The biography of Yuri Churbanov ─ the future deputy minister of internal affairs of the USSR and the son-in-law of the unforgettable Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev - began quite in the spirit of those forever past times in which the calls for the construction of communism did not look so ridiculous as now, when history clearly showed their emptiness and meaninglessness.
Komsomol youth
He was born on November 11, 1936 in Moscow, in the family of a high-ranking party functionary. However, after graduating from high school, he did not enter MGIMO or Moscow State University, as is now customary among the children of the powerful, but, at the insistence of his father, became a student at a vocational school (vocational school), after which he worked at the Znamya Truda plant as an ordinary assembly fitter. Thus, the first stage of the biography of Yuri Churbanov allowed him subsequently with good reason to say that his hands were used to work.
However, he did not stay in the assembly shop for a long time and soon, elected, or rather, appointed secretary of the Komsomol organization of the plant, forever said goodbye to working clothes. After a short time, the enterprise “Banner of Labor” itself remained only in memories, giving way to the district committee of the Komsomol, where Yuri got the place of an instructor.
Carier start
In 1961, the biography and personal life of Yuri Churbanov was marked by an important event - he entered into his first marriage. His chosen one was Tamara Viktorovna Valceferova, who gave her husband two children. At the same time, Yuri Mikhailovich was transferred to the Central Office of the Komsomol and, taking the post of head of one of the departments, he entered the correspondence department of the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University. After graduating from it in 1964, he received a diploma, but even earlier he went to work in political agencies of the system of correctional labor institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he was very successfully moving up the career ladder. He met the year 1971 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
The meeting that determined the future life
Then, in January 1971, fate presented Churbanov with his main gift. In the restaurant hall, where he and his colleague celebrated the Old New Year, she brought him together with Galina Brezhneva ─ daughter of the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee. From this moment, the biography of Yuri Churbanov becomes much more interesting.
In those years, he was a very impressive 35-year-old man, capable of turning his head and a less sensitive woman, than the 41-year-old Galina Leonidovna, known for her love of love. He invited her to a dance, and she herself made an appointment with him. This evening was the beginning of their stormy romance, and a week later she introduced Churbanov to her father, not as a lover, but as a future bridegroom.
Fit groom
It should be noted that by that time in the memory of Leonid Ilyich the former two very eccentric marriages of his daughter were still fresh. Her first husband was the circus acrobat strongman Evgeni Milayev, and the second was the illusionist Igor Kio. Moreover, if Milayev was 20 years older than her, then Kio was 18 years younger. Therefore, the handsome and very promising lieutenant colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs seemed to the Secretary General as a suitable candidate for the position of the next son-in-law.
Galina was only 6 years older than Yuri, which is quite bearable. In addition, Leonid Ilyich hoped that Churbanov would put an end to his daughter’s love affairs, which, although not covered in the press, were an endless topic of conversation and undoubtedly cast a shadow over the Secretary General’s family.
Wedding and career take-off
Hastily (while the iron is still hot), having drawn up a divorce from his wife, the young seducer entered into a new marriage. With regard to children, the biography of Yuri Churbanov says only that they stayed with their mother. It is now difficult to say what role he played in their future life.
Of course, a close relationship with the head of state immediately bore fruit, because now the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Nikolai Shchelokov became his personal friend and patron. At this stage, the biography of Yuri Mikhailovich Churbanov is marked by a number of striking career ups. Shortly after the wedding, “son-in-law No. 1” was the name he was popularly known as, he became deputy head of the Political Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and a few years later his head.
A fly in the ointment
According to the positions held, his ranks also grew. In 1974, he tried on the shoulder straps of a major general, and three years later he became a lieutenant general. Note that by then Churbanov was a little over forty years old. He reached the peak of his career growth in February 1980, becoming a colonel general and receiving the post of First Deputy Minister of the Interior at the request of his father-in-law.
However, despite such a successful career advancement, the life of Yuri Mikhailovich at that time was not at all cloudless, and it was Galina who overshadowed her. There is much evidence of contemporaries that their marriage, which lasted 19 years, was by no means happy. The spoiled daughter of the Secretary General was still addicted to alcohol, and, fed up with her new spouse, she began to seek a way out of her indefatigable temperament on the side.
Formally, she was listed in some rather high positions and received the corresponding salary, but in fact she did not appear in any institutions, but led a free and, as they say, bohemian life. Her constant environment was artists, artists, and sometimes businessmen of the black market, which flourished in conditions of total Soviet deficit.
In this regard, you can only sympathize with her husband, who did his best to fulfill his potential in the high positions he held, but at the same time was forced to sometimes search for his missus in restaurants and, taking from the hands of another boyfriend, take him home to bring him to his senses. However, making this marriage, he knew what he was doing. 1980, in the biography of Brezhnev’s son-in-law , Yuri Churbanov, was marked by receiving the State Prize, which was awarded to him for his “enormous contribution” to the rule of law and security during the Moscow Olympic Games. Then he was destined to rise to the top of the political Olympus, becoming a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Beginning of the End
Meanwhile, his ascent coincided with the period, which is now commonly called the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union. People of the older generation, no doubt, remember those times when the store shelves even of citizens who were accustomed to everything struck with their wretchedness, and at the enterprises reporting about overfulfillment of plans, the workers, in fact, only spent the hours set.
The same picture was observed in agriculture. Collective farms and state farms reported record harvests, which actually did not exist. Everyone knew this, but supported the illusion of general well-being. Against this “gray background”, the party and economic nomenclature stood out in particularly contrasting terms, the representatives of which generously handed out awards and “slices of the state pie,” many of which fell on Churbanov’s table.
At sunset, the Brezhnev era
In those years when a personal car was a pipe dream for the vast majority of the country's citizens, he, one of the few, drove in his own Mercedes, moreover, having several pairs of different numbers in the trunk. According to Galina Leonidovna herself, it is known that this car was presented to her father by Erich Honneker, who was the head of the GDR government in those years, and Leonid Ilyich gave it to his son-in-law.
There were endless conversations about the luxury in which the top leadership lives, and, despite the fact that the people, as usual, were silent, the general irritation grew in him. So the era of Brezhnev’s reign approached the sunset.
The new owner of the Kremlin
The turning point in the biography of Yuri Churbanov was November 1982, when his senior son-in-law and patron died. Soon after the death of Leonid Ilyich, Y. V. Andropov, who succeeded him, initiated a number of high-profile anti-corruption processes, necessary, first of all, to lower the degree of public discontent. The main defendants in the cases were officials included in the immediate environment of the deceased General Secretary.
Among them turned out to be Churbanov’s immediate chief ─ Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. Shchelokov, who, incidentally, was a long-standing and implacable enemy of the new owner of the Kremlin. Finding himself under investigation and aware of the irrefutable evidence, he could not bear the psychological burden and in December 1984 committed suicide with a shot from a hunting rifle. Churbanov’s misfortune at that moment bypassed itself. Calling him to himself, Andropov in a short conversation made it clear that he did not intend to institute criminal proceedings against him.
Sunset career
This period is a very important moment in the biography of Yuri Churbanov. He had no children in common with Galina Leonidovna, and therefore the alienation that had long been established between them, after the death of his father-in-law, grew into mutual hostility. Family life, previously supported by him at the cost of considerable effort, has now completely collapsed.
Having lost his high-ranking patron, Yuri Mikhailovich was removed from his previous position as Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and in a short time, already under Gorbachev, he made a significant journey, this time down the career ladder. As a result, he was sent to retirement after long service.
Arrest and years of imprisonment
However, fate was already preparing its darling for an unexpected blow. In January 1987, Yuri Mikhailovich was arrested as a defendant in the so-called Uzbek or cotton case. In this case, it was a whole series of major corruption crimes among the leadership of the Uzbek SSR, to which, according to the investigation, Churbanov was also involved.
He was charged with receiving a number of bribes on a particularly large scale. Despite the fact that his guilt in most episodes has not been proven, by a court decision in 1988 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property, but after 5 years he received parole. It should be noted that at that time Churbanov became the highest-ranking official among all who were imprisoned. The new authorities intensely created the illusion of the fight against corruption, and he served as a bargaining chip in their game.
last years of life
While Yuri Mikhailovich was in the camp, he was filed for divorce by Galina Leonidovna, and their marriage, which had long been only a formality, was finally dissolved. The biography of Yuri Churbanov’s personal life after prison says that in 1994 he married for the third time, and this time, as people who knew him testify, successfully. His wife was a longtime girlfriend ─ Lyudmila Vasilyevna Kuznetsova. She is described as a very calm, intelligent woman who worked for many years at Moscow State University. Having married, she took the name of her husband.
The widow of Yuri Churbanov, Lyudmila Churbanova, wrote in her husband’s biography that his stay in places of detention had undermined his health, and for the last five years of his life he was paralyzed. Of course, all the care for him fell on her shoulders. Yuri Mikhailovich died on October 7, 2013 and was buried at the Mitinsky cemetery in Moscow. According to a biography published together with the posthumous obituary, Yuri Mikhailovich Churbanov had only children from his first marriage and, returning from prison, did not maintain contact with them.