Vasily Kuznetsov

Vasily "Vasili" Vasilyevich Kuznetsov (; 5 June 1990) was a Russian Soviet politician who acted as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1983 (after the death of Brezhnev), for a second time in 1984 (after the death of Andropov), and for a third time in 1985 (after the death of Chernenko). Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union was formally the highest state post. During the term of office, Kuznetsov was 81–82, 82–83, and 84 years old, respectively, so he is the oldest head of the Soviet and Russian state in history (he was older than all three predecessors in this post). Biography Vasily Kuznetsov was born on February, 13 [O.S. 31 January] 1901, in the village of Sofilovka, Ovsyanovsky volost, Varnavinsky district, Kostroma province. Vasily's father was a peasant, the head of a large, poor family. In 1915, He graduated from a rural school and immediately entered a pedagogical school in the village of Poretskoye, Simbirsk province (now Ulyanovsk region). He studied at the school until 1919. With the beginning of the Civil War, he ended up in the ranks of the Red Army, until 1921 he fought against the whites. After the end of the war, he entered the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, which he graduated in 1926. In the same year, he went to the Donbass, got a job as a research engineer at the Makeevsky Metallurgical Plant. Soon he was appointed shift engineer, then deputy chief. He meets the year 1930 as the head of the open-hearth shop. He joined the CPSU back in 1927. In 1931, Kuznetsov was among the workers of the Makeevka plant who went on an internship in the United States, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. In 1936, he moved from Makeevka to the Moscow region, got a job at the Elektrostal plant as head of the metallographic laboratory. In September 1937, he began to rise to the highest echelons of power: Vasily began working in the apparatus of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR. In 1946, he became chairman of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He held the position until March 1953, at the same time being a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1953, he went to work at the USSR Foreign Ministry, for some time he headed the Soviet embassy in China. In 1955, he became the first deputy minister of foreign affairs of the USSR.