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Sergei Porter / Vedomosti
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By Anatoly Medetsky
When he was a boy, Agriculture Minister
Nikolai Fyodorov feared roving wolves on his way to school.
The school was seven kilometers away
from his remote village, a distance that he covered by foot.
In spring, the school break lasted longer than for most other
Soviet children because slush and rains turned the ravines
on the route into deadly traps.
Those rough times left indelible memories ё
so much so that he set about improving rural life in his native Chuvashia
as soon as he came to rule the republic years later, in the
early 1990s.
НOn becoming Chuvashia's president,
the first thing I decided was to create comfortable living conditions
in the villages,О Fyodorov said in a Monday meeting with reporters
to introduce himself in his new capacity. НWhat prompted it may have
been that I had seen them on my own.О
Longtime president of Chuvashia before
he stepped down in 2010, Fyodorov received the agriculture portfolio
in Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet announced last week, in a
move that prompted questions about his links to the industry.
Outside the classroom, Fyodorov helped
his father grow vegetables in their family garden. The patch had
a greenhouse ё perhaps the only greenhouse in the republic ё
at a time when the Soviets frowned on too much private property,
he said.
НThe first cucumber or the first tomato
that appeared on the outdoor market in Cheboksary came from the
Fyodorov farm,О Fyodorov said proudly, referring to the republic's
capital.
His father was the son of a rich
peasant dispossessed in 1929 and later wounded fighting for the
Soviet army in the assault on Nazi-held K?nigsberg during World War
II.
The rural programs he started
in Chuvashia as president ё linking all settlements with hard-surfaced
roads, providing natural gas as a household fuel, introducing
a network of family practitioners modeled on Canada's, building
schools and libraries ё were to make farming attractive as
a business, he said.
НI wish my father and I had these
conditions in those years,О he said, after stating that he completed most
of the programs.
His goals now are to create similar
conditions across the country, he said.
Fyodorov will also seek a Нnew
industrializationО of agriculture by assisting farmers to buy
energy-efficient equipment and new technologies, he said.
As another goal, he wants to increase
the use of mineral fertilizers to industry standards, something
farmers can ill afford now. Fyodorov said, without elaborating, that he would
push for measures to reduce prices.
Fyodorov replaced Yelena Skrynnik,
and the change showed in the reception area of the minister's
office. Gone are the full-length mirror and the shiny artificial
apple tree.
Fyodorov completed his post-graduate studies
in Moscow's State and Law Institute the same year, 1985, as
Larisa Brycheva, whom President Vladimir Putin reappointed as his legal aide
last week. Another fellow student was Dzhakhan Pollyeva, a longtime
Kremlin aide and State Duma chief of staff since January.
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