Mamsurov Taimuraz Dzambekovich

Former head of the Republic of North Ossetia (from June 7, 2005 to June 5, 2015). Member of the Federation Council from North Ossetia.

Biography

Taimuraz Mamsurov was born on April 13, 1954 in the city of Beslan, North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1971, Taimuraz Mamsurov graduated from secondary school No. 1 in the city of Beslan, and in the same year he entered the North Caucasus Mining and Metallurgical Institute at the Faculty of Industrial and Civil Engineering. After graduating from the institute in 1976, he worked as a foreman at the PMK-815 section of the Sevkavelevatorstroy trust.

In 1978-1979, Taimuraz Mamsurov was the chief engineer of the MTR headquarters of the North Ossetian regional committee of the Komsomol.

From 1979 to 1982, Mamsurov worked as the second and then first secretary of the Right Bank District Committee of the Komsomol. In 1982-1983, he was transferred to Moscow, where he worked as an instructor in the department of Komsomol organizations of the Komsomol Central Committee. In 1983, he was elected first secretary of the North Ossetian regional committee of the Komsomol.

From 1986 to 1989, Taimuraz Mamsurov was a graduate student at the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee. In 1989 he graduated from graduate school and defended his PhD thesis in historical sciences.

In 1989-1990, Mamsurov served as inspector of the regional committee of the CPSU. And in 1990-1994 - chairman of the executive committee, head of the administration of the Right Bank region of North Ossetia.

In 1994, Taimuraz Mamsurov was elected first deputy chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania.

Since 1995, Mamsurov has been the head of the local government administration of the Right Bank region of the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania.

In February 1998, after A. Dzasokhov’s victory in the presidential elections, T. Mamsurov, on Dzasokhov’s proposal, was elected chairman of the government of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (RON-A).

On April 25, 1999, T. Mamsurov was elected as a deputy of the parliament of the republic of the second convocation. After the appointment of the Chairman of the Parliament Vyacheslav Parinov to public office in October 2000, Taimuraz Mamsurov was elected as the new Chairman of the Parliament of the Republic of North Ossetia-Asia.

In March 2002, at the congress of the North Ossetian regional branch of United Russia, T. Mamsurov was approved as secretary of the party's political council.

In May 2002, Taimuraz Mamsurov defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Political Science on the topic: “Ethnopolitical regional problems of the development of Russian federalism.”

In 2003, Mamsurov again became chairman of the parliament of North Ossetia-Alania.

On July 7, 2005, the parliament of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania approved Taimuraz Mamsurov as the head of the republic. Mamsurov's candidacy was submitted for consideration by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On September 25, 2007, by order of the President of the Russian Federation, T. Mamsurov was included in the Presidium of the State Council Russian Federation.

On December 17, 2007, at the VIII Congress of United Russia, Taimuraz Mamsurov was elected to the party’s Supreme Council.

In the fall of 2009, protests took place in Vladikavkaz against violations of environmental standards - emissions of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere - by the Electrozinc plant, located in a residential area of ​​the capital of North Ossetia. At a meeting held on October 29, 2009, T. Mamsurov assessed the actions of the responsible employees of the enterprise, which led to a significant excess of the maximum permissible concentrations of hazardous substances in the atmosphere, as “ordinary rudeness and a mockery of the city and the republic, which should not be allowed.” “This was done by people for whom our city and our republic are simply an environment within which, as it seems to them, it is possible to develop industrial production, looking only at reports of labor productivity, gross product production, product sales and statistics,” Taimuraz said Mamsurov.

On April 23, 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev introduced the candidacy of Taimuraz Mamsurov to the legislative assembly of North Ossetia to empower the head of the republic for the next term. On April 29, the parliament of North Ossetia vested Taimuraz Mamsurov with the powers of the head of the republic.

On June 8, 2010, T. Mamsurov, by his decree, dismissed the government of North Ossetia-Alania. On June 24, Taimuraz Mamsurov presented the candidacy of Nikolai Khlyntsov for the post of chairman of the government of North Ossetia. The Parliament of North Ossetia unanimously approved N. Khlyntsov in this position.

On March 21, 2012, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev appointed T. Mamsurov as special representative of the Russian President for South Ossetia.

On May 21, 2012, the head of North Ossetia-Asia, Taimuraz Mamsurov, signed a decree that the government of the republic was dismissed. On May 22, T. Mamsurov proposed the candidacy of Sergei Takayev for the post of chairman of the government of the republic. On May 24, the parliament of North Ossetia approved the candidacy of S. Takoev.

In October 2013, the United Russia party initiated bill to abolish direct elections of the head of North Ossetia. Thanks to the adoption of a law by parliament in December 2013, the head of the region got a chance re-apply for a leadership position , although he himself previously claimed that he was not going to run for a third term.

On December 10, 2013, the Izvestia newspaper published information that the head of North Ossetia, Taimuraz Mamsurov, and the governor of the Volgograd region, Sergei Bozhenov, could soon be dismissed due to their “unpopularity among the population, the split of elites and the weak economic development of the territories in which They control."

On December 18, 2013, Taimuraz Mamsurov personally denied rumors circulating in the media about a possible resignation: “I definitely want to say: we (the heads of regions) carry out the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation and the country’s parliament. In my case, I am instructed to carry out duties until 2015.”

On January 10, 2014, Taimuraz Mamsurov expressed his attitude towards the United Ossetia initiative regarding call for a referendum on the issue of the reunification of North and South Ossetia within Russia: “The Russian Federation does not need to annex new territories, including South Ossetia,” and called such a formulation of the issue “illiterate.”

On April 10, 2015, Kommersant, citing its sources in the office of the head of the republic and the presidential administration of Russia, reported that T. Mamsurov decided not to no longer put forward his candidacy for the post of head of North Ossetia, considering the two terms that he spent in this position, and will soon resign of his own free will.

Head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania

Head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania since 2005. A former deputy of the republican parliament of five convocations, during two convocations he was elected chairman of the legislative body of North Ossetia. Candidate of Historical Sciences, Doctor of Political Sciences, author of a number of scientific monographs.

Taimuraz Dzambekovich Mamsurov was born on April 13, 1954 in the city of Beslan, Right Bank District, North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic(SOASSR). In 1976, he graduated from the Faculty of Industrial and Civil Engineering of the North Caucasus Mining and Metallurgical Institute.

Since 1978, Mamsurov has been working as a Komsomol member. In 1982, he was transferred to Moscow, where he worked as an instructor in the department of Komsomol organizations of the Komsomol Central Committee. In 1983, Mamsurov was elected first secretary of the North Ossetian regional committee of the Komsomol.

In 1986, Mamsurov entered graduate school at the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee, where in 1989 he defended his dissertation for the degree of candidate of historical sciences. After working as an inspector of the North Ossetian regional committee of the CPSU, in 1990 he became chairman of the Right Bank regional executive committee in Beslan.

In 1994, Mamsurov was elected first deputy chairman of the Supreme Council of North Ossetia. In 1995, he headed the administration of local government of the Right Bank region of the republic. From February 1998 to October 2000, Mamsurov worked as chairman of the republican government.

On October 19, 2000, Mamsurov was elected chairman of the parliament of North Ossetia of the second convocation, and in 2003 - of the third convocation. In total, since 1985, Mamsurov has been elected as a deputy of the highest legislative body of the republic five times.

In March 2002, Mamsurov was elected chairman of the political council of the North Ossetian regional branch of United Russia.

In May 2005, the North Ossetian parliament amended the republican constitution, according to which the post of president was renamed the post of head of the republic. On June 7, 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed giving Mamsurov the powers of head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. On the same day, deputies supported the choice of the president - Mamsurov was confirmed as head of the republic. A few days later, he resigned early as a member of the Republican Parliament.

In October 2007, Mamsurov headed the regional list of candidates of the United Russia party in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania in the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the fifth convocation. After the party's victory, he, as expected, refused his parliamentary mandate.

In January 2008, Mamusrov was elected to the Supreme Council of the United Russia party and, at his own request, was removed from the post of head of the regional political council, and Mamsurov was awarded a letter of gratitude for his work there.

In May 2008, Mamsurov called on foreign ambassadors and investors to provide international support for the “reunification of the Ossetian people.” However, a month later, the LDPR initiative to hold a referendum on the return of South Ossetia to North Ossetia was rejected by the North Ossetian parliament.

On August 8, 2008, Mamsurov found the beginning of the war in South Ossetia in Java together with the president of the unrecognized republic, Eduard Kokoity. The press reported that on the same day, the convoy in which Mamsurov was was bombed by Georgian aircraft. This information was confirmed by Mamsurov, but denied by his press service.

After the war, the press wrote that Mamsurov managed to achieve the “mobilization” of the population around him, but in November 2008 in Vladikavkaz there was a major terrorist attack in a minibus, which killed 12 people, and also a series of political assassinations. In December 2008, the mayor of Vladikavkaz, Kazbek Pagiev, was killed, and in January 2009, his predecessor as mayor, Deputy Prime Minister of the North Ossetian government, Vitaly Karaev. The murders were associated with a conflict between political groups in the republic; in particular, Pagiev was called a direct competitor of Mamsurov.

In April 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev submitted Mamsurov's candidacy to the North Ossetian parliament to re-approve him as head of the republic for a second term. In the same month, deputies of the North Ossetian parliament decided to once again vest Mamsurov with the powers of the head of the republic.

In the State Duma elections held in December 2011, Mamsurov again topped the list of candidates from the United Russia party for North Ossetia. After being elected to parliament, Mamsurov, as before, refused his deputy mandate.

In March 2012, Mamsurov was appointed by Medvedev's decree as the special representative of the Russian President for South Ossetia.

According to published data on Mamsurov’s income and property for 2009, he earned 1.328 million rubles (it was not reported from what funds this amount was made up). The list of property of the head of North Ossetia mentioned personal plot in Beslan (1414 square meters), as well as a residential building (389 square meters) jointly owned with his wife and son). According to the declaration for 2010, Mamsurov earned 1.6 million rubles. The Kommersant newspaper called him one of the poorest regional heads.

Mamsurov is a Doctor of Political Sciences; in May 2002 he defended his dissertation on the topic “Ethnopolitical regional problems of the development of Russian federalism.” He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor, the medal "For Labor Distinction", and in June 2002 the Russian Orthodox Church awarded Mamsurov the Order of the Holy Blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow, II degree. Mamsurov is the author of the monographs “Regions - the Center: Problems of Coordination of Interests” (M., 2000), “Russian Federalism: National-Ethnic Context” (M., 2001) and the literary and artistic publication “Build your own tower” (Ministry of Water , 2003).

Mamsurov is married. He has a son and three daughters. Two of Mamsurov's children were seriously injured during the Beslan school siege in September 2004.

Used materials

Rogozin was appointed special representative of the Russian President for Transnistria, Mamsurov for South Ossetia. - Gazeta.Ru, 21.03.2012

Sergei Naryshkin and Alexander Zhukov accepted the mandates of State Duma deputies. - RIA News, 15.12.2011

On registration of the federal list of candidates for deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the sixth convocation, nominated by the All-Russian political party "United Russia". - Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation (www.cikrf.ru), 18.10.2011. - № 47/392-6

Valeria Khamraeva, Alexander Zhuravlev, Vladimir Bachurinsky, Irina Rostova. Nikita Belykh made money from selling a garage and creative activities. - Kommersant, 04/11/2011. - No. 62/P (4603)

Zaur Farniev, Anastasia Mitkovskaya, Yuri Belov. The governors' income led to notarial calculation. - Kommersant, 29.04.2010. - № 76 (4376)

Lightning! Parliament approved Mamsurov's candidacy for the post of head of North Ossetia. - 15th region, North Ossetian information portal, 29.04.2010

Kirill Kallinikov. There is no other option. - News time, 27.04.2010. - № 72

Taimuraz Dzambekovich Mamsurov(Ossetian Mamsyrati Dzambedzhy firt Taimuraz; April 13, 1954, Beslan, SOASSR, RSFSR, USSR) - Soviet and Russian state and party leader. Member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation - representative of the executive branch of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (RSO-A) since September 29, 2015.

Head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (June 7, 2005 - June 5, 2015). Member of the Supreme Council of the United Russia party. Teacher, professor. Doctor of Political Science (2002).

short biography

In 1976 he graduated from the North Caucasus Mining and Metallurgical Institute (Faculty of Industrial and Civil Engineering). He began his career as a foreman of the PMK-815 section of the Sevkavelevatorstroy trust.

Since 1978, he worked as a Komsomol member. In 1982 he was transferred to Moscow, where he worked as an instructor in the department of Komsomol organizations of the Komsomol Central Committee.

In 1983 he returned to the republic and was elected first secretary of the North Ossetian regional committee of the Komsomol. Since 1985, he has been constantly elected as a deputy of the highest legislative and representative body of power of the republic.

In 1986 he entered graduate school at the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee, and in 1989 defended his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences.

Upon returning to the republic, he worked as an inspector of the North Ossetian Regional Committee of the CPSU, and since 1990, as chairman of the executive committee of the Right Bank Council of People's Deputies of Beslan.

In 1994, he was elected first deputy chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania.

Since 1995, Mamsurov has been the head of the local government administration of the Right Bank region of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania.

From February 1998 to October 2000 he worked as Chairman of the Government of North Ossetia-Alania.

On October 19, 2000, Mamsurov was elected chairman of the Parliament of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania of the second, and in 2003 - of the third convocation.

In March 2002, he was elected secretary of the political council of the North Ossetian regional branch of the United Russia party.

On June 7, 2005, the Parliament of the Republic of North Ossetia - A supported the proposal of President V.V. Putin to vest T.D. Mamsurov with the powers of the head of the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania.

On September 25, 2007, by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Taimuraz Mamsurov was included in the Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation.

In October 2007, by decision of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation, Taimuraz Mamsurov was awarded the academic title of professor of the Department of Sociology and Political Science of the North Caucasus State Medical Institute.

On December 17, 2007, at the VIII Congress of the United Russia party, the Head of North Ossetia, Taimuraz Mamsurov, was elected to the party’s supreme council.

On April 29, 2010, the Parliament of North Ossetia-Alania by a majority of votes supported the proposal of Russian President D. A. Medvedev to vest T. D. Mamsurov with the powers of the head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania for a second term.

On June 5, 2015, he was released from the post of Head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania by decree of the President of Russia due to the expiration of his term of office.

Married. Raises a son and three daughters.

Facts from life

• On September 1-3, 2004, two children (a son and one of the daughters) of Mamsurov were among the hostages in school No. 1 seized by terrorists in Beslan. Mamsurov refused Aushev’s offer to facilitate their release. The daughter and son were wounded during the liberation of the school, but survived.
• At the beginning of the war in South Ossetia on August 8, 2008, Mamsurov went to the South Ossetian village of Java, where he met with the president of the unrecognized republic, Eduard Kokoity. The press reported that on the same day, the convoy in which Mamsurov was was bombed by Georgian aircraft.

As part of the “Presidential Portrait” project, the hero of this program is Taimuraz Mamsurov, the head of North Ossetia. In June 2005, after the resignation of President Alexander Dzasokhov, which was sought by almost the entire Ossetia, Mamsurov was confirmed as the head of the republic and inherited a criminal alcohol-transit region, the Beslan tragedy and post-conflict relations with neighboring Ingushetia, which worsened after the bloody drama in the Beslan school. Mamsurov's children were among the 1,128 hostages.

When Ruslan Aushev, the ex-president of Ingushetia, suggested that Mamsurov find his children at school and take them out, there was an immediate refusal. Fate turned out to be favorable to him, and the children remained alive: son Zelim was wounded in the leg, and daughter Zamira was wounded in the hip and chest.

186 children and 148 adults on the bloody list of the Beslan tragedy DR

In April 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev submitted Mamsurov's candidacy to the North Ossetian parliament for reconfirmation as head of the republic for a second term. Mamsurov is the author of the book “Build Your Tower,” which is addressed to the youth of Ossetia.

This is all I have to do to preface my conversation with Taimuraz Dzambekovich. I remind you that there are no previously discussed issues with the Ossetian leader, as in the case of Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, and no comments. I leave this all to the judgment of radio listeners.

On the line Vladikavkaz - Taimuraz Mamsurov.

RFI: Our interview will take place on the eve of your birthday. April 13th is the birthday of many famous people, this is the day when Queen of France Catherine de Medici, Russian Tsar Boris Godunov, 3rd US President Thomas Jefferson, Irish writer and Nobel laureate (1969) Samuel Beckett, world chess champion Garry Kasparov were born. How will your birthday be?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: I will try to retire with my family so that few people can find me.

Zelim and Zamira Mamsurov - students of secondary school No. 1 in the city of Beslan DR

RFI: Will children be present?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Yes, sure.

RFI: Sorry for the tactless question - are your parents alive?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: No. No Unfortunately.

RFI: How often do you manage to visit their graves?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: I am from the Muslim part of the Ossetians, and every time, according to our faith, I need to be there, I go there or when I feel that I need to be there.

RFI: Taimuraz Dzambekovich, could you tell us about your roots?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: The Mamsurovs from Dargas, a small but worthy surname that did not disgrace the Ossetian people, which gave generals - two of them were colonel generals and one of them was a Hero Soviet Union- all are legendary. The first professional poet Temirbulat Mamsurov. There are both writers and intellectuals in the family. Further on my paternal side is the Shanaevs, the surname is Aldatov.

My mother is from the Tkhostov surname - this is also a small surname, but there is a large pre-revolutionary layer of the intelligentsia - doctors, engineers who studied and worked outside Ossetia. Further along maternal line I have Tsopanovs. No one is ashamed of the representatives of these two directions of my roots. What am I afraid of? Becoming a disgrace to your family is the worst thing you can’t even survive, God forbid it happens.

RFI: Do you have Ingush blood in your roots?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: No, there is no Ingush blood.

RFI: Your career has been successful, starting from a Komsomol leader to a doctor of political sciences and the head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. Were there moments that you wanted to erase from your biography?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: It’s unlikely that there were such moments. Everything that was was. In any case, I made decisions myself, even when it seems to us that some external circumstances interfered, that if this had not been the case, in fact we made the decisions ourselves. What has happened has happened, and not because it cannot be changed, but because no external circumstances can justify a person. We are informed through all sorts of channels by the Almighty rules by which we must live, and the choice is ours.

RFI: What is your life credo, Taimuraz Dzambekovich?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: My credo? At the very least, try to be fair in all your deeds, thoughts and decisions. Trying to be... it's impossible, but you have to try to be fair.

RFI: Today do you have an answer to the question about the role of the younger generation in the life of the nation?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: The youth of Ossetia does not have any special mission in the life of the nation, in relation to any nation and any youth. Firstly, it is not up to them, and it was not done by us: our time is leaving, and they are coming, and this is established general rules of the universe.

When they say “what do you regret?”, I only regret that in my youth I did not know what I know now, and the paradox is that when you leave active life, your knowledge in a practical sense loses its meaning. All that remains is to pass them on to the youth. This is what we can still do, and young people will choose their own path.

I don’t know her, especially now, I don’t have my bearings, because everything in life changes so quickly. Young people are mastering technical means that we never dreamed of in our time. If it took us ten years from black and white TV to color TV, then within one year they have iPads and something else, the devil himself will turn his head.

Therefore, there is only one mission - we need to hope that they must be better than us, otherwise it contradicts both the course of nature and the development of society. And do everything so that the youth of Ossetia hear us, and the choice will be theirs. For Ossetian youth, perhaps this mission has only one connotation: strong positions, which are national traditions and culture.

It’s like the English - they have a Queen, and we laugh, how can it be “a queen who has no meaning, but everyone bows to her?” In Japan the Emperor! Which emperor? Tell us now - your emperor will be here, and we would die of laughter. This is the kind of arrogance we have.

At the same time, insular Britain is thriving, insular Japan is thriving. Why? Because they believe that this is a tradition, which means they must follow it. And for some reason we believe that our traditions must be buried, even if they are slowly dying, we must strangle them, we must quickly trample them down.

I hope that the youth of Ossetia will not turn away and will never distort, and will not be arrogant towards best traditions who went through the multi-layered, tragic, victorious history of my people. Then they will be great, and viable, and active.

RFI: You are the father of four children. Did they meet your expectations?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: They will live up to my hopes or not – I will think about this even before my last breath on this earth and dream that they will live up to my hopes. But I'm happy with them to the extent of what I see.

RFI: I couldn't find a single photo of you smiling. Is this seriousness a mask or are you always like this?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: I’m a cheerful person and I love people who smile, but, on the other hand, on the extreme side, if you constantly walk around with a happy smile, this will also raise questions.

RFI: Do you know how to control your anger?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Life has taught me. As we have been taught, anger is one of the greatest sins. Moreover, if you make a decision in anger, you must immediately repent of it. As the sage said, a man should think twice before speaking, especially in anger.

RFI: What is your most characteristic feature?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Trait? Don't know. I don’t give myself characteristics.

RFI: Are you kind, evil, witty?..

Taimuraz Mamsurov: It depends… I don’t know, I don’t know. When you yourself are part of the picture, it is difficult to see yourself from the outside. So let others talk about it. I want to be kind, I want to be fair. Everyone wants to be. And how does it turn out...

RFI: What is your biggest weakness?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Disadvantage? I don’t put up with biological age; I restrain myself. I want to be a kid, smart and...

RFI: “With your pants pulled up, run after the Komsomol”?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: This is a drawback. You still have to try to live up to your age. External behavior, statements.

RFI: Favorite writers?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: A lot of them. Of course, there is no “most”. If I start talking about Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, you will say: “Well, the same song again.” Remember, Remarque, Ilf and Petrov, the kind that you will discover and recognize yourself, even your work colleagues. If I don’t read anything for an hour or an hour and a half a day, my brain goes sour.

RFI: Favorite composers and performers? Do you sing yourself?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Yes. Of course I sing. And our Ossetian folk songs, especially heroic ones. And, of course, the classics. Thank God, Valery Abisalovich Gergiev made us all respect this direction in music. And Russian folk songs and, of course, Vysotsky, whom you can turn on half a turn and continue listening to, and Vizbor, and Bulat Okudzhava...

Taimuraz Mamsurov meets Vladimir Putin at Beslan airport DR

RFI: Your rise to power was determined by many factors and your entire previous biography, and your status obliges you to carry out instructions from above unquestioningly. Do you ever regret not following the professional path of an engineer?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: It so happens that my little surname has many generals, and we are more warriors, so following orders is not humiliating for me, especially when you have already agreed to carry them out. It's disgusting to follow orders that you don't agree with...

RFI: Does this happen?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: No. No, no... I try, as the military says, to “clarify orders”, and if I am convinced that this is what needs to be done, I do it, if not, then I am ready at any moment to say, “I did everything I could, let him do more.” , who can".

If I hear from someone “let me work as the head of the territory,” I am very suspicious of such people. Human nature is laziness, and no one has ever overcome it. It's a dream to do nothing! A person who is eager to work (and this is very difficult, hard work, when at some stage you bore people, they are ready to throw stones at you, spit on you, make up all sorts of fables about you, vilify you and, at the same time, in spite of this , you have to work, work and work), if someone thinks that he is rushing towards This because he is ready for It, I begin to doubt his psyche or the sincerity of what he says.

RFI: In your book, you wrote that perestroika “a la Gorbachev” and “a la Yeltsin” is an unforgivable mockery of one’s own people. But you yourself, to some extent, were a participant in these changes in the country.

Taimuraz Mamsurov: If it sounds pretentious, then it is so. In 1990, I became chairman of the district executive committee in Beslan, and before my eyes, without any war, without anything, my Motherland disappeared. She died before my eyes. I remained working in Beslan when money, pensions, salaries disappeared, when 1992 began (Ingush-Ossetian conflict - autumn 1992 - ed.). There was no power in the country, no one did anything, and for the first time I saw mountains of corpses, I saw a four-day fratricidal war.

I watched Gorbachev and Yeltsin on TV and couldn’t understand: who are we here? A herd that should destroy each other, simply because someone wants to, or do we live under the leadership of people proclaiming “democracy”, “glasnost”, pluralism”, what else did he say? This is all verbiage, a struggle for power, a struggle of vanity.

18 million communists had their mouths open and could not understand what was happening. Everyone screwed up... in the end, my generation, perhaps the only one since those times when such concepts as “homeland” disappeared and perished, without war, without aggression. Even two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, but their homeland did not disappear, but ours disappeared.

They (Yeltsin, Gorbachev – ed.) muttered: “Rejoice, guys! This is the price for democracy, you have to go through it.” God be their judge! And even more so, when the current Gorbachev lectures the current leaders of the country - this is generally an abomination. My upbringing does not allow me to speak harshly to my elders, so I will stop myself here.

This is my attitude and my role in this, which, if there is one, then I am ready to apologize to Gorbachev and Yeltsin that I here, at the level of the Pravoberezhny district executive committee, did not fulfill their great instructions. That's why I think this is a mockery of us.

If so much blood had not been shed here, which we all regret now and, unfortunately, due to the fact that that period was not even appreciated, then a whole generation of young people would have grown up both in Ossetia and Ingushetia, I’m not sure that we can be optimistic about their future in terms of relationships. As before, Ossetian youth believe that the Ingush are to blame for everything; the Ingush believe that the most vile people are the Ossetians. And everything goes there.

RFI: It’s hard for you to remember Beslan - 2004... I ask the question not as the leader of the republic, but as a father whose children suffered. Why has the state still not given an answer and named those responsible for the murder of children?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Thank you, I feel how hard it is for you to talk about this, and thank you for such a visceral reaction. But the question is not for me, you understand. If I, while still alive, learn something before the end of my life, I will believe that justice, at least someday, must triumph.

RFI: You have lived in Beslan all your life. You own house. Do you have any real estate in Europe, bank accounts?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Well, if I tell you...

RFI: I’ll say no, you won’t believe it?..

Taimuraz Mamsurov: No, it will be true, I have nothing, I don’t understand a damn thing about business. I have my father’s house, I have a limited time on this earth - I was born in it, in an adobe house. Built a house. Four children. They will grow up. I also told my son: “If you sell this house, I will get you from the other world and demand an explanation.”

Maybe it’s stupid on my part, and I should have saved up something, stuffed some real estate on the islands, some bank accounts... But I, although not a religious person, am inclined to believe the great books - the Koran, the Bible, and Torah, which protects us from this.

As for money, you need to have just enough of it so that it doesn’t turn out that you don’t have money to pay off debts or pay for treatment, or so that you simply don’t think about it.

If a man has arms, legs, a head, not necessarily smart, super smart, but simply not physiologically disabled, he has no right to be poor. In the Caucasus, it has always been the biggest shame to say: “Well, I’m poor, unhappy.” Prosperity is what we pray and work for.

RFI: Are there heroes in real life who meet your principles?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: One? No. And so... a guy recently threw himself on a grenade to protect his subordinate... half my age. Now, this is a reason for me to think... a life interrupted at such an age, perhaps, is enough to fulfill my mission on this earth? Or mumble until you are a hundred years old, representing nothing of yourself as a person, as a person, and leave for the next world without anyone regretting your departure? As they say in the Christian world, “every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.” Therefore, there is no specific idol and there is no need.

RFI: Taimuraz Dzambekovich, the question of the unification of the two republics - South and North Ossetia. If this idea is put into practice, will the situation in the North Caucasus worsen?

Taimuraz Mamsurov: I would not predict anything, because now, due to all the circumstances - both political and economic - it is simply an irrelevant issue. Let's unite - let's unite, historically - this is most likely inevitable. But now there are completely different problems and they need to be solved. Sitting and daydreaming is not my style of work; I am an engineer after all. I know that I have to do what I have to do today.

RFI: It would be dishonest if I didn’t ask you a question about relations between Ingushetia and North Ossetia. More than two hundred documents on the settlement of relations were signed. But not everyone in either republic approves of the Ossetian-Ingush cooperation program. What can be done today so that people today stop fearing and hating each other.

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Well, first of all, people are not afraid of each other. If we talk about the authorities, then all sorts of competitions are held: Ingush children take first places, then we go to Ingushetia and also participate in all sorts of competitions. Both our children and creative teams have been communicating for a long time, performing at all forums, and not a single major event can take place without us being together.

At the everyday level, everything was decided long ago: raids have now been made on the saunas, and two Ingush were picked out in one. They calmly come and relax in our restaurants, and we catch them in saunas. You see, I’m talking about extremes: wonderful youth and intelligentsia also communicate. These freaks also communicate. Our people are caught there, at the bazaar in Nazran. So, on a human level, from one extreme to the other, everything is fine.

There are those who are dissatisfied with their leaders, but I am a living, real person and I do not have the task of being loved by everyone, and Yunus-Bek Bamatgireevich does not have such a task either. I am accused of being inferior in some way to the Ingush, and Yunus-Bek Bamatgireevich of being inferior to the Ossetians. Although he and his family, they set an example - they live in Tarski, on their ancestral land and have not left anywhere. And those who left teach everyone from there.

It’s the same here - and I’m reproached for all these things, but we work without regard to this. Thank God, for the last time that we have been working (I’m already knocking on the table - I’m afraid that this will not be disrupted), everything is fine with us.

Now we are working to ensure that the federal center helps us create jobs in the Prigorodny district, because when the Ingush and Ossetians worked together, they did not look askance at each other. But when the Ossetian comes out and sits down near his gate, because his wife is yelling there: “Why are you sitting? There is no one to feed the children, and you are a healthy man and don’t work anywhere.”

He comes out angry, smokes, looks - an Ingush is sitting opposite. He scolds him. And the Ingush left the house with the same thoughts, because his wife was scolding him there. They look at each other and who do they curse? Each other. That's all.

And to keep people working is our task. This is what we do. And every nation has enough reasons to reproach its leaders. Many people abuse this. Well, they don’t like me, and they don’t like him. Why don't they like you? Because I sold out, and he sold out. In Russian, as they say: “a leader is a fool with a hat and a fool without a hat.”

So, real life is completely different: we already have interethnic marriages resuming, and young people communicate. I'm not saying that everything is fine, we missed the youth. She has grown up, and I told you about this a little earlier. Let's only hope that generations will grow up free from this hatred, like a historical trauma in the brain.

Many people believe that this should be drilled into young people so that they never forget, but we cannot forget - everything must be remembered. But if each generation of our youth, by our stupid will, must shed its share of blood and give its number of young lives... After all, everyone who talks about this, they will not send their children if something starts tomorrow. Their children sit quietly in silence, tapping on the computer keys, sending all sorts of curses at each other, teaching others. We can see this simply with the naked eye. This no longer annoys us, but causes great regret.

RFI: Taimuraz Dzambekovich, what is happiness?

Taimuraz Mamsurov:...I don’t know what it is... like an engineer - the absence of unhappiness...

Taimuraz Mamsurov: Anyone who believes that life has failed commits a great sin. These are questions only for yourself. As I lived, I lived as I did. Thank God, a clear conscience is the only criterion, and as my elders taught me, “fear no one, fear God, and conscience is the only criterion.” It seems to me that she is pure, but as for the Almighty, He will judge.

Interview of Rossiya TV channel correspondent Alexander Sladkov with the Head of North Ossetia-Alania Taimuraz Mamsurov.

Taimuraz Dzambekovich, are you a politician all the time or “until I was 19, I was the Head of the Republic, then my father, grandfather and... with all the stops”?

- Most likely, I am always Taimuraz Mamsurov, the son of my father, a representative of my family, my people, a Russian, and so on.
- This is one slice of human existence. Is it really like this all 24 hours?

Yes, 24 hours. Unfortunately, for about 20 years, when I was already actively immersed in politics, there was one worry after another, one trouble after another, and so on. Therefore, you have to wait 24 hours for any signal...

- Is this an expectation of trouble or a routine?

This is not a routine. Routine simply gives you the opportunity to sleep peacefully. And here constant pressure. Indeed, anticipation of any event. Only because in any case the responsibility is on you. “You need to be on your guard all the time,” as they say. Yes, these circumstances force me to be in tension all the time, to be the “Head of the Republic” all the time, always.

- But “The Fate of a Resident,” remember?

- Yes, I remember (smiles).

The fate of the President, that is, the Head of the Republic: after all, the press is above you - the Kremlin, Moscow, the Center, you cannot escape this, and the anvil is the people. You are constantly in this vice. This is true?

Schematically like this. But essentially it all depends on how you feel about it. For me, the Kremlin is not some kind of “sword of Damocles”; I have no fear of the Kremlin.

- And why?

You cannot work in a state of fear. A state of fear is the first step towards panic.

Well, this is always there: what will the center say, and what will the people say? These are the awkward questions that voters will ask?

I would not attribute this to some leadership qualities. This is a normal quality of any person. I look like? What will people say about me?

- So you perceive this as a mobilizing factor?

- Absolutely right.

- What about friends? After all, you grew up here?

- Yes.

And they don’t call you with the words “Taimuraz, I can’t get to the dentist, what should I do?”, or “my mother needs to be transported from Digora to Alagir”... People grew up with you, people come to you, is this also a factor? And in Ossetia there is a special factor.

Yes, that's a factor. But I don’t see this as a negative factor.

- No, I’m not talking about this as a negative factor. I'm talking about the impact factor. Where are the frameworks within which the leader of the republic maneuvers?

- This is a universal framework. This is morality, morality. If I can help my friends at the expense of making it harder for someone, I will never do it. In principle, I have friends who understand this perfectly well. Unfortunately, our friendship has cooled in form. They take care of me, I often try to find out how my friends are doing. There are my classmates, some are mechanics, some are university teachers. They are embarrassed to disturb me. But when I find out that they are not feeling well, I myself begin to try to find out what I can do.

You know, we reporters communicate with people a lot. And everyone says, “What’s it like in the war, and what’s it like there...?” And I completely agree with you. A person cannot be different. I went there, to the prosecutor's office, and became bad. He went out, went into the store, and became cunning. Morality always guides people.

Absolutely right. And if she’s not there, you can’t meet her, part with her for a while, say “for now I’m the head of the republic, no friends. Now I’ll stop - again.” It doesn't happen that way. It either exists or it doesn't. When you reach the age of 60, you already understand what real friends are, what fellow travelers who have fallen away are. My friends are worried about me. Thanks to them. They don’t flatter my eyes, they don’t say anything. Sometimes, on the contrary, they act as if there is nothing between us, so as not to cause harm.

- Taimuraz Dzambekovich, how do you find out about the situation in the republic? How does this happen? Report in the morning?

- The very first report is made by the Minister of Internal Affairs.

- Is it still safe?

- Safety. This is the most important thing, unfortunately. Probably, in the central regions of Russia they report primarily on milk yield and weight gain. And if the call is half an hour earlier than scheduled, let’s say not at 8, but at 7 in the morning, it’s already a pre-infarction state. Therefore, we agreed with the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, if they call at odd hours, the first phrase is “Taimuraz Dzambekovich, everything is fine,” and only then they talk about the essence.

- There is no such temptation to put on dark glasses, change your appearance and go out among the people. Just walk around?

- No, but I understand that the information I receive is filtered. That the people who report to me either want to embellish the reality or simply don’t want to upset me. But there is one thing that helps me to be aware of everything. I was born in Beslan and now I live, my neighbors, peers, and classmates are there. In the evening, when we get together and drink tea, they tell me everything. Who said what at the funeral, where they dug up something, bastards, and people can’t cross the street. That's it, that's it. Basically, I have information, in addition to official information, I also have everyday information. Well, you know, when there are older people on the street, they are grumblers, even though I myself am already old (we grow up all the time, the “older-younger” is preserved), so sometimes you can have some old man on the street you can say something like “are you the head or not the head.”

- Do you perceive this normally?

- I take it well. Imagine if I lived somewhere in a mansion, in isolation, there were barriers all around, people couldn’t come near...

-Do you have a car with a flashing light?

- I have no. And without police escort.

- As a resident of Moscow, this is incomprehensible to me.

- Well, why scare the crows with this flashing light? One car accompanies me. Unfortunately, I am not free in some things. I can't completely get rid of what surrounds me.

- Would you like to sometimes?

- Of course, I would like to. Moreover, you know, be that as it may, a leader is more often disliked than loved.

- Not everyone, but yes, this is the lot of the administration.

Moreover, when you work for one term, then a second term, the person gets bored.

- Wait, you just entered the second one.

Joined, yes. According to our constitution, we have two terms. There won't be any more.

Are you afraid of political competition? Are you paying attention to this? Is this generally visible when a person has competitors?

No, why be afraid of her? Competition, healthy competition, that's normal. If you stand alone like an empty ear of corn in a field, and there is nothing similar around you, this is wrong. And then politics is a team game. Here I am playing basketball. Even if I’m alone in the hall, I threw it once or twice, after a minute I get bored, you need someone to attack you, you need to dodge someone, circle someone, jump over someone, and if there is no competition, then what is it? is that? Narcissism? Then what, hall of mirrors, look at yourself, admire how good and beautiful you are.

- Politics is tension and constant thinking about one’s status. Although I probably said it wrong. This is not thinking about your status. Professionally, you must be visible at all times. You are a leader! You are in charge! You are the Head! And, in principle, the people who feel that the leader is in front, with a banner, on a horse, understand that everything is fine with him. Remember South Ossetia, when you took a taxi (I couldn’t get through) and went there from Kislovodsk by taxi. So, what is this?.. What kind of impulse is this?

- I wouldn't call it an impulse. Firstly, literally a day before, I called Eduard Dzhabeevich. I say, “I’m on vacation, I’m going to a sanatorium, but I have some kind of jitters. Can you tell me if I can leave or should I still wait for some complications?” He says: “That’s it, Taimuraz Dzambekovich, go, thank God, they made a statement there, nothing will happen, there will be no war, and so on.” I arrived in Kislovodsk, the same night there was a line in the news. I became wary, called, and they told me “this is war.” What next? Firstly, I, thank God, am still strong both physically and in my right mind. Then the last thing I thought was that I, as the head of the republic, was going there. I thought that any Ossetian who could help his brother should be there. So I rushed. And when I arrived there and saw in Java a huge number of people, confused, scared, with children. That’s when I realized from their eyes that I was needed there. That they are not alone, they are not abandoned. After all, only a few hours had passed. I then assessed the situation. And from there he began to create an evacuation system, which included ambulances, police, volunteers, and so on. And immediately we began to receive the first columns of military equipment.

- Yes, I saw footage in Java, at the top, where both the regiment commanders and you were.

Well, yes, the situation was not easy, I’m not a professional military man, but when they fly over you, bomb you and you don’t know who it is...

“Again, when the commander is here, it’s completely different.”

- Yes, I believe that you need to be where people have a hard time.

- Where is it hard for people today in North Ossetia?

- We have the same problems as throughout Russia. These are work problems, social security problems and so on. It is useless to list them. In general, life is still difficult for people. Lots of tension. The most important thing is stability. When people already depend on themselves, on their talents and ability to work. In the Caucasus, Khloponin, as Deputy Prime Minister and Plenipotentiary Representative, is now involved in our economic affairs. Programs for the republics, investments, this is very important, and he does it energetically. But it is a very big mistake to think that if everyone in the Caucasus is busy working, industry is working, and so on, then everything will be fine. We have natural inequality in the Caucasus (God-given inequality), it was not considered something bad.
I remember it was always like this, my father said to his son, “look at the neighbors, they work hard day and night, and they built a house, and they have a well-groomed garden, and there is a lot of cattle, and you are sitting idle and doing nothing.” It wasn't envy. They gave an example. Today the source of inequality is completely different. We can do everything in the field of economics, but until we establish social justice here, today there is no envy, today people are angry.

- Yes, yes, yes, and it’s especially acute in the Caucasus.

“Everyone knows that he’s an ordinary scoundrel, just a scoundrel, cunning, malicious, a slacker, but he got to power and is getting rich before his eyes without doing anything.” And then we say that corruption is evil. Not only because she is a violation of the law (let law enforcement officers deal with this), tension within the people is growing. When the stratification is natural, they cite successful people as examples and are proud of them. And when this inequality is unnatural, but based on corruption, on the suppression of others, on the fact that “I am the boss, you are a fool” - this is very, very bad.

- Taimuraz Dzambekovich, how to get out of this? And is it possible, in your opinion, for just the republic to get out of this quagmire, while the whole country remains in the same place?

- No republic alone. This cannot be done by any laws or orders. Still, people should have the opportunity to work, to do what they are capable of, in which they can “get started” and realize themselves. When a person finds a business in which he can fully realize himself, this is great happiness.

- But which of the Heads of the North Caucasian republics are you friends with? Who do you communicate with?

- And we have equal relations with everyone. There aren't many of them. When there was a huge Southern federal district, then it made sense to talk about it. And now there are only seven of us. We communicate by phone, in person, regularly.

- You know what I want to say, well, firstly, I love Ossetia madly, this is my second homeland.

- Thank you.

- I'll tell you why. Because you calm down when you come home. Of course, I madly love my friends in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Stavropol, but, as Prince Abdullah, the current king of Jordan, said: “I don’t have oil, but my main wealth is peace of mind " And here Ossetia somehow (knocking on the table) is an island of calm. I understand that there are attacks: the market, and disruptions, and attempts, and that’s it. But here people feel free. I just came from one republic where they warn, “don’t go to this village, don’t go to this region either.” Even in the capital, there are places where it is undesirable for people who have a principled position, who oppose extremism, to appear. Do you understand what's going on? What is the future in this area?

- I cannot put into detail the reasons or conditions for the fact that North Ossetia is a calm and free republic. These are, after all, the principles by which our North Ossetian society exists. This is both multinational and multi-religious. This is a legacy that we cannot destroy. We are proud of this. I think it’s about the people themselves, with their mentality and resilience, who have lived in Ossetia for centuries - some go to Orthodox church, others go to a mosque, to a synagogue, to an Armenian temple, others to a Georgian school (we have all this, it all works). There are a lot of mixed marriages. You know, a neighbor in the Caucasus is not just a person who lives behind a wall, it’s something else. And the neighbors are different. And the desire to come to each other’s aid, to be close, to walk together in funeral processions, and to sit at the same table at weddings. All this is not my achievement, this is how people lived in Ossetia. We have not become a mono-ethnic republic. We managed to preserve all the best that we have. Because people are like that.

- Wait, wait, I was just in another region of the North Caucasus. They are also great people, honest, daring, sympathetic. But this is some kind of “Ossetian phenomenon”, that’s the point. This is the “cross” of Ossetia. Carrying the cross of a peaceful region is probably some kind of gift from God.

- When too often they talk about us as a calm region, forces appear that want to say “we will show you, dear Russia, what a calm region this is.” And then market explosions, train bombings and other terrible things happen. All this trouble comes to us from outside.

- I didn’t say that, you said it. I think about this. If Muscovites were blowing up people in Moscow, and a guy from Taganka went and blew up the Taganka metro, that would be a tragedy. Or maybe this is revenge for the centuries-old relations with Moscow, with the Russians? For the love of Moscow?

- And you have to earn it. If we are valued, it means that something was done by my ancestors to ensure that this was the case - these are the tsarist generals, these are the Soviet military leaders, these are the scientists.

- I think this is recent history. It still leaves its mark on the situation that is currently developing in the relations between Moscow and Ossetia, Moscow and other regions.

- The fact is that it cannot be drawn as a diagram. So you ask me, but now I’m thinking, “Does Moscow love us or not?” If he “loves”, then for what? But in general, I cannot explain to you, Comrade Alexander, why I have such good people. Here he is. And I'm proud of him and I love him.

- Relations with Ingushetia. How is your relationship with Yunus-Bek Evkurov?

- We have a very smooth relationship with Yunus-Bek Evkurov, both as a man and as a businessman, we understand each other. But it's not that simple, of course. Entire generations have grown up with the pain of 1992. And I always say, no matter how internationalist I am, I am, first of all, the leader of my republic, the son of my people. And I have my own assessments and my own position. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov is a representative of his people and the president of his republic. Therefore, we often disagree greatly in our assessments, proposals, and so on. But that's okay too. Now we agree on one thing. We need to deal with young people. It is impossible for this enmity, almost hatred towards each other, to become a clinical characteristic of each generation. So we calculated that if a generation changes in 25 years, now a generation has grown up that can easily be taught that “Ossetians are the main enemies, be prepared to shed blood.”

- Or Ingush...

- Or the Ingush... Ossetians are told “the Ingush are our main enemies, be prepared to shed blood.” And there will always be idiots. This series of almost genetic hatred towards each other must be interrupted. And we are doing this with Yunus-Bek. Our deputies, cultural figures, and young people communicate. They must recognize each other, understand that we all walk under one God, and we must all be responsible for our actions, and that we are all Russians.

- Taimuraz Dzambekovich, how do you communicate with young people? What are your principles? This is a special audience.

What principles? First, when I look at young people, “envy” appears. So, of course, you envy young people because, firstly, they have everything ahead. And secondly, I never allow myself to be mentored, because they have their own destiny.

- How do you find a way to the hearts of young people? What words? What, in your opinion, is the most important thing for young people today?

- I look at youth as a special stage. Firstly, young people are always socially active. Secondly, young people are dissatisfied, always dissatisfied. Because this is formation, fresh brains, easily receptive to information. This is a thought that quickly reacts to everything. This is a fast walk, quick actions, and everything around is somehow “standing” in comparison with this. They want to stir things up. Then, normal youth should be excited by everything, you understand? Now, if young people are different, calm, reasonable, unhurried, such youth are not interesting to me. Another thing is values ​​and traditions. We are now criticized for the fact that religion influences young people and traditions are beginning to be revived. But I believe that these processes must be closely monitored and we must ensure that both religion and national traditions take their place. They are intertwined: religious and everyday consciousness, they are intertwined.

- Undoubtedly.

- Thank God, we couldn’t live without traditions. Everything can be modern, but we must stick to traditions. What’s wrong if our traditions include the cult of the family, the cult of the child, the cult of the elder, hierarchy, and the cult of hard work. Bad traditions, they are not viable, they will disappear on their own. And I am proud of my youth when I see that they want to return to traditions. God forbid if my peers appear and arrogantly say, “Give up these traditions! what traditions? The 21st century is just around the corner.” I want our youth to become traditional again, so that they are recognizable. And then in the 21st century it will be like a part of Russia, but beautiful and original. Not a gray mass.

- Caucasian youth?

- Caucasian youth. Because these traditions, they are an incentive, they protect you from mistakes, they make you stable and viable.

- What about Caucasian youth in Russia? In Moscow? Young people dancing Lezginka in Stavropol when they are shooting there and people are outraged? This?..

- These are not all young people! They behave the same way here too. Just recently, a crowd beat up one guy, a student, who came to study with us from Kabardino-Balkaria. Now all the youth have lowered their heads. Ashamed. Never in the Caucasus was someone attacked alone, but here they were attacked by a crowd. And now this whole crowd has started talking snot, and their parents are going around making excuses. It is not in the tradition of Ossetians and Caucasians in general to beat one, not to mention a weak and lying one. That's what I'm talking about. These are freaks who have nothing to do with our youth. They are just the right age, that’s their age. Youth is a title! Youth is a period of social life! But we need traditions. Freaks have no traditions in their heads. Moms and dads didn’t say what “tradition” is, or as we say “hudinag” - that is, it’s shameful. After all, losing face is forever. Here we have such a concept as “yœ tsœsgom fessœfta” - “lost face.” This is a sentence. After this you are nobody. No matter how rich and successful you are. That’s why many people don’t understand me, but I explain everything - traditions must be returned. And religion, as a spiritual atmosphere, must be given the opportunity to people so that they can freely perform their religious rituals.

- But they brought the relics of St. George. You flew after them.

- You see, I myself am not a religious person. I don’t pray and I don’t observe anything that seems to be necessary to observe, I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, but it is what it is. I have one commandment that I inherited from my father: “fear God,” in Ossetian they say “Khuytsauœy tœrs.” Before you do anything, you need to be afraid in advance, whether it’s divine or not. There are no more commandments. But we are an Orthodox republic, with Orthodoxy dominating. In our country, Islam has quite a large specific gravity, and the synagogue is working, and the Armenian Apostolic Church, and so on. In an absolutely miraculous way, we managed to meet here with the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa (he has a lot of regalia, he is very high in the Christian hierarchy). And when he learned from me that our people have been recognizing the patronage of St. George the Great Martyr for centuries, when he was convinced of this, he suddenly said to me, “you know, to such people I am ready to give a great gift. We have the relics of St. George in Egypt, we have the fortress in which he was kept and where he was tortured.” My hair stood on end. I didn't believe that this was possible. And we were there on the days of the wheeling, on the days when the week of Georgyba was going on in our republic, on the birthday of the Patriarch.

- The relics of St. George, will they help change Ossetia? Is this necessary at all? And how will they affect the psychology of the people?

- I don't know. I saw when we walked off the plane with the relics, I saw thousands of people. Then three days of continuous prayer. Then the religious procession and so on. Then there was a flight of the relics around the perimeter over Ossetia. I saw these people. These people believe. When they are in a state of faith, when they are at peace, then, of course, Ossetia will change. Because changing Ossetia means changing people. And changed people will change the economy and everything else. This means that Ossetia will change.

- This is probably the dream of any leader - to see his people, his relatives, his wards in a state of peace and bliss.

- Well, of course! They believe it. This is already good. As the leader of the republic, I am obliged to create an environment in which those who believe that the relics of St. George will bring benefit and save Ossetia from harm, they should have the opportunity to touch his relics. So on the same day, before the flight, we opened a mosque in Beslan. It was built at their own expense by the once very poor, hardworking residents of Beslan. My ancestors, my great-grandfathers, our elders who are no longer alive. They built it in honor of the miraculous salvation, as it seemed to them, of Nicholas II after the assassination attempt on him. And they prayed in this temple, in this mosque, they prayed for his health. After that, it was turned into a warehouse, a club, a dairy factory, German prisoners of war were kept there, and so on. I was the head of the district and thought that it was still necessary to make it what the founders of Beslan made it. We made it so that today it is open, accessible, and people pray there. Therefore, my task as a leader is to create conditions such that those who believe that St. George will help and ensure peace in the republic, so that they can pray about this. So that those who want to gather in the mosque on Fridays, so that they have this opportunity, so that they can go to the synagogue, and so on. I don't even think it's official responsibility, but an internal responsibility of a person. As a leader, I can influence something and that’s why I did it. It was very moving for me to hold these relics in my hands and see everything that was happening around me. Of course, this is an unforgettable event. We will believe that this will bring more calm and peace to Ossetia.

- And the final question - what awaits Ossetia in 5 years, in 10 years, in 50? Everyone says that if you want to make people laugh, talk about the future. But we want to talk about good things and believe that this will be a positive future.

I see our youth. And when I look at it, I look at the future that already exists. I see that young people are growing up internally free. This is very very high quality, which I value most in any person, and especially in a man. Inner freedom. But freedom comes with great restrictions. The main limitation is morality, this is a big limitation of freedom. This is a law that also limits your freedom. And the most important limitation is the freedom of another person. And what I like about our youth is that they are beginning to understand that in any circumstances the choice is yours. You know everything, like the rules of the road. The whole world is in front of you. The choice is yours. And the responsibility is yours. The lousiest quality that young people especially can have is indifference. Young people in Ossetia practically don’t have it. Therefore, I see that we say “nœ nygœndzhytœ”, that is, “those who will bury us,” I want them to be very cheerful, serious, smart and at the same time restraining themselves, like young stallions, prancing like that, intelligent and modern residents of my republic. And this will be so, because everything is leading to this.

- Thank you very much, Taimuraz Dzambekovich, thank you.

TV channel "Russia 24",
December 23, 2010.