M ystery of ex-Russian premier who claimed he was poisoned in Maynooth
IF IT were a movie, the working title would be along the lines: ‘The Russian premier’s mysterious collapse in Maynooth’. No doubt the final draft would be somewhat catchier, but that just about sums up the bizarre events that took place on the grounds of the hallowed college when Yegor Gaidar visited in 2006.
It was just days after the death in London of Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko (inset), who died from radioactive polonium-210, believed to have been administered in a cup of tea.
Gaidar’s trip to Ireland came at the end of a busy period for the former prime minister, who is credited with cementing Russia’s postSoviet transition, while simultaneously driving millions into poverty.
Exhausted, he considered cancelling a talk on his book ‘Death of the Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia’ – but decided to spend “two days with smart and nice people in a lovely old university”.
On November 22, he flew to Dublin and made the short trip to Maynooth for breakfast in the student canteen. The then-50-yearold opted for a standard fruit salad and asked for a cup of tea before going to the conference hall for a series of lectures. But about 10 minutes after the session began, his hearing began to fail. Gaidar made his excuses and returned to his hotel room for a lie-down.
“After I got back to my hotel room, I had to close my eyes immediately. The sensation was similar to being under general anaesthesia,” he would later write in the ‘Financial Times’.
In the moment he assumed fatigue had taken him down, but a few hours later the situation took a serious turn.
The phone call that saved his life came at 5.10pm. One of the organisers rang to check if he was OK to attend his book presentation.
He considered saying no. “Had I done so, and had I been alone in my room 15 minutes later, my chances of survival would have been zero,” he said.
Gaidar went to the presentation but was forced to step off the stage as blood began pouring from nose. He became pale, collapsed and fell unconscious.
At the James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown, doctors recorded relatively normal heart rates and sugar levels.
When he came to, Gaidar was effectively paralysed in the bed, but what happened next was even more puzzling.
By 7am the next day, he was up having a shower.
“At 8am, a few hours after I stopped feeling like an inanimate object, I could move, think, make decisions and implement them just as I could 24 hours before,” he said.
Against medical advice, he left the hospital and returned immediately to Russia where he reported to his normal clinic for tests.
Meanwhile back in Ireland, the Radiological Protection Institution of Ireland, on behalf of the gardaí, began an investigation.
They found no traces of radiation in the places visited by the ex-premier. Medics in Blanchardstown decided the Russian had been suffering from the early effects of gastroenteritis.
But Gaidar did not accept that theory. The only “common-sense” explanation was poisoning that potentially involved “secret toxic substances, the information on which is unavailable to open medical science”. It was, in his view, attempted murder by “some obvious or hidden adversaries of the Russian authorities”.
The incident made headlines around the world. Gaidar died in 2009 – but the mystery remains.