“Five years next to the President” - memoirs of Viktor Yaroshenko, People's Deputy of the USSR, Minister of Foreign Economic Relations of the RSFSR, Trade Representative of the Russian Federation in France. Back in the late 80s, the author entered the close circle of the future Russian President Boris Yeltsin and maintained warm relations with him for many years. Engineer-economist Viktor Yaroshenko, having become a people's deputy of the USSR, immediately joined the Interregional Deputy Group, which was in opposition to the Soviet leadership. One of its co-chairs was Boris Yeltsin. They coincided in their understanding of the reforms that the country needed - and this was the main thing that connected them. In this book, memories of the historical events of the 80s and 90s are intertwined with very personal stories, the participants of which were many famous politicians of that time. Not only Boris Yeltsin, but also Ivan Silaev, Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Sobchak, Sergei Shakhrai, Lyudmila Narusova... The author is not ashamed of his bias. He does not promise the reader to be “above the fray” and is not afraid to give harsh assessments. For Yaroshenko, the past is still a source of difficult thoughts and intense internal disputes, which he risked making public. Here we have a classic memoir - very controversial and very sincere.