#10
Novaya Gazeta
No. 90
December 10-16, 2001
GLEB PAVLOVSKY: IT IS BEST TO LIVE LIGHT IN RUSSIA
An interview with Gleb Pavlovsky, political consultant
Author: Nadezhda Kevorkova
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
TOP KREMLIN POLITICAL CONSULTANT GLEB PAVLOVSKY TALKS ABOUT HIS FORMAL AND INFORMAL STATUS IN THE KREMLIN. HE DISCUSSES BORIS BEREZOVSKY AND PRESIDENT PUTIN. HE COMMENTS ON PUTIN'S FOREIGN POLICY: "HE IS FROM ST. PETERSBURG; AND A GOOD MAN FROM ST. PETERSBURG CANNOT BE AN ENEMY OF THE WEST."
Question: Your relationship with the Kremlin: is it something that happens naturally and easily? You are not a state official after all...
Gleb Pavlovsky: I've been interacting with the Kremlin these last five years. Interaction is the process of working out a language. This is my language I use with the authorities. I'm a historian by background. I therefore understand the flaws of the authorities in Russia, the authorities' limitations, and the threats they pose. The authorities should be treated cautiously. They should not be screamed at or accused. The authorities are like a dangerous predator.
Question: And that's how you communicate with Putin? Without screaming or accusations?
Gleb Pavlovsky: Let me remind you I'm an adviser to the director of the presidential administration. I met the president, we talked, but I'm not his adviser, and that's an important [pomt. Talking to him is not my job.
Question: Whom do you find it more pleasant to talk to - Putin or Berezovsky?
Gleb Pavlovsky: They are absolutely different. I did not meet with Berezovsky too often. Our relationship is problematic. As for Putin... I think I understand his way of thinking (or I'm starting to), I think I understand his course. It is not so with Berezovsky. Actually, I have not even tried to understand it. We quarrelled with him a lot in the Kremlin. I dislike his style or what he forced on the state. Actually, it was Berezovsky himself who forced Putin's group to sever all ties with him. He drew first blood, as the saying goes. I think that was all right. Putin would have come to the same conclusion sooner or later.
Question: As rumor has it, Putin is a devout believer who sees leading Russia to an alliance with the West as his religious duty. Putin is rumored to be virtually a sect member. Do you think so?
Vladimir Putin: Putin is a sober Russian man. He is what Dostoyevsky called "a Russian European". As for members of sects, they do not learn anything new, they only force their truth on others. Putin is not like that. Putin is open. He is from St. Petersburg; and a good man from St. Petersburg cannot be an enemy of the West. But cautioun with regard to the West was typical of the first man from St. Petersburg as well: Peter the Great. It is typical of Russian common sense.
Question: Would you say our political elites are annoyed by Putin's turn toward the West?
Gleb Pavlovsky: This is an interesting question with regard to the elites, not the West. From the point of view of Moscow-based establishment, Putin's style is not a style of the elite. Who was the elite under Sobchak? Officers including men from secret services, professors, lawyers, and to a certain extent businessmen. And what about Moscow elites? Who comprises them? Bankers, criminals, and to a certain extent political scientists and political technologists. Political technologists horrified everyone in St. Petersburg... Putin is not a man of the elite for Moscow. He behaves differently, he speaks differently, he is unpredictable.
Style in the Kremlin has changed now. The people from St. Petersburg attach greater importance to family ties, they are more friendly. As far as Moscow is concerned, they are more closed. Men from the corridors of power could be encountered in clubs and restaurants in the past. Muscovites view men from St. Petersburg as a caste. IN St. Petersburg, however, they do not appear a caste.
Question: Does it mean a struggle between the elites? Between the people from the Federal Security Service and St. Petersburg?
Gleb Pavlovsky: The people from St. Petersburg can be easily counted. They do not see themselves as Muscovites see them. It's a kind of Moscow racism. Muscovites always feel other styles and cultures and prevent their absorption by Moscow. Tell a person every now and then that he is from St. Petersburg, and that's how he will eventually come to regard himself
Question: Who do you think supports Putin morally?
Gleb Pavlovsky: Figures indicate support of society.
Question: Why wouldn't you tell the authorities that it won't hurt to stop harassing the TV-6 network?
Gleb Pavlovsky: I'm absolutely certain it's not the authorities that have been harassing it. I even have a theory that I think rings true. It is big business, eager to present a Christmas gift to the authorities. And neither do I think the authorities asked them for it.
Question: We remember it from the Soviet history - the eagerness to guess the Master's wish...
Gleb Pavlovsky: We do. A great deal has happened in Russia throughout its history. Russia is a historic testing site. And I think that a great deal will happen yet. Precedents do not apply here, and neither does the European experience.
Question: Let's get back to the Christmas gift. So Putin cannot put an end to TV-6 harassment? Why don't you do something about it?
Gleb Pavlovsky: Because society doesn't set itself this task. It like being weak. It is very feminine in Russia. The self-assessment of society has to be changed first. It is too grand. And its evaluation of the authorities is too low.
Question: What about the president's approval rating then?
Gleb Pavlovsky: The authorities are really handling the tasks society should be specifying but has not been specifying. So many liberal reforms implemented in the last eighteen months, and the public takes it all for granted. But when the bureaucracy implements liberal reforms, it begins to consider itself all-important.
Question: A few words about negotiations with Aslan Maskhadov, if you don't mind. Do they indicate Putin's disillusionment with the generals and their abilities?
Gleb Pavlovsky: There are no negotiations as such with Maskhadov. There are but conversations, dialogues, and discourses. But all this is within the war, these are not details of a peaceful process. I do not see warring sides here. Zakayev doesn't represent all of Chechnya, and his partner in the meeting doesn't represent the federal authorities as such. This is just a political experiment I do not understand as yet.
Question: Do you have a solution?
Gleb Pavlovsky: I would like to have one but I do not. What I know is that neither the hostilities - they way they have been waged - nor the negotiations - the way they were organized - will ever lead us to the solution. Something else is apparently needed, in both areas.
Question: Putin fired some Northern Fleet commanders a year after the Kursk submarine disaster. The public is told there is no connection. What should the people think?
Gleb Pavlovsky: I'm not informed about the situation in the Army and Navy. I can only hope - and I do hope that the generals were not dismissed for the Kursk... or not for the Kursk alone. In my view, take any general or admiral, investigate what he has done over the last twelve months, and you will inevitably find something to dismiss him for. I do not know the Navy all that well, but I think other reasons and motives must have played a role. And before you ask, I don't like it that the reasons or motives are not being revealed.
Question: Here you are, in Moscow, at the center. You are close to the authorities, close to the regime whose image you have shaped, and you like it. Out there, beyond the myth, are starving people living without electricity or gas, and without hope. You probably remember what it is like out there.
Gleb Pavlovsky: I do.
Question: And you still insist that the regime has been active?
Gleb Pavlovsky: Pictures, even the darkest ones, are only pictures. Life is always more diverse. It is untrue to say that nothing has really changed. It is just that we do not see these changes from here. There is a difference, and it is huge. We had a certain civilization that we blew up; we did it, not the Americans or the Martians. For reasons the people who did it thought sufficient. Society sank into barbarism. That goes for the masses and the elites. They watch TV, what they themselves ordered to be shown, and make decisions on the basis of what they see on TV screens. This is a vicious circle. How can money come to these God-forsaken places? It is time we stopped being afraid of ourselves, stopped scaring ourselves with our own impoverishment.
Question: Do you think we have an opposition in Russia?
Gleb Pavlovsky: We are sadly short of opposition.
Question: An opposition cannot exist. The law on political parties was adopted, and we have only one party now. Ambitious oligarchs were driven into exile, all the rest were moved to an "equal distance" from the corridors of power and are looking for ways of getting back into favor...
Gleb Pavlovsky: This is the past. These days, we are witnessing the reverse process. Business is being brought closer to the authorities and forming a relationship with the government anew. Our society is weak when it comes to initiatives, and businesspeople are all we can rely on.
Question: Do you recommend a pact between business and government?
Gleb Pavlovsky: The bourgeoisie in Russia will always live in a cultural ghetto. This is part of our civilization.
Question: And you yourself, with regard to the ghetto? Are you inside or outside?
Gleb Pavlovsky: I'm outside. I'm here only for a time. Can't wait to get out.
Question: And what is needed for that?
Gleb Pavlovsky: Opening the door. It's best to live light in Russia.
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