The Americans have gone through 150 years of ups and downs, to pull themselves up out of the mud. After only 15 years, Russia is already in the process of liberating itself from the same thing.

The Bolsheviks started not just on the killing of private property; they were trying to abolish money itself.

I joined the city government, and we start to operate as the bureaucrats on the local level, so we were the only ones in the whole Russian team who were experienced in practical bureaucratic management in the complicated condition of 1990.

You need to find somebody who will speak the same language. We understand that we couldn't have any kind of discussion without permission, without a legal framework behind it.

Private property is a very fundamental and very long-term institution.

For the producers, there was no reason to produce. You get money, but you couldn't use this money. For consumers, you could have money, but you have no way to use it because you go to the shop and see nothing.

In 1995 the whole political situation was very complicated. I was the first deputy prime minister, and at the same time I had very low influence in the government.