HOUSEWARMING IN THE HOUSE OF SOVIETS: THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF PEOPLE’S DEPUTIES ON KRASNOPRESNENSKAYA EMBANKMENT

The article is devoted to the organization of work of people’s deputies elected in 1990 to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. People’s deputies of Russia, working on a permanent basis, were allocated the rear of the House of Soviets (another name is the “White House”) on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment. The tenants of the building were the Economic Administration of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR and the Economic Administration of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, so the first task that had to be solved was to divide the building between the deputies and the ministers. Despite the apparent simplicity of the task, it turned out that it was quite difficult to satisfy the requests of the parties, given that the staffing schedule of the apparatus, the number of committees and commissions increased every day. Since the representative and executive branches of power became neighbors in the “communal apartment”, the rivalry moved to a new level. Arising from disputes over square meters and garages, the competition ended with the clarification of “whose status is higher”? It was possible to resolve everyday conflicts between deputies and ministers by legislative means. For this purpose, the deputies began to develop a law on civil service and resolutions of the Supreme Council on the apparatus of the Council of Ministers and the Supreme Council of Russia.