Shakhnazarov was staying at a sanatorium close to the presidential dacha at Foros in the Crimea that fateful August 1991, when he helped Gorbachev in his plans for a new Union Treaty to define relations between the republics. Indeed, the two spoke by telephone about it on the afternoon of 18 August, the last call Gorbachev took before the coup plotters moved in and cut off his contact with the outside world.