ustinovich also avoided appearing with his wife...

While lovers are just dating, biorhythms matter little. But as soon as cohabitation begins, it turns out that the regime can play cruel joke. During the day, husband and wife work, and in the evening they do not have much time to devote to each other. And on weekends, one is ready to actively relax, while for another, late entertainment seems like torture - at this time one needs to sleep. If the spouses do not have mutual understanding on this issue, discord is inevitable. How to fix the situation?

A study of human physiology suggests that the concepts of “lark or night owl” are conditional; the biological clocks of all people are the same: they are set to early rise and early bedtime. This is determined by nature itself: wakefulness should be in the daytime, complete rest - in the dark. That's why most people are morning people. This was the case until recently, until humanity learned to use the benefits of civilization, or more precisely, electricity. The continuation of daylight hours and the opportunity to spend time as they wanted allowed many to break their usual routine and go to bed later. Another category of people has a need to shift their biorhythms - due to work or other important reasons. But be that as it may, not everyone who considers themselves a night owl has the opportunity to fully restore their strength after a sleepless night: life is designed for early risers, and you have to go to work early in the morning, take your children to kindergarten or school, etc. And regular disruptions in rhythms, fatigue and lack of sleep are known to be the enemies of health.

Therefore, if in a family different modes, That tip number one: let the owl try to switch to an earlier mode, this will only benefit it. This is provided, of course, that night activity is not necessary. If the habit of going to bed late appeared simply because you could spend more time reading or watching a movie, then it is better to fight such a habit - show self-discipline and follow the rule of going to bed no later than 22:00. Once they even carried out such an experiment on retraining owls, and all participants easily adapted to the new schedule.

Rule two. You can only retrain yourself, but you don’t need to force your other half, and you don’t need to laugh at your habits either. The biggest misconception of young families is trying to raise a husband or wife to suit themselves. Pressure will only lead to more disagreement. If your spouse is accustomed to living in “his own time,” then let him continue to do so, and in the meantime you will get more benefit from it.

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Rule three. IN free time you can watch a movie or TV series that your chosen one doesn’t like, read a book in silence, or surf the Internet. If the owl is the wife, then while the husband is sleeping, you can put yourself in order - for example, make face masks, body wraps.

Respect each other's interests. There is no need to sort things out with larks in the evening, but owls need time to wake up and rock in the morning. Those who go to bed early will appreciate self-care if the house is quiet, calm, without unnecessary emotional background. The best scenario is a good dinner and a minimum of activities. No vacuuming or loud music. And the owl will be grateful in the morning if a cup of coffee is prepared for it and given time to recover. This fourth rule.

Another compromise option for spouses with different biorhythms – different bedrooms. Don't be so quick to dismiss or criticize this advice. By the way, in the 19th century, spouses always had their own rooms, their own territory, which preserved interest in each other, the sacrament of love and attraction. And in many other countries, the bedrooms of husband and wife are in different parts houses.

You can even reach an agreement on such a sensitive topic as sex. Well, imagine, a sleepy lark does not need any intimacy at night, and in the morning, when he is full of strength and desire, you cannot wake up the owl: the sleeping nature will not receive any pleasure. Therefore, you can simply warn your partner about the physiological characteristics and avoid misunderstandings and offense.

Nadezhda Alliluyeva(with son Vasily ), apparently, was the only woman whom Stalin truly loved. A kind of love, of course: two children, ten abortions
Nina Khrushcheva , despite her rustic appearance, could speak with the President of the United StatesDwight Eisenhower(in the center of the photo) in his native language
A Austrian President receives the Kennedys and the Khrushchevs at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, 1961
Victoria Petrovna Brezhneva As they say, she knew about her husband’s hobbies and forgave them. In the photo above: with daughter Galina
At Soviet-American summits, “First Lady” Nancy Reagan (second from left, next to her husband) found herself in the shadow Raisa Gorbacheva
Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina relaxed and sighed calmly, it seems, only after Boris Nikolaevich retired
At a reception with the British Queen in June 2003, Lyudmila Putina (right) decided to experiment with a hat

Wives of our country's leaders always corresponded to the standard of life around them. There was only one exception

Which of the leaders of our Soviet past, as well as the Russian present, could present themselves the way John Kennedy did in Paris in 1961? When she and Jacqueline stepped off the plane, and the gallant Parisian newspapermen, shocked by the beauty and style of the first lady of America, surrounded her, leaving the president unnoticed, he stood modestly aside. And when the interviewers finally paid attention to him, he said: “Gentlemen, I don’t need to introduce myself. I am this woman's husband."
Such freedom and real, not ostentatious “gender equality” are completely unusual for Russia, and even more so for our squeezed, inflated and notorious political class.

Poor Nadezhda
Our communist leaders were not only asexual. And it’s not that their personal life is a closely guarded secret. But it was some unimportant part of their existence - both for themselves and for society. It was no coincidence that Lenin’s comrades from his youth called him either the Old Man or Ilyich, as if there was nothing young about him. What connected him with his “Nadya”, besides the common goals of the class struggle? In “Nadenka,” judging by the photographs, always unkemptly combed, dressed in shapeless blouses and skirts twisted on her, there was so little feminine that the question remains which of the two was “Comrade Krupsky” (remember the old joke?). They did not have children, but there were probably betrayals on Ilyich’s part. One of his secret loves - Inessa Armand - is known with historical accuracy. They say that after Lenin’s death, Stalin even blackmailed Krupskaya with this leader’s novel, threatening her that she would be “demoted” from Lenin’s widows, and Armand would be appointed in her place. In this example alone, it is obvious how much the leaders respected such concepts as personal life.
Stalin's personal life is much darker and more pathological. He did not live long with his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze; she bore him a son, Yakov, a man with a tragic fate, and died in 1908, either from typhoid or tuberculosis. Stalin, who was 23 years older than her, began living with 16-year-old Nadezhda Alliluyeva in 1917. Apparently, this was the only woman he truly loved. A kind of love, of course. Two children, ten abortions (as Alliluyeva’s biographer, Olga Trifonova, writes, the doctor who examined her in a foreign clinic told her: “Poor thing, you live with a real animal!”) Frequent, sometimes leading to assault, scandals motivated by jealousy - sometimes towards Kirov , then to the already mentioned Stalinist son from his first marriage, Yakov. And finally, a sad and mysterious ending: in November 1932, after another family quarrel that took place, as often happened, in public, Nadezhda Alliluyeva shot herself. (This official version, which not all historians believe.) Stalin came to say goodbye to her in the GUM building, where the coffin was displayed, but did not go to the cemetery, telling Avel Enukidze: “You baptized her, you bury her.” So he's at her grave Novodevichy Cemetery never was.
After the death of Alliluyeva, rumor ascribes to Stalin... - the tongue does not dare to pronounce the word "novels" - sexual relations with several actresses of the Bolshoi Theater, but, firstly, this is just rumor, and secondly, even if these relationships took place, it is unlikely they constituted some kind of “personal life” of the leader of the peoples. What kind of personal life could this man have, who transplanted the relatives of both wives, his son’s wife, his daughter’s husband, her lover?
Stalin's private life is gloomy, like his whole person, like the era that received his name. The “First Lady” of the Soviet Union, poor Nadezhda Alliluyeva, was humiliated, trampled and ultimately destroyed, just like Russia itself. In a tragic irony of fate, Nadezhda Alliluyeva was undoubtedly the most feminine among all the Soviet “first ladies”; more than any other of the leaders’ wives, her appearance was matched poetic definitions, like “muse”. This, by the way, was perfectly captured by the sculptor Shadr, who sculpted her white marble tombstone.

Lady N.P. Kukharchuk
Nikita Khrushchev, who came after Stalin, brought a thaw to life in the country that had been turned into a Gulag. His family life, humane and prosperous (not counting tragic fate eldest son, Leonid), was also akin to this thaw, which came after the chilling era of the pagan god who devoured his own children.
It was Nikita, as the people called him (who would have thought of calling Stalin by name?) who was the first of the Soviet leaders to bring big light wife. Rustic, to match her husband, Nina Petrovna for the first time in Soviet history began to accompany him on official trips, and in this sense, the countdown of Soviet “first ladies” should probably begin with her. As Khrushchev himself recalled, it was Mikoyan’s idea - for the first time official visit to the USA to take not only a wife, but also children. At a Politburo meeting discussing the upcoming visit, the wise Mikoyan (as we remember, the only Soviet politician who lived “from Ilyich to Ilyich without a heart attack or paralysis”) said: “Nikita, take your family with you. After all, they think about us that we, communists, are horned devils and our tail is growing. Nina Petrovna speaks English, and so do the children...”
Nina Petrovna, despite her rustic appearance and clearly non-noble surname Kukharchuk, spoke not only English, but also French and Polish, as her daughter Rada testifies. But her main advantages were probably the qualities of a good wife and mother and simply a decent and modest man. All the children and grandchildren in this family grew up into worthy members of society, no one went astray or became an alcoholic, as happened in the families of Soviet leaders.
Uniqueness historical place Nikita was not only that he dared to expose Stalin - although, of course, this was his main merit, which secured his place in the world pantheon. Nikita’s uniqueness was also in the fact that he was no longer a tyrant and was not yet a corrupt official. They were not afraid of him and he did not have to fear exposure and persecution after leaving his post (and therefore held on to this post until the last). In this sense, they have a lot in common with Gorbachev.
And that was his charm privacy and his entire family. When he was sent into retirement overnight, it turned out that he did not have his own home. When they gave me an apartment and I had to register, it turned out that Nikita’s marriage to Nina Petrovna had not been formalized (so, it seems, they had not formalized it).
While working on this material, I scoured Internet search engines in vain, asking for the phrase “Khrushchev’s mistresses.” Well, in this priceless global trash heap there did not turn out to be any, even insignificantly plausible, even the slightest tale made up out of a bad head, on the topic of the adultery of our Kukuruznik.
776 mistresses of Beria - and not a single one of Khrushchev. In general, Nina Petrovna turned out to be worthy of the “first lady” in all respects, although this definition does not fit with her appearance.

Lenya and Vitya
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, who replaced Khrushchev, is a completely different matter. This was a different person life principles. He’s also not a tyrant, but, unlike Nikita, you can’t call him a non-corrupt official. It is with Brezhnev that the massive rollback begins Soviet elite from the principles of personal honesty and, as they said then, modesty in everyday life.
And their wives, Khrushchev’s Nina Petrovna and Brezhnev’s Victoria Petrovna, despite the fact that they were even similar in appearance - they dressed in the fashion of their youth and did not know how to behave in public, typical Soviet “Aunt Moti” in polka dot dresses, Panama hats and enormous tote bags. with forged corners - the people were completely different. By the way, before the overthrow of Khrushchev by a group of conspirators led by Brezhnev, they were friends, and the news of Nikita’s resignation found Nina and Victoria Petrovna on vacation in Karlovy Vary. “Well,” said simple-minded Nina Petrovna to her friend, from now on the wife of the first person in the country, “now you will invite me to Grand Theatre to the box." Victoria Petrovna remained silent. As you might guess, Nina Petrovna did not receive an invitation to the Bolshoi box.
Despite the fact that Victoria Petrovna Brezhneva, like Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk-Khrushcheva, spent her entire life in the shadow of her high-ranking husband and did not lay claim to any public status as “first lady,” the wife’s influence on her husband in the Brezhnev family was completely different than in the Khrushchev family.
According to some reports, it was Victoria Petrovna, or “Vitya,” as her husband called her, who infected Brezhnev with a love for the material benefits of life. If you believe Brezhnev’s niece, Lyudmila (the daughter of his only brother Yakov), then at first Brezhnev protested against any kind of “communization.” As Lyudmila Brezhneva writes in her memoirs, immediately after the war Victoria Petrovna felt like a “general”, decided to radically update her wardrobe and made a scandal about this to the future Secretary General. He, a gentle man by nature, flew into a wild rage, grabbed the dresses and shoes that “Vitina” had, and, grabbing an ax, chopped them into cabbage. He hacked and cried, remembering the tragedies of the recent war, as her father, Yakov Brezhnev, who was present, told the memoirist.
But the higher Brezhnev rose in career ladder, apparently, the memories of the trials of the war years came to him less often, and his wife’s hoarding instincts ceased to cause violent protest in him. Victoria Petrovna opened a special one-room apartment in Moscow where gifts received by her husband were kept. (By the way, Khrushchev, receiving gifts during visits and receptions, immediately called Gokhran employees and handed them over according to the inventory.) One of her favorite pastimes was visiting this apartment - apparently, to enjoy the view of the treasures, and at the same time subject them to additional accounting . According to eyewitnesses, many gifts had pieces of paper attached to them with the names of children and grandchildren: caring mother and the grandmother distributed government property as if it were her personal property.
Victoria Petrovna greatly contributed to the development of nepotism, for which the Brezhnev era became so notorious. The well-known General Tsvigun, who rose to the rank of first deputy chairman of the KGB, made such a career primarily due to the fact that he was married to the sister of the secretary general’s wife.
In other words, the “first lady” with the longest experience in this “post” in Soviet history - after all, Leonid Ilyich ruled for 18 years - had a serious, although completely non-public influence on both her husband and that woman in general. political era, which went down in history under two names. Dry-chronologically - Brezhnev's. And quality - an era of stagnation.
The only question remains: did Leonid Ilyich love his “first lady”?
They got married in the second half of the 30s, already during the war Leonid Ilyich got himself, as they said then, a PPZh - a field camp wife - a front-line nurse Tamara, after the war he wanted to marry her, but because of his love for children he could not leave his family . At the same time, as his granddaughter, Victoria, recalls, they sorted things out with Victoria Petrovna, and the topic of love was removed from the agenda: they mutually admitted that they had long stopped loving each other.
In contrast to Khrushchev’s history, it is known that “Lyonya” cheated on his “Vita” often and with taste. Victoria Petrovna did not shine with beauty, but Brezhnev was a prominent man - even Stalin drew attention to him at the 19th party, saying: “What a handsome Maldavanian!” (Brezhnev was then the first secretary of the Central Committee of Moldova). Actually, after this most important professional characteristic, Brezhnev was transferred to Moscow and his ascent to the party Olympus began. Brezhnev always remembered the importance of the “external factor” in his career: they say that even in his old age he spent a long time primping himself in front of the mirror. And he loved to remember how the British Queen once told him: “Mr. Brezhnev, you are such an interesting man!”
The same granddaughter Victoria recalls that more than anything else in the world, her grandfather loved women and cars. His car collection, which included a Rolls-Royce and a Lincoln donated by Nixon, is well known. The collection of Brezhnev women, according to the same Victoria, consisted of seven “exhibits” (they will be discussed in Chapter 6). The wife, according to numerous testimonies, knew about her husband’s hobbies and forgave them. This is what Victoria Petrovna Brezhneva was like - a woman with a masculine character; apparently, it was not for nothing that her husband called her by her masculine name.

The real first lady
It is generally accepted that the first stylish, modern, fashionably dressed wife of a Soviet leader was Raisa Gorbacheva. This is not entirely accurate. Wife " spiritual father“Gorbachev, Yuri Andropova, Tatyana Filippovna, dressed fashionably and tastefully. I remember my own surprise when, watching Andropov’s funeral on TV in 1983, I saw two beautiful, slender women in long silver fox fur coats walking behind the coffin - they were his widow and daughter.
Just as the “secret Westerner” Andropov prepared the arrival of the obvious Westerner Gorbachev, so Andropov’s wife turned out to be a “project” of our first real “lady number one,” Raisa Gorbacheva.
Of course, the strength of Raisa Gorbacheva was not only that, unlike the wives of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, she took care of herself and dressed in accordance with modern fashion, and not the era of the first five-year plans. Raisa Gorbacheva turned out to be the first socialite among the wives of our leaders; she plunged headlong into public life and felt like a fish in water. She gave an enormous amount to the image of Mikhail Sergeevich himself: thanks to her, for the first time we ourselves and the rest of the world saw in the communist general secretary not an asexual idol, but a full-fledged person, a man.
Raisa Maksimovna crushed the stereotype of the wife of a Soviet leader as revolutionary as Mikhail Gorbachev crushed all other stereotypes associated with Soviet Union. And that’s why the country first loved her, like him, and then hated her. Then, in the end, she fell in love again - after her tragic and sudden death.
By going public, Raisa Maksimovna laid down all those traditions of behavior and lifestyle of the “first lady”, which have now become the norm for wives Russian leaders. The creation of public funds under the patronage of the “first lady”, patronage of culture, social institutions - this is all from her, from her light hand began. She did it with desire, with own initiative and internal drive, and not because the position obliged. Everyone after her learned to dress and behave with more or less taste in public, but no one - neither Naina Yeltsina, nor Lyudmila Putina - managed to outshine Western first ladies like she did. But we remember how both Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush found themselves in the shadow of Raisa Gorbacheva at Soviet-American summits.
She brilliantly withstood the test of publicity in moments of not only triumph, but also bitter defeats: let us remember her behavior and television interview after returning from Foros in August 1991.
What else is important and unique? That they - Raisa and Mikhail Gorbachev - gave the public the impression of people in love with each other. None of the Soviet and Russian “first couples” succeeded in doing this either before or after them. Well, you can’t play it like that: love is like money - you either have it or you don’t. That's who was in in every sense The words “the president’s muse” are Raisa Gorbachev.
She not only became our first real, without quotes, without adjustments for our historical backwardness, first lady. In my deep conviction, Raisa Gorbacheva became political star era no less important than her husband.

In the shadow of a big husband
Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina, who replaced Raisa Maksimovna in the place of the first lady of the state, for a long time, it seems to me, was burdened by this role, felt constrained in it, and finally - after eight years - got used to it, but never really got into the taste. Her appearance suffered over the years dramatic changes, six-month perms and bright burgundy suits gave way to fashionable haircut and the style of Coco Chanel, but it seems that she herself, appearing in public infrequently, did not receive much pleasure from it. Some observers explain this by the fact that Naina Iosifovna is from an Old Believer family and public life was alien to her.
I think it’s not at all a matter of Old Believer origin, after which Naina Iosifovna still lived for a long period not as an Old Believer, but as an ordinary one. Soviet life. The fact is that her husband, unlike Gorbachev, was an unpredictable person, especially in public, and even after some banquet, and Naina Iosifovna often seemed constrained, apparently due to the fact that internally she had to be ready for to a variety of “scenarios” of his behavior.” I have a feeling that Naina Iosifovna truly relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief after Boris Nikolaevich retired. Knowledgeable colleagues say that she spent many hours a day on the Internet and was addicted to computer games from among the "shooters" like DOOM and QUAKE. My husband and I went fishing all over the country, right up to Kola Peninsula, and, according to the newspaper chronicle, luck smiled on her almost more often than on Boris Nikolaevich.
Meanwhile, they say that at the dawn of the great political career of our former guarantor, she knew how to give Boris Nikolaevich good, smart tips. They say that it was she who suggested to him, after his resignation in 1987 from the post of First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU, that famous style of behavior: start riding public transport, go register at the district clinic, go to regular shops, etc. But it was with these extremely unusual steps for a Soviet leader that Yeltsin’s glory and his ascent to the political pinnacle began. Subsequently, having reached this peak, he apparently stopped listening to his wife. It is unlikely that conducting a military orchestra on the Berlin parade ground, publicly pinching a stenographer’s soft spot and other extravagant antics of Yeltsin the President were advised to him by Naina Iosifovna.
Finally, she turned out to be much more noble than her husband in relation to their predecessors - the Gorbachev couple. We all remember that neither Yeltsin nor any other high Russian authorities appeared at the funeral of Raisa Gorbacheva in September 1999. And Naina Yeltsina came.
There is another underlying reason, already outside the personality of Naina Iosifovna, why she did not turn into such a bright and full-fledged first lady as Raisa Gorbacheva, but rather continued the Soviet tradition, remaining in the shadow of her great husband. In the late 90s, the concept of “Yeltsin family” was quoted in the press, domestic and foreign, and a second, let’s say, Sicilian meaning appeared in it. On the basis of the family, in the literal sense of the word (this “base” began to be designated by the formula “Tanya plus Valya”), the largest Russian business clan arose. The romantic sentiments of the Gorbachev era were discarded, and there was no longer a need, with the help of elegant wives like Raisa Maksimovna, to convince the West of their spiritual and cultural closeness with it. The time had come to make money in politics, and for this, first of all, it was necessary to ensure the continuity of power. This process, which began in Russia, has captured almost all post-Soviet republics. The top officials there, primarily in Central Asia and Transcaucasia, they understood the task quite straightforwardly, placing (or trying to place) direct heirs on the throne in their place. In Russia it was not appropriate to act this way, so the operation, developed by Boris Berezovsky, was carried out in several stages and successfully ended in December 1999 with the “Successor” combination.
But Naina Iosifovna no longer participated in these “family” games.

A glass of kefir for Vladimir Vladimirovich
What can you say about one of the youngest - if you don't count Nadezhda Alliluyeva and Svetlana Medvedeva - first ladies in our history? Being in such a view, it is impossible to hide age, so it is known for certain that Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Putina, nee Shkrebneva, was born in 1958.
Yes, almost nothing, except for the well-known meager personal data: she came from Kaliningrad, worked as a flight attendant, met her future husband in 1978 in Leningrad at a Raikin concert, got married in 1983, in 1986 she graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Leningrad State University with a degree in philology and novelism, speaks German, Spanish, French, two daughters, Maria and Katerina, born in 1985 and 1986.
And most importantly, Lyudmila Alexandrovna herself, it seems, does not want to be talked about at all. When Yeltsin resigned in the already mentioned December 1999, appointing Lyudmila Alexandrovna’s husband as his locum tenens, she (as she herself said in one of her few interviews) cried for a long time: now her personal life was over. But public life, as it turns out, doesn’t really attract her. In public, judging by the official television news, she behaves very strictly, sometimes dryly, unlike Raisa Gorbacheva and even Naina Yeltsina, we almost don’t know how she smiles, what the timbre of her voice is.
Apparently, Lyudmila Alexandrovna’s husband also does not want any special publicity for his family. Meanwhile, Lyudmila Putina’s participation in public life is not limited to accompanying her husband on his many trips, she sometimes travels independently - either to Berlin for the presentation of a postage stamp, or to Strasbourg for youth forum, - leads independent social activities for support and promotion native language(patronizes the Russian Language Development Center). I have heard that this activity is by no means useless: they say that thanks to the intervention of Lyudmila Putina, the planned idiotic spelling reform was prevented. But all this, again, is not accompanied by any special PR.
Her few, as I already said, interviews, which she gives exclusively to the loyal press, consist mainly of common words and reasoning. Moreover, the questions that helpful journalists ask her do not lead to meaningful answers. For example: “Do you drink kefir at night?” and then: “Does Vladimir Vladimirovich drink kefir at night?”
So if we can say with confidence about Gorbachev that Raisa Maksimovna was a co-author of his political destiny and success, about Yeltsin it is known that Naina Iosifovna gave him good advice, which he did not always listen to, then we know nothing about the role of Lyudmila Alexandrovna in the phenomenal political career of Vladimir Vladimirovich. But someday, I have no doubt, we will find out something. As well as about the role of Svetlana Medvedeva in her husband’s career.

Heiresses on the curve
I started this essay and devoted most of it to the wives of Soviet leaders, and then switched to their direct successors - the wives of Russian presidents. It would be impolite - and essentially incorrect - not to say at least a few words about the heiresses “on the curve” - the first ladies of the post-Soviet republics.
The picture here is very colorful, but perfectly logical. Judge for yourself.
Post-Soviet dictators - I think no one will argue that we have the right to include Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and the now deceased Turkmen leader, Saparmurat Niyazov - organized their personal lives in full accordance with the Stalinist tradition. One is the “father”, the other is the “father of all Turkmens”: like the “father of nations”, the whole country is theirs big family. Therefore, almost nothing is known about the small, biological family, and the personal life of the “father” and “father” has long been overgrown with sometimes the most incredible rumors.
So, they say that Alexander Grigorievich Lukashenko has been living apart from his wife, Galina Rodionovna, the mother of his two sons, for a long time, although their marriage, it seems, has not been dissolved. After he was elected president and moved to Minsk, Galina Rodionovna did not follow her husband, she remained in the village of Ryzhkovichi, Mogilev region, where she works in the district administration. According to rumors, since 1994 Lukashenko has been living with common-law wife, at the same time his attending physician, Irina Abelskaya, who (again, according to rumors) gave birth to his son. However, in the republic Lukashenko is known as Casanova, and many intimate relationships are attributed to him.
Turkmenbashi, as they say, kept an even greater distance from his wife, Muza Alekseevna. She lived in Moscow since the late 80s, allowing Saparmurat to focus exclusively on caring for all Turkmens.
The complete opposite of Lukashenko and Turkmenbashi are pro-Western politicians, Ukrainian Viktor Yushchenko and Georgian Mikheil Saakashvili. Both are married to foreigners. Yushchenko's wife, a native of Chicago, ethnic Ukrainian Ekaterina Chumachenko, took Ukrainian citizenship several years ago (but did not, of course, renounce American citizenship). Mikheil Saakashvili's wife, Sandra Roelofs, is from the Netherlands. Both are real, in the Western sense of the word, first ladies, they lead a busy public life, do a lot of charity work, and actively participate in creating a “positive image” of their husbands.
By the way, it’s so funny: along with the change of president in Ukraine - a change that many consider a return back (only some evaluate this return with a plus sign, while others - with a minus sign), there has also been a radical change in the style of the first person and his "half". The style is also back to good Soviet times. The couple Victor - Lyudmila Yanukovych somehow subtly resembles the unforgettable Leonid Ilyich and his Victoria Petrovna.

Leonid VELEKHOV

Take Chanel - let's go home

It is known who undresses the first ladies. And who dresses them?

Not only ours, but also American first ladies did not immediately understand that their elegant appearance could add something significant to the image and popularity of their husbands. And therefore, not only ours, but also American first ladies did not immediately become fashionable women.
In this sense, the revolution was made, of course, by Jacqueline Kennedy, the youngest first lady of America in the twentieth century. Not just a revolution - she became a real trendsetter of her time. However, her impeccable taste and love for fashionable clothes and hairstyles, immediately appreciated by society, initially aroused criticism from the American political class. What were her pink trousers worth, which drove women and men all over the world crazy, but for a long time provoked attacks from political feuilletonists!
“Mrs. Kennedy is too great a jewel even for the President of the United States,” Charles de Gaulle said about her with delight. In addition to pure male admiration, these words also contained a completely sober assessment of how much the beautiful Jacqueline cost her husband. Or rather, not to her husband: according to a family agreement, Jacqueline’s father-in-law, J. Kennedy Sr., paid the bills from the stores. Kennedy family biographers estimate that Jacqueline ordered about 300 dresses during her time in the White House.
As you know, Jacqueline was the first among American firsts the lady started ordering clothes from French couturiers. She preferred Givenchy, Chanel and Pierre Cardin - that is, the so-called “simple style”. However, it is a mistake to believe that Jacqueline dressed exclusively from Parisians. One of her favorite couturiers was an American of Russian origin, Oleg Kessini. But its the most famous work, created for Jacqueline, a leopard print coat, which the designer himself later called “ a terrible mistake" After Jacqueline appeared in this coat, commercial hunting for leopards took on dangerous proportions: many rich women wanted a “coat like Jackie’s.”
Raisa Gorbacheva undoubtedly became the “Russian Jacqueline”. Although she was not so young and, perhaps, was not as beautiful and irresistible as Jacqueline, she also made a real revolution in the minds of her fellow citizens and the rest of the world, creating a completely new image a Russian (more precisely, then still Soviet) woman - with a Hollywood, winning smile, self-confident, dressed with impeccable taste. Many fellow citizens, of course, were simply jealous of her - and they can be understood, in the USSR at that time it was impossible to buy anything at all - and they gossiped about how her husband’s salary could make her dress like that. But at the same time they tried to imitate her, just as Ellochka the Ogress imitated the “damned Vanderbilt.”
Raisa also preferred “ simple style» Chanel and Cardin (by the way, actively contributed to the arrival of the Cardin and San Laurent trademarks on our market), however, like Jacqueline, they loved to shock the public: it’s worth remembering her famous multi-colored fur coat, made from different furs.
Raisa brought 35 dresses with her to her meeting with Nancy Reagan in Paris. The First Lady of the United States also changed her clothes five times a day. This unofficial duel of toilets and charm, by all accounts, was won by Mrs. Gorbachev.
The leading lady of Russia and America first decades XXI century, unlike Raisa Gorbacheva or Jacqueline Kennedy, was clearly not destined to become trendsetters. But they didn’t pretend to do so. By the way, both were very often criticized for the way they dressed. Laura Bush was criticized for the fact that, having abandoned the provincial, so-called Texas style, which she preferred while living in the town of Austin, she never found a new image. Long years She was dressed by Texas fashion designer Michael Faircloth: “simple” style, colors - beige and brown. He hand-sewed her dress for her husband’s inauguration: bright red, with a neckline, lace and sequins. Then she began to dress with Arnold Skaasi, who also trimmed her mother-in-law, Barbara Bush. His last collection, made for Laura the First Lady, was executed in rich colors, mostly bright green. And the latest evening dress for Laura, the mistress of the White House, was made by the most famous New York designer, Oscar de la Renta: a dress made of silver tulle with rhinestones, beads and bugles.
But evil rumor claims that Laura still often appears in public in outfits from mass clothing manufacturers.
Lyudmila Putin shares a love for beige and brown with Laura Bush. She herself once admitted that her favorite clothes are knitted skirts and sweaters: comfortable and simple. Business suits she is forced to wear due to circumstances. Sometimes it is noticeable that business style- not to mention the evening - it weighs on her. But sometimes, on the contrary, it is clear that she is a brave woman and is ready to experiment: it is worth remembering the hat she wore to a reception with the British Queen in June 2003. Journalists then took up arms against this hat, writing that the wife’s headdress Russian President was twice the size of the royal one (as, incidentally, Putin’s own butterfly for some reason exceeded the existing standard in size). The fashion critic of the London Times wrote that with her hat, Lyudmila Putina immediately nullified all the gains of Raisa Gorbacheva.
The hat, unveiled in London, according to some sources, was the work of Slava Zaitsev. But in general, who dresses Lyudmila Putin is not known for certain. They say that from the very beginning she refused the services of image makers and designers, does not accept the recommendations of specialists, trusts first of all her own taste and deals with her style personally. It seems that domestic fashion designers worked with her several times - in addition to the already mentioned Zaitsev - Victoria Andreyanova, Igor Chapurin and Yanis Chamalidi, but none of them became her permanent adviser and master. They also say that, in fact, the wife of the Russian president loves ready-to-wear clothes and has purchased many items from, for example, the Burberry collection. And this, as you know, is comfortable, practical, mostly plain clothes of a somewhat conservative style.
But if we talk about the most elegant first ladies of our time, then, of course, we cannot ignore Doris Schröder-Kepf, the petite (152 cm) wife of the former German Chancellor Schröder. She knows how to wear any clothes, but prefers her own style, which Doris herself, a journalist by profession, calls “journalistic” - jeans, blouses and jackets. From expensive boutiques, of course. She never strives to become taller through high-heeled shoes: after all, her husband is not very tall either, and her diminutiveness makes the chancellor look larger and taller. Doris has her own signature: she complements any outfit with an elegant neckerchief.
But Yulia Tymoshenko clearly has a complex about her short stature and came with a report to the Verkhovna Rada wearing white Gucci shoes with 15-centimeter heels. Ms. Tymoshenko, strictly speaking, is not the first lady, but an orange one, but it would be a pity not to say a few words about her. Because she