On the 11th of February 1967, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin visited the UK and his trip included a 14 hour visit to Scotland.
In this trip he visited Glasgow, had a tour of Hunterston Power Plant in North Ayrshire, visited Troon to have lunch at the Marine Hotel and watched Kilmarnock v Rangers at Rugby Park.
Prior to kick-off, Kosygin presented the captains of both teams with crystal footballs (we know Rangers still have theirs in the trophy room). The game was attended by 23,000 fans and ended 2-1 for Rangers.
Following his visit, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson stated: “Mr. Kosygin was certainly impressed with his Scottish visit and would like to develop other relations, not only nationally, with Britain as a whole, but between particular areas of Britain, for example, between Scotland and Wales, and particular areas of the Soviet Union. We should like to see that develop. Manchester is twinned with Leningrad, his own city.”
Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin was born on the 21st of February 1904 into a working class family in St Petersburg. He was raised by his father after his mother died when he was an infant. He would sympathise with the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution, being conscripted into a labour army and would later join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1927.
He spent the first half of the 1930’s studying at the Leningrad Textile Institute and would go on to be elected People’s Commissar for Textile and Industry.
During the Great Patriotic War (WWII), he was tasked with evacuating crucial industry from areas that were under threat of being overrun by Axis forces. He managed to ensure the 1523 factories were evacuated to the east along with raw materials, goods and equipment.
During the Leningrad Blockade he was sent to his home town to manage the construction of an ice road and a pipeline across the Lake Ladoga. This allowed to evacuate some half-million people from the besieged and starving city, and to supply fuel to its factories and power plants. He was also responsible for the procurement of the locally available firewood.
In the post-war period Kosygin would continue to rise through the Soviet leadership. On the 4th of May 1960 he became Deputy Premier and later, in 1964, he replaced Khrushchev as Premier: a position he held for 16 years.
Kosygin retired on October 23rd, 1980 and died two months later, on the 18th of December 1980.
Further Reading
- Kosygin Crystal Ball in Rangers trophy room on YouTube
- Kilmarnock Through the Years on Kilmarnock F.C.’s website
- Kosygin Visit’s Nuclear Power Station on YouTube