In the documentary, Putin says, according to the Ria Novosti news agency, that the collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago “is still a tragedy for most citizens.” He was also personally affected. “Sometimes I had to make some extra money,” he said. ‘I mean: earn extra money as a taxi driver with my own car. It’s unpleasant to be open about that, but that’s the way it was then, unfortunately.’
In the early years after the collapse of the Soviet regime, it was common for Russians to play taxi drivers with their cars (or that of work) to make ends meet. At that time, all you had to do on the street was raise a hand or a driver would stop and take you.
Hyperinflation
Even those who had a job could hardly keep their heads above water at the time due to the hyperinflation during the transition from communism to capitalism. As a result, tens of millions of Russians saw their savings, pensions and a large part of their income disappear like snow in the sun.
It remains unclear how many times Putin has actually acted as a taxi driver. He worked for the KGB intelligence service, but said he resigned in August 1991 in protest against the (failed) coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Several months later, Putin was appointed second man to the reformist mayor of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Anatoly Sobchak. In that position he was involved in, among other things, the distribution of relief supplies from the West.
Putin soon used that position on the St. Petersburg board to build a network of business friends, some of whom grew into billionaires under his care.
Geopolitical disaster
Putin previously called the dissolution of the Soviet Union the “greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century”. ‘Because what did the collapse of the Soviet Union actually mean?’, he wonders in the documentary. “It was the collapse of historical Russia in the guise of the Soviet Union.”
The resentment that Putin left with that period is reflected in the language he uses when he talks about Ukraine. According to him, Ukraine actually has no right to exist as an independent country, because it has always been part of the Russian Empire.
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