Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:54in the series of broadcasts, legal historian Petr Jarvilayt
00:00:57draws attention to
00:02:00the President of the Russian Federation, so, before the whole world, the world
00:02:03is watching, Boris Yeltsin takes the oath of president, he
00:02:07becomes the head of the country, just a little more, and the USSR
00:02:11will collapse, and the Russian Federation becomes
00:02:14the legal successor
00:02:16of the USSR, this also happens within the framework of the USSR, this is
00:02:20a much bigger event, imagine the Chairman of the Supreme
00:02:24Soviet, the RSFSR never had such a status
00:02:27as the President of the Russian Federation. So
00:02:31this also explains that, as it were, from this moment on, we
00:02:34should talk, and we can, with such a perspective, read
00:02:38books about Yeltsin, from June
00:02:4112, 1991, we are dealing with a different
00:02:45Yeltsin, Yeltsin, who is the President of the Russian Federation, he
00:02:49reached a new level, yes, a thousand problems,
00:02:52he stands at the head of a country that needs
00:02:55to undergo reforms, which are all ahead and are difficult
00:02:58and complex, but... he is president, if
00:03:02we read what Arnold Rüütel says
00:03:05in articles, interviews, he says,
00:03:08"We talked with Yeltsin,
00:03:11say, a few months, half a year, or a year
00:03:15before that, we agreed on this, this, this, that," starting
00:03:18from June 12, Yeltsin is already a different person, he
00:03:21protects the country, and one can say, every meter of this
00:03:25state, of which he became president, so what do you mean by Pechory?
00:03:29Well, Pechory and the territory beyond Narva, beyond
00:03:33the Narva River and so on, that is,
00:03:35they talked before June 12,
00:03:381991, Rüütel with Yeltsin about
00:03:42Estonia getting
00:03:45back the lands beyond Narva and
00:03:49the Pechory region, and the monastery, and so on, because
00:03:52well, there are such conversations, or it is often
00:03:55mentioned in literature, but again, before
00:03:58June 12, or even earlier, Yeltsin
00:04:02spoke of such things in a completely different status, this is theoretically,
00:04:05so to speak, he had no status, no such
00:04:08responsibility, there were no generals around him who
00:04:12would ask: "Wait, what are you doing, Mr.
00:04:15President?" It's always, well, when a person sits in one chair,
00:04:19he has responsibility, then he looks at the world and even at every
00:04:22meter of his country differently, when he, when he
00:04:26is theoretically, that's another matter, understood, understood, that is, in...
00:05:12Therefore, the world had to reconsider
00:05:15its positions, its relations with Yeltsin, the Russian Federation
00:05:19and so on. So, the policy
00:05:22towards both the Soviet Union, and Gorbachev, and
00:05:26Yeltsin changes radically, so,
00:05:29for example, these problems which are so very close
00:05:33and very important and seem almost
00:05:36existential to us in Estonia, they
00:05:39are no longer viewed at the world level, at the
00:05:42level of the Russian Federation, in that way.
00:05:45Here, the question of the border, or the customs
00:05:49territory, or the control
00:05:52line, as politicians or in documents
00:05:55it is written, rises to a new status.
00:05:59So, the Russian Federation was
00:06:02interested in protecting these
00:06:05borders, well, economically this is important, so for
00:06:09Yeltsin, for his system, it became...
00:06:42our post will stand where we will check documents. That's how
00:06:46it happened that the Russian Federation
00:06:49was interested in a control line,
00:06:53at least a control line for the future border with
00:06:56Estonia.
00:07:42people, many, who had not yet decided who they were, who they were
00:07:46for, they traveled a lot to Russia, for goods,
00:07:49for something else, they set up some joint
00:07:53ventures, there, here, in our
00:07:56country, for example, newspapers were printed, I know for sure, for example,
00:07:59Russian, our businessmen, then
00:08:02aspiring businessmen, were running
00:08:05some productions in Russia and so on, here
00:08:09there is another very important question, all of you? these
00:08:12broadcasts, well, they didn't scare, but they always
00:08:15mentioned that Estonia avoided
00:08:18bloodshed, but that it was very
00:08:22real, very close. This is the second
00:08:25point. The third point, the border. The thing is that all
00:08:28border troops were under the aegis of the State
00:08:32Security Committee. What was happening in Estonia
00:08:36and who was establishing the borders, from whose side they wanted
00:08:39to draw this border, from the side.
00:10:12to raise their heads to the world and develop
00:10:15their own, they began to decide which
00:10:19territories would give bread, and
00:10:22of course, different groupings from...
00:10:25I don't know, Siberia to Central Asia, wanted
00:10:28to divide the Baltics too, as there was no border yet,
00:10:32so this was no longer quite a question
00:10:34of whether Estonia would be there or not, but it was also a question for the Russian
00:10:38Federation to establish some
00:10:41control, and moreover, there was a political
00:10:45discussion, the Russian Federation, as it were, had
00:10:47no interest in waiting
00:10:51for Estonia to negotiate, whether there would be
00:10:53a border according to the Tartu Peace Treaty or
00:10:57so on, we were already close to a conflict
00:11:00in 1990, when Kaitseliit
00:11:03conducted a staff exercise on how to set
00:11:06up border posts on the border according to the Estonian
00:11:09constitution of 1920 or the Tartu Peace Treaty, after that,
00:11:12the Soviet Union immediately reacted and somehow
00:11:15this conflict was resolved. Wait, are you saying that Kaitseliit
00:11:19in 1990 was setting up border posts beyond
00:11:22Narva? It was a staff exercise. They
00:11:25were putting them on the map, well, there are exercises that are
00:11:28in the field, so to speak, there are exercises that are
00:11:31on the map, when it's being worked out,
00:11:35all border guards, military, they play on the map, and
00:11:38then they go out to train, that's
00:11:42a staff exercise, like that, but how did Moscow find out about
00:11:45staff exercises of an organization it had
00:11:48no connection with? Well, KGB
00:11:51intelligence officers, and so on, had equipment and...
00:11:55Of course, if we recall, if we recall
00:11:581991 and Kaitseliit, Kaitseliit was
00:12:01dangerous because there were few
00:12:04weapons, it was accidental, very different
00:12:08people ended up in Kaitseliit and what it ended with, we opened
00:12:11the newspaper in the morning, and there was again
00:12:14a report that someone in Kaitseliit, probably not quite
00:12:18understanding what he should be doing, got drunk
00:12:21or consumed alcohol or was not well
00:12:25trained during his conscription service,
00:12:28forgot how to clean a weapon,
00:12:32forgot that he had not unloaded the weapon,
00:12:35fired a shot, a comrade died, he
00:12:38himself died, it might be a little embarrassing to recall this today,
00:12:42but open the newspapers of 1991,
00:12:46or the following years, we will see all this,
00:12:49good, let's go back to 1991, how did Russia
00:12:53establish the border? It put up posts, it put
00:12:56up not posts initially, but just control points, because
00:13:00if our head of border, well,
00:13:03as border troops or border guards, took
00:13:07office only on April 8, 1991,
00:13:11it didn't mean that it was completely at zero,
00:13:14but border troops were only
00:13:17being created, because Estonia didn't have its own border troops, it
00:13:21was the USSR, the KGB, that was dealing with it, these troops...
00:14:05well, by sea, at least, border guards
00:14:08of the Russian Federation appeared on
00:14:11the border with Estonia, so to speak? Yes, but
00:14:14conditionally speaking, border points, yes,
00:14:17border points, because it was an internal
00:14:20border, it was drawn on the map, people
00:14:23knew, but if someone... went to Pechory, he didn't think he was
00:14:27crossing a border, starting in 1991,
00:14:30suddenly there was a checkpoint, so,
00:14:33some border guards had to be transferred to the internal
00:14:36border, the internal border was in Peter the Great's time, in the time of Peter
00:14:40I, at the beginning, when these territories were included in the Russian
00:14:44Empire, Peter II, just in case, left an internal
00:14:48border, which was also protected or
00:14:50checked, and then it was removed, so, for centuries,
00:14:54well, no one... thought of going to Peter to the market, selling cucumbers or
00:14:57fish, or potatoes, well, no one thought that
00:15:01suddenly you needed to have documents and customs and so on, so
00:15:05this began, it was certainly a shock for
00:15:08a certain region, for example, to Lake Peipus,
00:15:11this is the entire internal economy of Estonia,
00:15:15these people, they lived on this, by transporting
00:15:18products to Leningrad, feeding Leningrad not
00:15:22by order, but to earn money. Fish from
00:15:26Lake Peipus went there, meat and so on, but suddenly it
00:15:29was a big shock, you had to understand, what will I do now,
00:15:33where is my market then, where will I sell this
00:15:36produce, or... onions or potatoes, cucumbers and so
00:15:39on, understood, well, the problem here was that Yeltsin had a map,
00:15:43or the Russian side did, they set up their checkpoints, and the
00:15:47Estonian side, as it were, had no other option,
00:15:50because behind these border guards it was impossible
00:15:54to set up their own checkpoints, so what was left,
00:15:58to put up their own
00:16:02booth opposite the booth
00:16:05of the Russian Federation border guards, that's how it appeared.
00:16:07училища, но произнести его я не могу, можешь сначала сказать аббравиатуру, а потом уже расшифровать.
00:16:25Alexander Povodov, cadet of a military
00:16:28academy, but I can't pronounce its name, can you first say the abbreviation and then decipher it?
00:16:38LV and Us. Leningrad Higher
00:16:41Military Engineering School of Communications named after
00:16:44Lensovet. How did you manage to get into a military
00:16:47academy in Russia in 1991?
00:16:50A boy from Estonia? Well, that's the point, he was
00:16:53a boy. Boys always like such military,
00:16:57strong professions. In fact, there was a choice: go to the army or go
00:17:01to study. Did you dodge it? No, military
00:17:04academy is certainly not dodging. That was
00:17:08a joke, of course, the question, probably, is also that in those
00:17:12years it seemed that having received an engineering education,
00:17:15even a military one, you still remained an engineer in civilian life,
00:17:19that's precisely why I chose precisely
00:17:22an engineering academy, regardless of whether you wore shoulder
00:17:26straps or not, yes, but 1991 became
00:17:29a turning point in the history of Russia, and Estonia,
00:17:32and the military played quite
00:17:35a definite role here, that is... as a boy from Estonia,
00:17:39born here, you suddenly found yourself after
00:17:43August in the territory of another state, exactly,
00:17:47and I had a choice at some point,
00:17:50either I stay in Russia, finish
00:17:53the academy, take Russian citizenship, in
00:17:56theory sign a contract, become a soldier, or
00:18:00go home. Why did you choose Estonia? Oh,
00:18:04difficult question, actually, I realized that after all...
00:18:07my homeland is here, our mentality is no longer the same, I was really
00:18:11drawn home, actually, a military academy is not a stroll,
00:18:15it's the same army, the same barracks, the same
00:18:18reveille, taps, actually I was very, very tired
00:18:22by that time, so I returned to Estonia, didn't get into the army,
00:18:26naturally, yes, I served my time, it was counted
00:18:29here, I was put in the reserves, oh, really?
00:18:33What rank are you in the reserves? Private.
00:18:36Still a private, right? They didn't take into account,
00:18:39you were a squad commander. Okay, but tell me, how did you
00:18:42actually return and what do you remember about August
00:18:461991? There was a coup in Russia,
00:18:49and all the troops were standing, well, how to
00:18:53put it mildly, well, they were agitated. I will
00:18:56start with the coup precisely, because
00:18:59I returned after it, yes, naturally, you couldn't
00:19:03return during the coup, yes, it was a completely incomprehensible
00:19:07time, we were told that we were going to a summer
00:19:11camp, to our academy's training ground, actually a very
00:19:15wise decision by the academy's leadership,
00:19:18the general, I don't remember his rank, I think he was a lieutenant general,
00:19:21I don't remember his name either, unfortunately, yes, he decided
00:19:25to take all of us, along with our weapons, everyone had personal
00:19:28weapons, also assault rifles and ammunition, he took
00:19:31everyone to the forest for that time, when no one completely
00:19:35understood what to do next, especially the military...
00:19:39So, I understand that you could be gathered, figuratively speaking, in 2
00:19:42hours, on what date? Oh, I don't remember, honestly, I don't remember,
00:19:46that is, time is measured in hours, essentially, yes, it was
00:19:50somehow very fast, but not in hours, actually,
00:19:53I, yes, I was sent a little earlier to prepare the camp, that is,
00:19:57literally 2 hours later I already left to prepare a small tent
00:20:00camp there, the main academy
00:20:04arrived, I think, the next day, that is...
00:20:38It's quite possible, because most likely the military organized this coup,
00:20:42and I think it's quite possible that
00:20:46he knew, because he made a decision for himself, just
00:20:49about the page. Most likely to protect his
00:20:52guys, yes, the guys, but protect from what? Someone
00:20:56could come to you and say: go fight,
00:20:59go to the putschists, could someone send you somewhere
00:21:03other than the head of the academy? I can't answer, actually, because
00:21:07at that time it was all very quick, we
00:21:11learned about everything, actually, if you
00:21:14think about it, probably the most correct decision was to do it and
00:21:18that's it, yes, to protect the personnel, good,
00:21:22you returned from summer camp, when did that happen, also in
00:21:25August or already in September, or were you left to marinate there? We were
00:21:29there for probably about a month, then we returned
00:21:32and a new life began for
00:21:35you, for everyone, for everyone, the academic
00:21:39process began,
00:21:42and how long did you study? I literally
00:21:45studied for about another two months,
00:21:48and how did they send you back? Did they say, "Get out of here"?
00:21:52Actually, I made this decision myself, since no one
00:21:56came around and announced to us, "Who is from Estonia, leave,
00:21:59Balts, for example, leave," we all knew about it, and so
00:22:03they were already preparing contracts for us, those who
00:22:06wanted to continue studying, they signed contracts,
00:22:09accordingly, took Russian citizenship and continued
00:22:12their studies, and were there many such people from the Baltics?
00:22:16On my faculty there were three.
00:22:20Four - one
00:22:22was a very good friend of mine, he was from Paldiski, he stayed,
00:22:26well, apparently a military family also from Paldiski, yes, Paldiski is
00:22:30a well-known military post, yes, many left
00:22:33from there, one guy was from
00:22:36Pärnu, he left even earlier than me, but he left more due to
00:22:39academic failure, he was expelled, I think somehow
00:22:42he managed to go home, usually when they expelled someone, the person
00:22:46immediately went to the army, oh, well, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
00:22:50and one more also returned, but honestly,
00:22:53they were in different platoons and didn't really get along, after
00:22:57me, that is, essentially everyone returned except
00:23:00one, yes, from my faculty, and how did Estonia
00:23:04receive you? You arrived with shoulder straps. Well, I
00:23:08was in civilian clothes. Well, figuratively speaking, you had a passport, I had
00:23:11a story with my passport, when I was enrolling, here in the
00:23:14military commissariat, I was enrolling from the Rapala military commissariat,
00:23:18they told us to give our passports, because
00:23:22anything could happen, then it would be hard to go home, our
00:23:26military commissar said that, he
00:23:28insisted, in fact, that I enroll, this was probably his victory,
00:23:31because I resisted for a very long time, but good, they
00:23:35told you not to give your passport, and I couldn't not
00:23:38give it, because they said to give your passport by
00:23:41order, yes, by order,
00:23:44and when I was traveling
00:23:47back, I was traveling with a military ID, and where is your passport? Why
00:23:50didn't they give it back to you? I didn't have it, because it was lost,
00:23:54they said they sent it back to Estonia, they lied?
00:23:57Yes, I even asked here, when I returned,
00:24:00they didn't find it, so you, oh, you were allowed
00:24:04through with a military ID, yes, when
00:24:07I was sitting on the train, border guards came up to me, the first
00:24:11border guard, a young boy, he told me, well, how, what does
00:24:15young mean, I was also young at that time, younger, let's say
00:24:18so, he said, we can't... let you through, and I said, I'm
00:24:21going home, I said, I'm going home,
00:24:25and I said, call your superiors, we'll sort it out, I said,
00:24:29if you don't let me through, I'll swim across the Narva and still
00:24:32get home, I have nowhere else to go, I have one home, the
00:24:36senior officer came and said that if
00:24:39a person was born in Estonia, then we are
00:24:42obliged to let him through, even with a military ID at that
00:24:45time, and since I was born in Estonia and my place of residence is in
00:24:49Estonia, they let me through. How did you get
00:24:52citizenship with a military ID? Here I actually
00:24:56looked for my passport, no, I went to the passport office, said that this
00:24:59is the situation, I came from a military academy, lost
00:25:02my passport, went to the former military commissariat, met, there were already new
00:25:06people, of course, they actually offered me to continue studying
00:25:10in Finland, so why did you
00:25:14refuse? Sometimes I even regret it.
00:25:17Were you scared?
00:25:51I'll tell you honestly why it was scary, were there some five-minute meetings or
00:25:54what were they called, political discussions,
00:25:57political hours, did they scare you, did they
00:26:00tell you not to stick your neck out or what was there? They
00:26:04actually protected us, that's the thing,
00:26:07they protected us, because actually we had weapons, weapons at that time,
00:26:11well, the nineties, so what were they afraid of, that you would go to
00:26:14the barricades or become bandits? No, that we would be attacked and our
00:26:17weapons taken. Who, who, who would attack? Bandits,
00:26:21after all, yes, yes, the nineties were still wild years,
00:26:24plus St. Petersburg, to top it off, plus St. Petersburg, yes, that is, when
00:26:27I was on guard, protecting these weapons, alone in
00:26:31the dark. It was creepy for you,
00:26:341991 is memorable, I understand, very,
00:26:37very much so, but when you returned to Estonia,
00:26:41tell me, did you feel a difference between the Estonia
00:26:44you left, Soviet Estonia, and returning to
00:26:48independent Estonia, was there any difference for you? You returned
00:26:52home, everything was as it was before, the same apartment,
00:26:56the same streets, well, when you haven't been home for a year, for you
00:26:59it's a big difference, everything, well, nothing to build.
00:27:35when did it change for you, when did you realize that Estonia was independent, that
00:27:39it was a different country? I think in about three years, three years
00:27:43later, yes, that is, they were already giving you kroons, but you were still living,
00:27:46but you were still living, no, well, I'm not talking
00:27:49about the kroons appearing, I'm talking
00:27:53more about people, probably, about what was happening, you
00:27:57said that well about people, that
00:28:00many people felt... This was even
00:28:03later than when they changed, for example, rubles to
00:28:24about booths on the control line
00:28:27between the Russian Federation and the Estonian
00:28:30Republic, here we cannot but recall
00:28:34the events of July that took place
00:28:38in Ida-Viru County related, by the way, to
00:28:41one of the booths, yes, that's how it was, and Ida-Viru County
00:28:45is written more and more, but I'm still
00:28:47waiting for a very serious study to appear,
00:28:51and this is generally a very interesting topic,
00:28:55but what happened, precisely the Narva region or
00:28:58the Narva River, the bridge, where on one side...
00:29:42that you can live, so this small business, it's vitally
00:29:46much more important, in numbers it might even be
00:29:49ridiculous, but for a person it's not ridiculous, he can only live
00:29:52by selling cigarettes, selling alcohol,
00:29:55selling gasoline and so on and so forth. Peter, but in 1991,
00:29:59cigarettes still cost the same?
00:30:12but the trend itself, the trend itself: a person who is used to it, he is a free person, he never liked it, I must
00:30:15say that if, for example, before 1991
00:30:19a policeman came up and said: "Open your bag, please, I
00:30:23want to see what's in your bag," this, in principle,
00:30:26no one liked, but what changed was that
00:30:29now people wouldn't like it either, they never
00:30:32like it, it was suddenly at the crossing
00:30:36from Narva to Ivangorod a booth was set up, where it said
00:30:39customs control, so when you walked from
00:30:42Narva to Ivangorod, of course the person said: "What's it
00:30:46to you, I'm going to Ivangorod." I always walked here. Returning
00:30:50from Ivangorod, again, again customs control.
00:30:53The question is, we could, probably, write a similar story,
00:30:57but I just don't know such literature, did he write it?