Natallia Masherova: Father Was Gloomy Before the Car Accident

The daughter of the popular leader of the BSSR believes her father's crash was not accidental.

Her father did not crash accidentally, Natallia Petrovna Masherova, the daughter of the most popular leader of the republic, is convinced. The accident happened on October 4, 1980. A truck loaded with potatoes appeared in front of the Chaika. Masherov was driving it to see the harvesting campaign in the Minsk region. First Secretary of the CPB Central Committee Pyotr Masherov, his driver and a security guard died then. The truck driver Nikolai Pustovit was found guilty.

The media questioned her and her husband, a doctor of physics and mathematics, professor of Belarusian State University Vladimir Petrov, about the fatal accident in October 1980, reports the BP website.

Murder or fatal contingency

- You said in one of your interviews that you do not believe in the accidental death of Pyotr Mironovich. But you can`t prove it. Have you seen the investigative documents? Is there any evidence it was not a coincidence?

Natallia Masherova: There is no such evidence. There is a case of contingency. About Pustovit Nikolai Mitrofanovich. I saw the case. Do you remember one wrote later they were driving too fast? Well, the case file says they were driving 80 kilometres an hour. Is that fast? Don't tell these stories about 120 km per hour! One did it on purpose later. There are too many inconsistencies for an accident. When those people involved are gone, maybe there will be an opportunity to review the case. But they are still alive.

Vladimir Petrov: There is a sharp imprint of tire treads.

So, a truck with potatoes was almost at a right angle. And Pyotr Mikhailovich's car was moving straight not axially, as it was written afterwards. It was impossible to avoid such a hit.

It is noteworthy the truck driver was supposed to get out from the left side after the crash. He got out through the passenger door.

Natallia Masherova: So, he fell out not from the left door, but the right one after the crash! Who was driving then? This guy had nothing to do with it, of course.

Vladimir Petrov: At the same time, a car with the KGB officers of the ninth department was driving the Moscow highway towards Minsk to adopt the case from local guards. Because as of next week Pyotr Mironovich was taking over Kosygin's seat, the chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. From Monday, a completely different security system would have been active. It means it would have been impossible to reach him. The officers of the ninth department were on their way and just happened to be in the middle of this accident. The fire started then. They stopped the crane, drove up and pulled the cars apart. If they hadn't been there, the whole place would have burned down. That was the plan.

Please note: Pyotr Mironovich died on Saturday. The day before, there was a dinner party on another anniversary of the GDR. There was a rumour among the guests that Pyotr Mironovich had died in a car crash. It was Friday, a day before the car crash.

Natallia Masherova: He wouldn't have died if he had been in his armoured car, ZIL. The day before, on Friday, father was driving from Uruchiye, and the rear lights were smashed. Let's not talk about accidents.

The ZIL, if one wants to step on brakes, does a 360-degree turn. And the Chaika... If the driver hadn't stepped on the brakes, he might have had time to swerve. But if one has been driving one car for decades, what would one do in an emergency, when one has a split second?! Besides, the most senior driver who was about to retire was on that ill-fated trip. And it wasn't his shift. He got a call to go to work.

Surganov died simply because he and his father changed cars. They were escorting Raul Castro to Belovezha Forest and were on their way back. Surganov was in a very bad mood. At the filling station, he said, "You haven't filled up yet, Petya, let me drive first. I'll drive your car for once". And his bus was waiting for him. He crashed to death.

"In his last days, he fenced himself off from everyone"

- Did Pyotr Mironovich have any premonition about such an outcome?Natallia Masherova: He had been very gloomy lately. Nobody could approach him. He fenced himself off. I used to be able to approach him all the time. In such situations, one specifically asked me to find out what happened. But then, for some reason, I thought he fell ill, came and asked, "What's wrong?" And all of a sudden - he never spoke to me like that - "Go away!" He couldn't tell me either the truth or a lie. He just chased me away. For the first time in my life.

But it wasn't doom. It was a struggle. He felt focused and confident.

You know, right after the war, when Lavrentiy Tsanava was Minister of State Security of the BSSR, he invited father and said, "You should write the second volume of the History of the Partisan Movement in Belarus under my name." Dad, of course, refused. My mother told me later we had a suitcase packed. We waited for a knock on our door every night... And I think it would have happened, but Tsanava was removed.

In the 80s, there was a similar situation when one cannot complain or share. That's why he was focused.

Father was not going to Moscow alone then. There was a team of young people. Chairman of the Council of Ministers in Georgia, young as he was, died in the same way (Zurab Pataridze died in a car crash - Sputnik). In Central Asia, a chairman was shot dead right at his summer house (chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic Sultan Ibraimov was killed with two shots to the head in December 1980 - Editor's note).

- Why didn't Brezhnev or, with a few exceptions, the heads of the Soviet republics come to farewell to Pyotr Mironovich?

Natallia Masherova: There was such a directive. That's why nobody arrived. It was not Brezhnev anymore; forget about him in those years. He was no longer deciding anything. All his team could do was to put Masherov in charge.

Nobody was allowed to come. Tereshkova and Griskevičius (Petras Griskevičius - first secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party Central Committee - Editor's note) disobeyed. He said, "I'll go to bury my friend and then one can remove me". People stopped him at the airport. They did not let him go. Who? There were specific people, starting with Chernenko.

Here is another example. Our republic used to supply food products to Leningrad. But that year everything was flooded, and we had nothing to grow. Father managed to get the bread supply removed from Belarus. He said, "I can't serve food to my people." When my father was in the coffin in the Council of Ministers, I was going upstairs and one drunkard said: "Well, yours is gone, now you will share bread". It was someone from Moscow. I heard it.

- In Moscow, a collection of articles-memoirs about Masherov was republished for the 100th anniversary of Pyotr Mironovich. What about Belarus, where Masherov remains one of the most respected and loved leaders?

Natallia Masherova: The Great Patriotic War Museum will host an exhibition. The Communists came. They are planning some events. There should be a ski run in Rossony. We wanted to go there on February 12-13.

When on his 90th and 95th anniversaries no one came and no one called, I decided to remain silent. But something changed by the 100th anniversary. I think in some very mild version - at the level of the public, schools, the Communist Party - some events will take place.

- But the name of the avenue hasn't been returned yet...

Natallia Masherova: I remember what resentment the renaming the avenue caused. Later, when everyone cooled down, I thought what if I had come to my father and said: "Father, can you imagine, they renamed your avenue. They named it Pobeditelei". I think he would have said, "What, they named the avenue after me?! Oh, thank people"... I thought that I should look at it with my father's eyes. What was his reasoning? I remember we were passing by the Central Committee, "Why do they say I am some kind of special, honest person, and praise me? I am ordinary. One should admire talents. One considers we are ordinary. It is the norm, but maybe it is not. Maybe genius is the norm. We're not the norm but ordinary people. And I work honestly. And I live an honest life. It is something wrong when one praises the norm".