5 On Compound No. 19, see Anthony Rimmington, “From Military to Industrial Complex? The Conversion of Biological Weapons Facilities in the Russian Federation,”
6 A. D. Kirillov and N. N. Popov,
7 Yel’tsin,
8 Bobykin was transferred to a Central Committee department in 1978. He returned to Sverdlovsk as obkom first secretary in June 1988, when Yeltsin was in political disfavor, and was removed in February 1990.
9 Manyukhin,
10 Grigorii Kaëta, who at this point was an official in the obkom’s propaganda department, interview with the author (September 9, 2004). Mekhrentsev, a war veteran, had been a party member since 1946. He was a deputy in the Supreme Soviet and had been awarded two Orders of Lenin and a USSR State Prize. He died in January 1985 at the age of sixty and rated an obituary in
11 Manyukhin,
12 This last phenomenon is reported in Kaleriya Shadrina, “Yel’tsin byl krut: soratniki perezhidali yego gnev v spetsbol’nitse” (Yeltsin was gruff: his brothers-in-arms thought about his anger in the special hospital),
13 Pilar Bonet, “Nevozmozhnaya Rossiya: Boris Yel’tsin, provintsial v Kremle” (The impossible Russia: Boris Yeltsin, a provincial in the Kremlin),
14 Rossel, interviewed in
15 The case was initially a disappearance, with no one knowing what had become of Titov. His body was found outside of town several months later, with the pistol next to it. The KGB eventually ruled the death a suicide and a personal affair with no political aspect. Source: interviews with former obkom officials.
16 Viktor Chernomyrdin, interview with the author (September 15, 2000).
17 Interview with Ryabov, Central Committee Interview Project, University of Glasgow (transcript supplied by Stephen White). Ryabov went so far as to say in this interview that Yeltsin “was fully under my influence” in the late 1970s.
18 What Ryabov said in Nizhnii Tagil, after being asked about Brezhnev, was that the Politburo and Secretariat were quite capable of “covering for an ailing leader.” The incident is described in Yakov Ryabov,
19 Manyukhin,
20 Alibek,
21 “Boris Yel’tsin: ya ne skryvayu trudnostei i khochu, chtoby narod eto ponimal” (Boris Yeltsin: I do not conceal the difficulties and want the people to understand that),