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CDI Library > Johnson's
Russia List |
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May 8,
2000
Johnson's Russia Listr #4286 8 May 2000 davidjohnson@erols.com [Note from David Johnson:
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Bear hugs all round at Russian president's inauguration
MOSCOW, May 7 (AFP) - Shadowy tycoon-cum-lawmaker Boris Berezovsky hugged his ultranationalist rival Vladimir Zhirinovsky on Sunday as merriment and good cheer filled Vladimir Putin's posh inauguration.
Two of Russia's more flamboyant lawmakers could hardly suppress grins of delight as they waited for their black limousines on the doorsteps of a Kremlin palace where Putin was sworn into office just moments earlier.
"Looks like we'll be working together again," effused tireless presidential also-ran Zhirinovsky.
"Each in our own way," the oil and media chieftain Berezovsky replied.
Only steps away, the liberal parliamentarian Irina Khakamada looked on with a smile.
"This ceremony was very friendly," she confessed. "For the first time we witnessed power being handed over in a legal manner."
The scene of Russian lawmakers slapping each other's backs and discussing the wonders of the Kremlin's great halls -- in which many of them had never set foot before -- marked a rare change of pace in Moscow.
Zhirinovsky is more famous in Russia for trying to pull out women lawmakers' hair and tugging at the crosses of priests in parliament.
But all appeared forgiven or forgotten on Sunday as Russia's elite rubbed shoulders with the world's ambassadors while brass bands and generals marched by.
Smoke from a booming 30-gun salute that appeared to shake the entire city still wafted over the onion domes of Kremlin churches as the most irreconcilable of Russian opponents agreed that a new era had been opened under Putin.
"Right now Russia has a unique opportunity," said lawmaker Oleg Morozov. "The election has shown just how popular Putin is. Now we must expend all of our energy on consolidating power and working together -- both legislators and the president together."
Putin and his mentor Boris Yeltsin -- who never did manage to work with opponents in parliament -- had stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the Kremlin steps as they reviewed the guard of honor.
Both cut striking and confident figures. But Yeltsin simply stared down at the ground when he turned around to go back into the Kremlin. Putin for his part remembered to look back, gently smile for the camera and wave.
Indeed Putin has attained an almost cult-like following as throngs of supporters swarm around him on trips across the country. Police set up barricades outside the Kremlin to keep his fans at bay during inauguration.
"It is so wonderful that we finally have a fit and smart president of whom you don't have to feel ashamed of," one elderly women outside the Kremlin exclaimed.
Yet back at the inauguration hall there was one grim exception of a grouchy lawmaker -- Saint Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev.
With Putin's support, he had just built a multi-million dollar stadium to host the world ice hockey championships. Yet Russia's star-studded team has stunned the country by failing for the first time ever to make it past the first rounds.
Yakovlev, who is about to face re-election, was depressed. "We just didn't have the right boys," he mourned.
Several governors slapped his shoulder in consolation.
******
Russian Governors Ready to Support President Putin.
MOSCOW, May 7 (Itar-Tass) - Executive chiefs of Russian regions are ready to support President Vladimir Putin in his striving to strengthen the Russian statehood, to combat crime and to solve economic problems of the country. The Russian governors will support Vladimir Putin in his efforts to achieve stability in the country, Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev has told Itar-Tass. "Everyone needs stability, and everyone understands that it is a crime to shake power loose. What is the sense of confrontation? The program outlined by Vladimir Putin in the Federation Council is approved. He has visited regions. Points of contact are found," Tuleyev said.
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov wants "the state power to have a sound backing in Moscow." He stands for "constructive processes in Russian economics, no domination of the oligarchs and larger anti-crime efforts."
"Society is ready to unite around the idea of stabilization and strengthening of Russia," Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, Lipetsk Governor Oleg Korolyov has told Itar-Tass. He hopes that Vladimir Putin "will work for the solution of the most acute problems of this country:" the settlement in Chechnya, the inter-ethnic relations and economic problems. It is also necessary to upgrade the federative relations and to strengthen the Russian statehood, Korolyov said.
The new President will pay much attention to economics and priority measures, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Federative Affairs and Regional Policy, Nizhni Novgorod Governor Ivan Sklyarov has said. "The development of enterprises has been set in motion, and that process must be developed. It is the most important that people feel an improvement of their material position," he noted.
Head of the Altai Republic Semyon Zubakin gives the priority to "efficient measures on corruption", the economic development and "further reforms with due account of the prior experience." It is also necessary to provide for discipline at all levels, "to restore the country's administrative system and to strengthen the power vertical," he said.
The inauguration of Vladimir Putin as President of Russia is a proof to the democratic reforms, St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev has said. As for the relations between the Kremlin and the governors, he said, "the President has taken the right stand, he supports the power vertical and, thus, supports the governors."
****** New President Should Actively Protect RUSSIA'S Interests-Duma.
MOSCOW, May 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russian legislators are inclined to cooperate with Vladimir Putin and hope that constructive interaction between all arms of government will help to consolidate the state, whose interests will be actively protected by the president.
In the opinion of deputy speaker of the State Duma Vladimir Lukin, "the key task facing Vladimir Putin" is to strengthen the role of the Russian state. "State interests should be brought to the fore," he emphasised.
State Duma deputy speaker Boris Nemtsov claimed that Putin has "absolute possibilities to build a real law-governed state and civil society in Russia, safe for life and with social guarantees at the European level".
Leader of the Duma Unity faction Boris Gryzlov noted that Putin made his choice in favour of constructive cooperation with the State Duma where the main social groups of population are represented.
Gryzlov called legislative recording of direct federal rule in the Chechen Republic "one of the most urgent issues" in the work of the State Duma. "Small doubt that most deputies will back this initiative of the executive power," Gryzlov is convinced.
The faction leader regards adoption of the Tax, Administrative and Land codes as other priorities.
Chairman of the State Duma Security Committee Alexander Gurov called protection of law and order as well as of personality, struggle against terrorism as well as economic reforms among priorities of the new head of state.
In Gurov's opinion, "armistice has set in" between the executive and legislative powers over the past few months, and "it is necessary now to achieve greater coordination in all state affairs". Leader of the Duma group Regions of Russia Oleg Morozov expects that the Message of the Russian president to the Russian parliament will offer a government programme, including measures "in the sphere of legislative work".
In Morozov's opinion, for their part, legislators are duty-bound to make their contribution to this programme, to supplement and reinforce it. He believes that "a draft of the 2001 federal budget should crown this system of mutual relations between the arms of government".
Chairman of the Duma Committee for International Affairs Dmitry Rogozin believes that the new head of state should do much to reinforce governance of state and, above all, "to remove from the road such a dangerous thing as separatism", first of all, in the North Caucasus.
"I believe that under the present president, the role of plenipotentiary representatives of the head of state in localities should be raised, and their responsibility to the state can be increased," Rogozin added.
"We wait, from the new president, for serious changes in the domestic and foreign policies while defending the interests of the Russian state in the international arena," stressed deputy chairman of the State Duma Defence Committee Nikolai Bezborodov.
In the general's opinion, it is necessary to determine even this year "what military priorities we choose".
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Description of Russian president's powers
MOSCOW, May 7 (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin, due to be sworn in as Russia's second president on Sunday, will enjoy immense powers vested in the presidency by the 1993 constitution.
The president's unique role in the state system also means unrivalled authority, compared with the other branches of power. The president is the formal head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, controls the government, names most top officials and has the last word in most state affairs. He can be legally ousted only with great difficulty.
The constitution was approved in a national referendum in December 1993, just two months after President Boris Yeltsin sent tanks and troops to quell a hardline revolt in Moscow which ended a two-year power struggle with the Soviet-era parliament.
It was tailor-made to suit Yeltsin who inspired the concept of the new constitution, which deliberately made it hard for the president's powers to be challenged by parliament or any other branch of power.
Under the constitution, the president must be at least 35 and a resident of Russia for at least 10 years. He can occupy the post for two four-year terms at the most.
The president names the prime minister, who must then be confirmed by the State Duma lower house of parliament, and also names all other ministers.
He can chair government meetings, which in effect gives him control of the cabinet. The president also has the right to dismiss the prime minister and the government.
The president has the right to issue decrees which do not contradict the constitution. With many vital laws still not adopted, these powers enable him to bypass parliament on some important decisions.
The president signs into law legislation passed by the Duma and the Federation Council upper house. He can veto laws and the veto can only be overturned by a two-thirds majority in each chamber.
Under the constitution, the president heads the armed forces and names all top military officials. He has the power to declare a state of emergency in all or part of the country.
He also names all top judicial officials and the prosecutor general, who must later be approved by parliament.
The president can dissolve the Duma if it refuses three times to back his candidate for prime minister or if it votes no-confidence in the government. A parliamentary election must then be held within three months.
The president cannot dissolve the Duma in the first 12 months after it has been elected.
The parliament has little means of exerting real influence on the president apart from impeaching him.
This can be done if parliament proves in court that he has committed high treason or another serious crime. But the complicated impeachment procedure makes it extremely difficult to carry out.
An attempt last year by the Communist opposition to oust Yeltsin foundered at an early stage, proving that the president's position in the Kremlin was virtually unassailable.
The president can also be replaced if he resigns of his own accord or if his health prevents him carrying out his duties. But the latter clause is not spelled out in the constitution.
Yeltsin stepped down prematurely on New Year's Eve, having already named Putin, then prime minister, as his preferred successor. This strong backing from the Kremlin helped pave the way for Putin's victory in the March 26 presidential election.
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The Guardian (UK) 8 May 2000 [for personal use only] The new PM Reformer tarnished by links with tycoon Ian Traynor
In naming Mikhail Kasyanov as his prime minister, Vladimir Putin yesterday sent out signals that will reassure western officials who know the 42-year-old fluent English speaker as a Russian reformer.
But the nomination, while expected, disappointed those who had hoped Mr Putin would quickly break with the discredited cronyism of the Yeltsin regime.
Mr Kasyanov, a deputy prime minister in the outgoing government, is urbane, polished, and managerial. An economist by training, his early career was spent in Gosplan, the Soviet central planning monolith.
He was a senior finance official under Boris Yeltsin and was identified with the coterie around Boris Berezovsky, whose business empire extends from oil and aluminium to newspapers and television, and who wielded disproportionate influence under Mr Yeltsin's presidency.
Mr Kasyanov rose to become finance minister in the Putin cabinet, and when Mr Putin became acting president in the new year he was made first deputy prime minister, running the government.
The technocrat and manager looks poised to spearhead a quartet of ambitious, young economists playing a central role in Mr Putin's Russia - Andrei Illarionov, a radical free marketeer advising the president on the economy, Alexei Kudrin, a long-time colleague of Mr Putin from St Petersburg who is tipped to be the new finance minister, and German Gref, another St Petersburg pal who is drafting Mr Putin's 10- year development plan and who is expected to take the economics portfolio. All four are 35-45 year olds and are decidedly pro-western.
Mr Kasyanov has impressed western officials in his handling of Russia's foreign debt negotiations, and he will lead a campaign for a resumption of IMF lending to Russia.
In February he renegotiated the terms of Russia's commercial debt to western banks, getting more than one-third of it written off. But his association with Mr Berezovsky undermines the president's appeal to Russians as Mr Clean.
******
Washington Post 7 May 2000 [for personal use only] Putin's Actions Seem to Belie Promise on Tycoons By David Hoffman
MOSCOW ¡¡ At a closed-door meeting at the Russian Central Bank last month, Vladimir Gusinsky, a Russian media mogul who established the country's first independent national television network, was prepared to sell Most Bank, which he founded.
The papers were ready and the deal was about to be signed when a telephone call came from the Kremlin.
According to two sources, acting President Vladimir Putin asked that the bank sale be put off. The call was another strike at Gusinsky, who for months has been under pressure from the Kremlin, in part because of his TV channel and in part because of an earlier alliance with a political rival of Putin's.
Gusinsky, who has been struggling to pay off a series of debts, left the Central Bank without the deal.
Putin, who is to be sworn into office today as Russia's second president, has vowed to impose order on Russia's unruly economy by creating equal rules for all. He has promised to tame the wild capitalism that took hold under former president Boris Yeltsin, in which powerful tycoons held sway. Yeltsin resigned Dec. 31.
But the telephone call on the bank deal suggests another picture of Putin in power. According to politicians and businessmen, Putin in recent months has presided over the same arbitrary, clan-based competition for wealth and property that existed previously. Rather than vanquish the tycoons known as the Russian "oligarchs," Putin seems to be willing to coexist with the system they created, even helping to choose winners and losers among them.
Moreover, although Putin has spoken of the need to strengthen the state in its regulation of the economy, some analysts say the opposite is happening. In particular, they have expressed alarm that the Russian Federal Securities Commission, a major economic regulatory agency, has allowed prominent financial-industrial groups free rein to step on the rights of investors and shareholders.
"We have a real problem," said Dmitry Vasilyev, former chairman of the securities commission, Russia's top stock market regulator, who worked with reformer Anatoly Chubais on the mass privatization of Russian industry in the early 1990s. "On one hand, a new president has been elected who has pronounced sufficiently many words that are encouraging for investors and for those who wish to carry out reforms in Russia--that he is going to aim at protection of investors' rights, and that he is going to make the oligarchs play according to general rules, and that he is an adherent to the rule of law."
"At the same time," he added, "from the point of view of concrete actions, we see many strange decisions taking place. . . . The influence of the oligarchs over the real Russian economy has not decreased. We can only speak about a certain redistribution of influence."
At least publicly, Putin has promised to vanquish the political clout of the business moguls. Putin said during the election campaign that if "we by oligarchs . . . mean fusion, or those people who fuse, or help fusion of power and capital--there will be no oligarchs of this kind as a class."
But during the nine months that Putin has been in power as prime minister and acting president, the clan rivalries and the thrust-and-cut of oligarchic capitalism have hardly diminished.
In the case of Gusinsky, the sale of Most Bank was one way to raise cash to settle his debts. The buyer of Most Bank was to be Vneshtorgbank, which is owned by the Central Bank.
According to sources, the Kremlin first intervened when the chief of the presidential administration, Alexander Voloshin, telephoned Viktor Gerashchenko, the chairman of the Central Bank, and demanded that the transaction be halted. Gerashchenko refused. Then, a short while later, Putin telephoned with the same demand. That time, Gerashchenko consented.
Voloshin is part of a Kremlin inner circle that helped bring Putin to power. Under Yeltsin, the group also included former chief of staff Valentin Yumashev; Yeltsin's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko; and the influential tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who masterminded the creation of a new pro-Kremlin political party in parliament. Berezovsky's television channel has hammered Putin's political rivals, including Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov. Gusinsky's media outlets were viewed as sympathetic to Luzhkov and Primakov.
Before and after the March presidential election, the Kremlin group attempted to exert pressure on Gusinsky, who created NTV commercial television and owns newspapers, radio stations and magazines as well.
Recently, Gusinsky needed to pay back a $211.6 million loan from Credit Suisse First Boston but was pressed for money. The note was guaranteed by Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly, which earlier had become a part-owner of Gusinsky's network. Gazprom helped Gusinsky pay the debt in March.
However, soon after sending the cash to help Gusinsky, Gazprom apparently reversed itself and called for repayment of the loan, according to a letter from a Gazprom official. Officials in Gusinsky's holding company, Media-Most, have said Gazprom was under Kremlin pressure to pull back the money.
Subsequently, Gusinsky attempted to sell the bank to raise money, until that plan was called off by Putin's reported intervention. A spokesman for Most Bank refused to comment. A spokeswoman for Vneshtorgbank said, "We have no information and can neither confirm nor deny it." Alexei Gromov, Putin's press secretary, did not respond to calls and a written request for comment.
There have been other signs, too, that Putin has no plans to curtail the oligarchy. Earlier this year, Berezovsky and a business partner, Roman Abramovich, moved to purchase more than 60 percent of Russia's aluminum industry. They then announced plans for an alliance with another aluminum company to form Russian Aluminum, which, if approved, would control 7 percent of the world market and 80 percent of Russia's annual 3.1 million-ton output.
At first, Putin said the deals would be examined by the Russian anti-monopoly regulators. But soon thereafter, the anti-monopoly minister, Ilya Yuzhanov, announced that the deals "do not formally violate anti-monopoly laws because during our investigations it was found that in each case stakes of less than 20 percent were sold." His comments came right after a meeting with Putin.
Chubais, who often has been at odds with Berezovsky, criticized the deals in an interview with the Financial Times. "We have never seen anything like this before," he said. "This is an unprecedented concentration of capital and media interests in the handsof a small group of affiliated people. The fact that this merger does not contradict the anti-monopoly rule, as they say, shows not that the decision is right, but that the anti-monopoly legislation is too weak."
Another sign that the oligarchic structure of Russia's young market economy remains in place has been a series of recent controversies at the securities commission. In the past, the agency attempted to police the nascent stock market and protect the rights of investors and shareholders.
But critics say the current chairman, Igor Kostikov, has made decisions that support powerful financial interests and hurt investors.
For example, in the early 1990s, during a period of hyperinflation, many Russian citizens were persuaded to invest in lucrative investment schemes that promised high returns, although they never delivered. One of these investment companies in which Berezovsky was involved, the All Russian Automobile Alliance, known as AVVA, collected about $50 million from Russians with a goal of building a "people's car." The car has never been built. The investors have been offered stock in Avtovaz, a major Russian car maker, but few have accepted the offer.
Recently, according to the newsmagazine Itogi and documents made available to The Washington Post, Yuri Zektser, generaldirector of AVVA, asked the securities commission for permission to reorganize the company, splitting it into two parts. One would continue to function as an investment company, but investors who hold AVVA certificates would be shunted off into another firm.
Kostikov wrote back that the commission "is supporting your intention" to split the "inert" investors away from the rest of the company, and that the commission "considers it possible to conduct the reorganization . . . on conditions described in yourletter."
Kostikov refused to comment, but a spokesman, Vadim Bely, said the full commission must still approve the division.
The case has raised eyebrows among analysts. "How is it possible to revive the confidence of ordinary Russians in investments, if the idea is supported that shareholders can be divided into right and wrong, passive and active ones?" asked Vasilyev.
Yevgeny Kovrov, head of a government agency set up to look out for the interests of investors in such schemes, said the case raised questions about the role of the securities commission. "Either the federal commission is prepared to protect investors," he said, "or it stands on the side of the companies which have already deceived them."
In another case that has drawn criticism, the securities commission has approved a plan by Russia's third-largest oil company, Surgutneftegaz, to issue 12 million new shares, which will be held by the management, diluting the shares of some minority investors. The oil company is considered to be one of Russia's best-run, but Vasilyev said the issuing of the new shares harmed the interests of some investors and helped the management consolidate control over the company.
Kostikov said through a spokesman that the shares were approved because the documents were in order and the commission "has not received any complaints from the investors' side regarding the company."
But a deputy chairman at the securities commission, Alexander Kolesnikov, has charged in a recent letter to the Russian government that Chairman Kostikov is trying to "paralyze and ruin" the securities commission, and that new shares in Surgutneftegaz were registered "despite obvious violation of the rights of minority shareholders of this company."
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The Russia Journal May 8-14, 2000 SEASON OF DISCONTENT: The first day of the second president By ANDREI PIONTKOVSKY
Dear reader, you are opening this paper just as the sun rises over the young Russian democracy. The process of handing power from the first democratically elected Russian president to the second democratically elected Russian president will be complete by Monday morning.
True, to get this particular second president elected, the enfeebled first presidentÆs entourage had to unleash a war that has taken the lives of thousands of Russian soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians and turned Chechnya into a smoking desert. The price to pay for democracy has been high. And have we finished paying yet?
There is a quite popular theory that having used the war effectively as a campaign instrument, President Vladimir Putin, as a sober-minded pragmatist, will now be able to seek a political solution through negotiations with the opposing side.
Certainly, the conflict has become so bogged down in guerilla warfare that it will go on for years, bringing no political dividends and wringing dry RussiaÆs human, economic and moral resources. The Chechens hated us, hate us and are certain to keep hating us. And sooner or later, we will have to enter negotiations with them. It would be better to do so sooner rather than later, unless, of course, we want to kill them all.
But unfortunately, Putin is not the totally cynical and pragmatic politician, the cold and calculating secret service man heÆs often portrayed as being. As far as Chechnya is concerned, Putin is a man of passion. Just look at how he transforms, how his eyes burn, how his jaw sets, how the emotionally loaded tones of underworld slang break through diplomatic etiquette when he turns from boring lectures on the economy to his favorite subject. And in this, he is immensely close to the people.
One of PutinÆs toadies exclaimed at one point that "Putin is Russia! Putin is us!," and he didnÆt realize how right he was without even trying. The Russian publicÆs attitude to the Chechen war is highly irrational. The war as a televised product turned out to be such a brilliant PR move precisely because it tugged at such deeply embedded strings in the Russian collective subconscious.
In killing the Chechens, we are getting our revenge on them, and, above all, on ourselves, for the 20th century that we lost and that promised to be a Russian century; for the colonies and satellite states that rushed from our grasp as soon as they had the chance; for the ruins of the superpower and the bandit capitalism we built on these ruins; for our society, in which no one, not the oligarchs, nor the former dissidents nor the former KGB investigators really feels at home.
Yes, terrible things happened in Chechnya ¡ hostage taking, slave trading, the invasion of Dagestan. But wasnÆt it our Boris Berezovsky who scurried on and off planes carrying cases with millions of dollars in his hands?
And werenÆt there incidents when our officers sold their own soldiers into slavery?
WasnÆt it our Vitaly Tretyakov praising in his newspaper the "brilliant operation our secret services carried out, luring Shamil Basayev and Khattab into Dagestan?" And wasnÆt it our FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev who held a training exercise in Ryazan?
Chechnya is our collective neurosis, our collective diagnosis. Our impotent colonel who strangled an 18-year-old female "sniper" is the psychoanalytical symbol of the Chechen war.
Chechnya is our last 20th century catastrophe, and we keep walking toward it, taking each other firmly by the hand and cheering our spirits with loud cries of how we will not let anyone stop us. Vladimir Putin is simply one of us. (Andrei Piontkovsky is director of Center of Strategic Research.)
****** Vremya MN May 4, 2000 [translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only] WHY HAS PUTIN BEEN ELECTED? Russian Society Demands Changes By Nikolai POPOV, Doctor of History, scientific director of the Agency for Regional Political Studies
Russians have elected Vladimir Putin as their next President, above all, because they look forward to changes. No matter how differently people imagine changes, they expect Putin to make them and such a mass longing for a changed course gives him a free hand to some degree. The only restriction he is likely to have is the unwillingness of people to return to socialism in its pure form - and this despite their strong anti-reform sentiments. Only 22% of Russians are for socialist comeback. Putin's success is, in large measure, the failure of democrats. Gennady Zyuganov more or less succeeded in preserving his traditional electorate comprising mostly the elderly, pensioners and the destitute. On the eve of each election we hear democratic politicians increasingly loudly criticized for their inability, explained by their excessive personal ambitions, to unite and set forth a common candidate, a common leader, thereby dispersing their forces and dividing the democratic electorate. After ten years of unsuccessful reforms the number of supporters of democracy in general, not only radical market reforms, reduced to only a quarter of the population. Russians were asked the following question on the eve of the March 26 voting: "Would you vote for a common presidential candidate of democratic and pro-market reform forces and movements?" Only 25% of respondents answered Yes and the rest either said No or had difficulty to answer this question. If only a quarter of Russians are for democracy the way it is understood in mass consciousness, what do people wait from Putin? Russians want order. Though they understand it differently, the majority see it as an end to crime and corruption. A third of Putin's supporters voted for him mostly because "he alone will restore order in the country." Russia is not the first country whose citizens oppose "rigid" order to "spineless" democracy and make their choice in favor of the former. But unlike many other countries, we do not add the word "law" to the word "order" - we do not say "law and order." In the US, for instance, conservatives emphasize "law and order," opposing this to social reforms. In our country the word "order" is more often followed by the phrase "at any price." So, such an order can only be ensured by a "firm hand", by a tough and unbending leader. That is why in the opinion polls conducted over the past two years the dominating answers have been "we need a strong arm" (42% of respondents said this on the eve of the election) and "power should be now concentrated in the same hands" (30%). Putin's image perfectly corresponds to the ideas of a "strong arm" and "order." Those who voted for him are sure that today we need a "strong arm" more badly than ever before. There is also the "Chechen factor." Indeed, Putin became popular shortly after the tough and successful actions against Chechen militants in Dagestan and then in Chechnya. Those who criticized him for Chechnya thought that he would lose much of his support as soon as casualties among federal troops and civilians began to grow. This has not happened, however. The military did not have to hurry up to report a victory in time for the election, and people did not expect quick success in the struggle against terrorists. Only 26% of Russians said on the eve of the election that "victims and suffering among the civilian population were too high and the war should be stopped," while 55% said that "during a war victims among civilians are inevitable and it is necessary to eliminate the bandits." Many Russians did not regard this as an anti-terrorist operation but sooner considered it an operation code-named Retribution, that is, a fair punishment of Chechnya for not only the atrocities committed by militants and trade in people but also for the victory of this "small Caucasian republic" over Russia in the first Chechen war. That defeat became a link in the chain of injuries on the "national pride of Great Russians," which also included a defeat in the Cold War, the disintegration of the USSR, "begging" the West for loans and disregard for the Russian position on Yugoslavia, which was perceived as our defeat from NATO. The provocation of Chechen militants in Dagestan was the last drop. That is why the majority of Russians regard the Chechen war as more than punishment of Chechen bandits. They see it as the recovery of "Russia's grandeur" and Putin as the symbol of this recovery. Putin's mandate is not based on any concrete promises to increase wages, reduce taxes, etc. His base is a number of strong fundamental sentiments in society such as a not quite conscious demand for radical change, revision of the course of reforms and regaining of national pride. He will not have to report any progress on these demands in several months. However, these expectations are too high to last much longer without being buttressed up by some concrete actions on the part of the authorities.
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US News and World Report May 15, 2000 [for personal use only] Ending a different cold war Russians are tired of fighting the elements By Christian Caryl
KAMCHATKA. Galina and Grigory Kulbashny are part of a great Russian migration. Already, millions of their countrymen have abandoned the demanding life in Russia's vast Arctic and near-Arctic regions. And perhaps 2 million others would leave if they could. So while sleet and slush mark springtime in their former Kamchatka home, the couple consider themselves fortunate to be in a new three-room apartment in the Volga River city of Saratov, in Russia's European heartland. Says Grigory, 60, "We're amazed at how early everything here has started to bloom."
Their relocation from Kamchatka, in the far northeastern corner of Siberia, is part of the unraveling of one of the great Soviet-era ventures in social engineering. For years, life in the Russian Far North was underwritten by the Soviet government as part of an ambitious scheme to develop distant regions containing some of the country's most lucrative natural resources--petroleum, rare metals, timber, and fish--that provide well over half the country's foreign-exchange earnings. Now the Russian government, in its turn, is subsidizing a retreat from those areas.
Life in the North was never easy, but the burdens of weather and distance were eased with extraordinary benefits: Workers were lured to the region with salaries three to four times higher than elsewhere in the U.S.S.R. and extra-long vacations in sunnier climes. Residents were provided with elaborate infrastructure, from indoor pools to sunlamp rooms for schoolchildren. Atomic-powered icebreakers brought supplies through frozen seas. Some of the settlers, of course, arrived less willingly--courtesy of the Gulag. All that, needless to say, came at a high price. But it was one that the Soviets were willing to pay. At its peak, funding for the North consumed a whopping 6 percent of Soviet gross national product.
Economic reality. But with the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the end of the old communist culture of senseless subsidies, economic reality set in. Northerners faced the real cost of food and fuel imported at exorbitant prices. And that, in turn, triggered wholesale flight from the North. Since the late 1980s, Kamchatka alone has lost a quarter of its population; from 1991 to 1999 almost 90,000 people left. Says Vladimir Baylyuchenko, a federal official in charge of the Kamchatka resettlement program: "It's mainly the working population that's leaving." Those remaining--many of them retirees and invalids--tend to be disproportionately dependent on government handouts. And paying for a pensioner in Kamchatka can be three times as expensive as in the European heartland.
But they're the ones who are also least likely to leave unless the government helps--usually by subsidizing affordable housing on "the Mainland," as Siberians habitually refer to the European part of Russia. "We lived here in this cold, and we want our children to see more of the sun," says Kamchatka retiree Nina Seleznyova, 53, who has another two years on the waiting list before she'll even be eligible for an apartment in southern Russia. The 1999 Russian budget set aside 1.2 billion rubles ($42 million) of housing subsidies, enough to relocate more than 6,000 families. The money, though, often gets diverted to other government needs (like the war in Chechnya) or dissipated in corruption. Last year, a muckraking journalist in Kamchatka published a list of 46 well-off local VIPs who had used the program to receive choice housing in areas in and around Moscow'Çôa destination coveted, but rarely received, by less privileged migrants. Among the beneficiaries: the wife of the regional prosecutor, several local police bosses, and a former deputy governor. Says Sergei Voyeykov, a journalist, "The program has been turned into a real feeding trough."
So Galina and Grigory know they are among the lucky ones. Their new state-built apartment in Saratov is the fruit of years of pestering the bureaucracy. Fellow immigrants from other northern regions pack the Kulbashnys' new building in Saratov. These transplants, with their culture of hardy self-sufficiency, have already started planting trees in the neighborhood, exulting in the enlivening springtime climate. But the Kulbashnys say that they've been shocked by the surrounding suburb, where chronic unemployment and drunkenness have left visible marks. "There is no joy in the people's eyes," says Grigory. "In Kamchatka, the people were more open, freer."
Perhaps. But Albina Redkina, 55, who remains in Kamchatka, chokes back tears as she wishes she could join the exodus. "If I had the money, I'd have already left a long time ago."
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The Russia Journal May 8-14, 2000 Editorial: The job ahead
Vladimir Putin is to be inaugurated as Russia's second president, and we can only wish him well. Few can envy his position. His is a throne of thorns.
And despite the initial hysteria surrounding the former KGB agent's election as president, from what Russia and the world has seen of Putin in the last couple of months, there are encouraging signs.
Putin seems to be an intense and serious character who understands that he must learn on the job as fast as he can. It is worth recalling that the president had no preparation for his new post ¡ he became prime minister-cum-acting-president-cum-elected president in a matter of months.
Perhaps he is still struggling with an inferiority complex and feels he can make a mark by being a "strong" leader of a "strong" state. He will need to understand that his role is not about good administration and politics alone. It will require statesmanship to pull Russia out of its current mire and forever alter the country's direction.
The main priority for the president must be to actually set priorities. There are areas in which, even if he cannot change the situation immediately, Putin can begin sending the right signals to the population over the next 100 days.
On the structural side, first, it is absolutely essential for Putin to strengthen and guarantee freedom of speech in Russia. Strengthening of democratic institutions and press freedom will play a tremendous role in resolving deeper problems in society. Attacking or undermining free speech will have disastrous consequences.
Second, Putin needs to look at judicial reform, which has been ignored over the past decade. It is critical that Russia has an independent judiciary that can be relied on to stand up to corrupt bureaucrats and the Mafia, and represent the rights of individuals and businesses, Russian and foreign. Putin could form a presidential commission on judicial reform, one bringing together the best minds from both East and West to formulate a new legal system for Russia.
Third, it is a nice coincidence that Putin's inauguration comes at the same time as the 55th anniversary of Russia's victory in World War II. The youngest of the veterans who participated in the war are now nearly 75 years old, and despite being looked after in Soviet times, they have suffered badly in the last decade's economic turmoil. It would be a fitting tribute to these brave men and women if they could be isolated from tough economic remedies by having their pensions raised in honor of their service to the country.
Fourth, Russia needs to begin investing more in its education system. It had a good system in Soviet times, but it has become degraded and does not equip young people with practical training for today's world.
In relation to administrative measures for the economy, an immediate task will need to be drastic disinvestment by the government of its holdings in Russia's natural monopolies. If a stable and transparent system of management is introduced to the monopolies, Western investment will flow into them.
The government should also produce a code of conduct for the bureaucracy ¡ one that clearly defines corrupt practices and appropriate penalties for such behavior. The government should cut the size of government and bureaucracy. It is likely that 75 percent of the bureaucracy could be cut without affecting administration of the country. Remaining bureaucrats should have salaries hiked, so that pitiful wages are no longer an excuse for corruption. On the economy, Putin would do well to listen to good advice from serious Russian economists. It is clear that Putin understands the need for tax and land reform, and we believe he could push relevant bills through parliament.
Then there is Chechnya. Putin must use all measures to bring the conflict to a close. A start would be to own up to Russia's mistakes and prosecute federal war criminals as well as Chechen bandits. If Putin fails to end the war, he could find that the war that helped him take the throne could become his Waterloo.
Putin also needs to learn the lessons of the Chechen conflict and tackle military reform. The draft should be ended and a smaller professional army built. Putin needs to take a risk and appoint a civilian defense minister ¡ it is high time for some radical thinking on military reform and it seems such thinking cannot come from within the militaryÆs ranks.
On this 55th anniversary of Russia's greatest victory, Putin owes it to the Russian people to show courage and decisiveness by pushing forward in all sectors and branches of society, allowing no decayed and corrupt institution to hold back the march to the future.
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Los Angeles Times May 7, 2000 [for personal use only] Russia's New First Lady Keeps Low Profile Politics: Ludmila Putin stayed in the shadows as a KGB agent's spouse, and she appears intent on remaining far from the world stage. By: MAURA REYNOLDS
MOSCOW -- Where in the world is Ludmila Putin?
Since Vladimir V. Putin became Russia's acting president on New Year's Eve, his wife has barely been seen and never heard. She has appeared in public less than half a dozen times--and then only briefly. Not once has she uttered a word. "I have absolutely no impression of her at all because I've never seen her at all," said Yulia Nazarova, 30, a part-time seamstress. "Maybe that's the way it should be."
Today, Russians are expected to get another, perhaps longer, look at their reclusive new first lady, when her husband is duly sworn in as president in a somber Kremlin ceremony.
Mrs. Putin won't be on stage, however--much less at her husband's side, as Americans might expect--when he takes the oath. She'll be somewhere in the audience. And she's such an unknown figure that most Russians will have to rely on TV commentators to pick her out of the crowd.
"She will play no official role in the inauguration ceremony," confirmed Natalia Timakova, deputy chief of the presidential press service.
Mrs. Putin, 42, is described as painfully shy, a consummate KGB wife. Her near-invisibility seems to be both her choice and her country's preference. Russia hasn't had a lot of experience with first ladies, and the country still seems uncomfortable with the idea of a public spouse.
"It's been said that Russians consider our leaders married to the country," said Masha Lipman, deputy editor of the Itogi news weekly. "So people are jealous of any wife that gets in the way."
Mrs. Putin's name appears in the inauguration program only once. After the oath, she is expected to have tea with her husband and former President Boris N. Yeltsin and his wife, Naina. The event has been described as private.
"This will have nothing to do with the transition of power," Timakova said. "It will just be a friendly, informal meeting."
Less than nine years after the Soviet collapse, Russia is still working out the symbols of public life. With little tradition to rely on, Kremlin officials have been working for weeks to come up with a ceremony that sends the right signals to a society that has broken with the past but is still developing a vision of the future. The position of first lady also is something of a do-it-yourself job. Ludmila Putin has only two real predecessors: the late Raisa Gorbachev, who rubbed Russians the wrong way by cultivating a public role, and Naina Yeltsin, who earned their respect by shunning it.
Still, Mrs. Yeltsin grew increasingly visible after a few years, becoming a familiar figure at her husband's side on public outings and foreign trips. She even played a modest political role, giving TV interviews to fend off questions about her husband's health and alleged financial improprieties by her daughters.
Mrs. Putin, at least so far, has been much more retiring. After all, both Raisa Gorbachev and Naina Yeltsin were wives of Communist Party officials and had performed at least some public functions before their husbands became president.
By contrast, Ludmila Putin, as a KGB wife, was trained to stay in the shadows and never, ever discuss her husband's business. A year ago, her husband was head of the KGB's main successor agency, the Federal Security Service, and her personal life was completely shrouded in secrecy.
It is still largely a subject of speculation. Mrs. Putin has given only one interview, to three handpicked journalists who compiled an "instant" biography of her husband before his election in March.
"In the KGB, there was an understanding: Don't discuss business with your wife," Mrs. Putin told them. "Excessive openness has been known to lead to tearful consequences. We always followed the principle that the less your wife knows, the more soundly you sleep at night."
But that was then. Now her husband is one of the world's most powerful, and public, leaders. And Mrs. Putin--a short, plump woman with a heart-shaped face and cropped blond hair--is unlikely to be able to keep herself completely out of public view.
For instance, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited in March with his wife, Cherie, Mrs. Putin was forced by protocol to complete the foursome when her husband brought the visitors to the opera. When Putin reciprocated by traveling to London last month, it would have been normal, even expected, for his wife to accompany him. But she stayed home.
"It's hard to come up with any other explanation except that she simply didn't know how" to make such a trip, Itogi's Lipman said.
Mrs. Putin grew up as Ludmila Alexandrovna Shkrebneva in the port city of Kaliningrad. She was 21 and working as a stewardess when she met Putin on a blind date during a three-day trip to Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known. He was five years her senior--and modest to a fault.
"He was dressed plainly, even, I would say, poorly," Mrs. Putin told the biographers. "He was so unremarkable I would have passed him on the street without noticing."
They dated for about three years before marrying. During that time, she gave up her job as a stewardess and enrolled in Leningrad State University, eventually earning a graduate degree in modern languages. Her future husband told her that he worked for the police, in "criminal investigations"--a common euphemism among KGB agents. But before they married, he told her the truth.
"At that time, the KGB, criminal investigations--it was all the same to me," Mrs. Putin said. "Of course, now I understand the difference."
The couple married in 1983, as Putin was studying for a foreign intelligence assignment with the KGB. It was well known that, for security reasons, foreign postings were available only to married agents, and there has been speculation that Putin was under pressure to find a spouse.
In 1985, the couple moved to Dresden, in what was then East Germany. Their first daughter, Masha, was born the same year, and a second daughter, Katya, was born a year later. The girls, now 15 and 13, attended a German-language school in Moscow until their father became acting president. Since then, they've been tutored at home.
Mrs. Putin has said her main job is to care for her daughters. Still, she told the biographers, she doesn't mind attending receptions as long as she has someone to talk to, especially if she gets to wear nice clothes.
"Women always like to dress up," she said. "As for politics, it has never interested me at all. It's boring."
Mrs. Putin has had her share of hardship. For the first years of her marriage, she shared a tiny two-room apartment with her in-laws. In 1994, she was seriously injured in a car accident, suffering a fractured skull and vertebrae, and underwent two years of rehabilitation. And in 1996, a new house that had taken six years to build burned to the ground just months after they moved in. Like most Russians, the Putins had no insurance.
Despite her higher education, Mrs. Putin seems to have a tendency to use slightly earthy language--a habit also shared by her husband. Some have speculated that she may be uncomfortable speaking publicly. In her five public appearances--opera with the Blairs, New Year's Eve with her husband in Chechnya, the funeral of her husband's former boss Anatoly A. Sobchak, skiing in February and voting with her husband March 26--she has kept silent.
It remains to be seen whether that will remain the case after the inauguration. But there is little sign that she intends to take cues from Western counterparts such as Hillary Rodham Clinton or Cherie Blair.
"Ludmila Alexandrovna Putina is not going to play any role in the presidential staff," Timakova said. "She doesn't and is not going to have an office in the Kremlin, nor does she have a press secretary."
The presidential press service will provide any necessary information about her participation in public events, Timakova said, "if such an occasion arises."
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Web page for CDI Russia Weekly: http://www.cdi.org/russia
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