Word: krai
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...known that he rose fast, from a minor job in the local Komsomol to its first secretary after less than a year, then through a variety of Komsomol and, later, party jobs. By 1962, when he was only 31, he was choosing party members for promotion throughout Stavropol Krai. Finally in 1970, at the age of 39, he became first secretary of the territory, a job equivalent to governor of an area roughly the size of South Carolina, with about 2.4 million people. Along the way, he became a specialist in farming, the main activity of the area. He took...
...usually set out on foot for his job each morning. Stavropolitans quickly learned that they could avoid having to make a formal appointment at Gorbachev's office on Lenin Square by buttonholing him on his walk up Dzerzhinsky Street and discussing their problems then. He also began in Stavropol Krai the walkabouts that were later to cause a national sensation when he continued the practice as General Secretary. On a visit to a village in the Izobilnynsky district, he heard from an indignant mother of six children how the manager of a state store had treated her rudely. The storekeeper...
Just how Gorbachev rose out of provincial obscurity is still somewhat mysterious. As late as 1978, few outside Stavropol Krai had ever heard of him. The best answer seems to be that he attracted a number of powerful patrons. The first was Fyodor Kulakov, who as party boss in Stavropol first spotted Gorbachev as having great promise. After Kulakov became Agriculture Secretary for the entire Soviet Union, Gorbachev eventually succeeded him in Stavropol -- and Kulakov apparently made sure his protege became known in Moscow. In 1977 the "Ipatovsky method," a new technique of harvesting grain quickly by using flying squads...
Geography gave Gorbachev a mighty assist too. Christian Schmidt-Hauer, a West German journalist and biographer, observes that if Gorbachev had been party chief in, say, Murmansk in the far north, he would never have become General Secretary. But in Stavropol Krai, he was on hand to welcome top Moscow officials who came to the local spas at Mineralnye Vody and Kislovodsk for vacations and medical treatment. They found their host unusual in several respects. Says Soviet Historian Roy Medvedev: "A regional party first secretary who was intelligent and congenial would have been considered untypical. If Gorbachev had yelled, sworn...
Raisa is rarely mentioned by name in the Soviet press. She was born in the Siberian town of Rubtsovsk in Altai Krai, though she told reporters at a parade in Moscow last month that she is "absolutely Russian." According to her official biography, her father was a railway engineer. Raisa's chosen profession is teaching. When the newly married Gorbachevs moved to Stavropol in 1955, Raisa found a job at a local school and continued to teach for the next 23 years. When her husband was summoned back to Moscow in 1978 to take charge of Soviet agriculture, Raisa became...