Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (Russian: Ви́ктор Степа́нович Черномы́рдин) (born April 9, 1938) is a Russian politician.
Chernomyrdin was the Prime Minister of Russia from 1992 to 1998. Since 2001, he has been Russia's ambassador to Ukraine. He is also a Russian business oligarch. Le Monde once estimated Chernomyrdin has assets of $5 billion; but Chernomyrdin stated in 1996 his assets totaled $46,000.
Viktor Chernomyrdin is a target of numerous jokes for his syntactically extravagant speech. One of his expressions "We meant to do better, but it came out as always" became a popular proverb (Хотели как лучше, а получилось как всегда in Russian). He said it after a highly unsuccessful monetary exchange performed by the Russian Central Bank in July 1993.

Youth and education
Chernomyrdin's father was a labourer. Viktor was one of his five children. Chernomyrdin completed school education in 1957. He was a C-student. Half of his school grades were Cs, and he did not have a single A. He found employment as a mechanic in an oil refinery in Orsk. He worked there until 1962, except for two years of compulsory military service from 1957 to 1960. His other occupations on the plant during this period included machinist, operator and chief of technical installations. He became a member of the CPSU in 1961.
In 1962 he was admitted Kuybyshev Industrial Institute (which was later renamed Samara Polytechnic Institute). In his entrance exams he performed very poorly. He failed maths and had to take the exam again, getting a C. He got only one B in Russian language, and Cs in the other tests. He was admitted only because of the very low competition. In 1966 he graduated from this institute. In 1972 he completed further studies at the Department of Economics of the Union-wide Polytechnic Institute by correspondence.