Johnson's Russia List
#5619
29 December 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
2. Reuters: U.S. envoy hails ties, chides Russia on Chechnya. (Vershbow)
3. Moscow Times: 2001: A Year of Surprises, A Year to Remember.
4. Baltimore Sun: Douglas Birch, Oil is czarina of Russia's economy.
Industry is vital, subject to vagaries of climate, market.  
5. Los Angeles Times: Robyn Dixon, Russian Painter Brushes Away Regrets 
on Artistic Compromise. Marketplace: Sergei Yushkevich makes a comfortable 
living copying works but thinks wistfully of those who 'aimed higher.' 
6. Ilya Vinkovetsky reviews BATURIN et al., _EPOKHA EL'TSINA:
OCHERKI POLITICHESKOI ISTORII_. (A Chronicle for the Time of Boris)]

*******

#1
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and
Policy at Boston University

HEADLINES,
Friday, December 28, 2001
- Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the former chairman of the
presidential pardon commission, Anatoly Pristavkin, and thanked the
members of the commission -- which was recently dismissed -- for its ten
years of work.  
- President Putin met with leading members of the Accounting Chamber to
share his vision for the organization.  He would like it to become a
modern, democratic, politically neutral, and independent mechanism for
controlling the budget.
- Moscow's heavy traffic has been exacerbated by the recent snowfall.  For
the past week, cars move at the pace of pedestrians during rush hour.
- Ingush President Ruslan Aushev announced that he will sign an official
document relinquishing his position by the end of the day.
- Three days before the New Year, eighteen teachers in the Olga region of
Primorie (Maritime region) have begun a hunger strike, demanding the
payment of back wages.  The Primorie administration forwarded a million
rubles to the Olga region -- enough to give each teacher a 300 ruble [$10]
advance for the New Year.  The protesters refused the money, insisting on
a full payment.
- President Putin met with the seven presidential plenipotentiaries to the
federal districts to discuss the results of the past year of their work,
the distribution of power between the center and the regions, and the
creation of federal district commissions for supporting the development of
small business.
- The Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Yakutia has
officially scheduled the second round of presidential elections for
January 13th.  ALROSA Diamond Company President Vyacheslav Shtyrov (who
collected over 45 % of the vote in the first round) and SAPI
Financial-Industrial Group President Fedot Tumosov (17%) will be on the
ballot.
- An unusual play about Vladimir Vysotsky was performed at Moscow's
Taganka Theater.
- As of January 1st, OPEC will cut oil production by 1.5 million barrels a
day.
- In Tatarstan, a new bridge has been constructed over the Kama River.
- Four more sailors from the Kursk nuclear submarine have been buried in
St. Petersburg.
- Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matvienko honored 111 scientists and
teachers (mainly school and college text-book authors) with presidential
awards for their contribution to education in the Russian Federation.
- A fire broke out in the boiler room of the Safil-1 trawler, which had
been navigating near Japan.  Japanese rescue workers evacuated the 23 crew
members and transported them to the Korsakov Port on the Sakhalin Island.
There is no threat of an oil spill.
- A symbolic "change of power" took place in Moscow.  City Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov handed over the keys to the city to Ded Moroz [Father Frost], who
will reign over the city until January 13th.  A carnival procession
followed Ded Moroz through the city streets.  
- As the New Year approaches, illegal fireworks are flooding the Russian
market, primarily from Poland through Kaliningrad.

******

#2
U.S. envoy hails ties, chides Russia on Chechnya
  
MOSCOW, Dec 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said on Friday 
the United States and Russia were poised to become allies after cooperating 
in the "war on terrorism," but criticised Russia's record on human rights and 
Chechnya. 

Relations between the two capitals were currently "very good" and 
"partner-like," the U.S. envoy told Ekho Moskvy radio in comments translated 
into Russian. 

The two countries were beginning to forge an "allied relationship," he said, 
adding that the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities had accelerated the 
burgeoning friendship between President George W. Bush and Russian leader 
Vladimir Putin. 

Putin was the first statesman to contact Bush after the devastating attacks, 
and has been a stalwart supporter of the U.S. campaign to hunt and punish the 
perpetrators. 

Vershbow said the United States and Russia could build on their close 
cooperation over the campaign in Afghanistan, whose Taliban rulers refused to 
hand over the chief suspects in the September attacks, to advance democracy 
in Central Asia. 

The United States has hundreds of troops in the region as part of the 
military campaign in Afghanistan. 

"If the American presence could lead to stability and democracy in the 
region, then it shouldn't be seen as a threat (to Russia)," he said. 

Talk of the United States meddling in Russia's traditional sphere of 
influence smacked of outmoded thinking, when Moscow and Washington were Cold 
War rivals, he added. 

Despite Putin's criticism of Bush's decision to abandon the 1972 ABM arms 
control treaty, Vershbow said Washington and Moscow could work together on 
defence issues, including slashing nuclear arsenals and controversial U.S. 
missile defence plans. 

Despite the new friendly tone in U.S.-Russian relations, Vershbow pulled no 
punches on media freedoms, human rights and Chechnya. A decade after the end 
of communism democratic values, human rights and supremacy of the law were 
"still taking root." 

He defended Washington's right to voice concern about Russia's more than 
two-year military campaign in rebel Chechnya, and said "Russia must find a 
political solution to this conflict." However, he ruled out a mediation role 
by Washington. 

The U.S. envoy also criticised a court decision to declare bankrupt TV-6 
television station, the only major national channel independent of the 
Kremlin. 

And he signalled U.S. concern over the case of Grigory Pasko, a former naval 
captain turned eco-warrior given a four year jail term this week at the end 
of a retrial for espionage. 

Pasko was jailed for revealing the Russian navy's dumping of toxic waste in 
the Sea of Japan, but he denies acting illegally. 

******

#3
Moscow Times
December 28, 2001
2001: A Year of Surprises, A Year to Remember

The Moscow Times We asked prominent people from various walks of Russian life 
to answer the following question: What, in your opinion, were the most 
important, the most interesting and the most surprising events of 2001 for 
Russia? 

Nafigulla Ashirov, the supreme mufti of Asiatic Russia:

"I would say that the halt of the country's disintegration was the most 
important event in Russia in 2001. The regions stopped acting willfully, and 
the power structures got stronger throughout the country. At the same time, I 
wish to point to the loosening of inter-confessional and interethnic ties 
within Russian society, of which the war in Chechnya and the pogrom in 
Tsaritsyno in Moscow are the most vivid examples.

"For me, most surprising this year was the crumbling of Russia's status among 
the world's powers after Sept. 11. We suddenly gave up our military bases 
abroad, we lost our initiative in the Commonwealth of Independent States and 
we permitted American troops to occupy strategic positions near Russia's 
border. Sure, we all knew that such a collapse has been ripening for a long 
time, but anyway, it came unexpectedly."

Sergei Kovalyov, State Duma deputy and human rights advocate:

"This year has been abundant in important events that, however, can be 
characterized as negative for the country. The law on political parties, 
amendments to the media law and laws on fighting terrorism are monstrous and 
can be placed among the sad symbols of this year.

"The 'Za Steklom' show surprised me as another horrifying symbol of the 
departing epoch."

Olga Dergunova, managing director, Microsoft Russia and CIS:

"As a head of a technology company, I wish to point to the outgoing year's 
important trend of steady demand for information technology products in all 
segments of the market due to economic growth. 

"I consider the working out and the discussion of the federal program 
Electronic Russia to be the most interesting event of the year, and a meeting 
with the Russian president April 13 was the most surprising one. Until the 
very last moment, I didn't believe that Putin would meet the heads of IT 
companies working in Russia. But the meeting didn't just happen, it also 
brought practical results -- the tasks outlined at the meeting gradually 
began to be realized."

Leonid Olshansky, lawyer and member of the Human Rights Commissioner's expert 
council:

"The most important, most interesting and surprising event in Russia in 2001 
was the passage of the long-suffering new administrative code.

"It is important because we run into it 1,000 times a day -- when we cross a 
street or drive a car or do other simple things. People relatively rarely 
collide with the Criminal Code, while the administrative code is what 
regulates their everyday life.

"The passing of the code was a surprise because it had been floating between 
bureaucratic echelons for seven years and had been vetoed earlier by the 
president [Putin] and the Federation Council. We fiercely fought for 
enactment of the code and managed to root out of it a good deal of the 
repressive measures that were present in its previous version. And the story 
of our struggle and victory over the people in epaulettes, who were the main 
proponents of the repression, is of true interest."

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev:

"The most important thing for Russia that happened this year is that using 
all the experience available, the president has started turning the country 
in the right direction. Besides, one can only applaud the better mutual 
understanding the president now has with the nation.

"The most uplifting and surprising event for me is that we ultimately reached 
the unification of all social democratic forces of Russia. It is important 
now, when it is clear that neither the Communists nor the ultraliberals can 
offer a decent future. This [the unification] is what I have struggled for 
for years but could not accomplish earlier."

Irina Khakamada, State Duma deputy from the Union of Right Forces and deputy 
speaker:

"The most important event for Russia and for the whole world was the Sept. 11 
terrorist attacks in the United States. We have yet to understand the meaning 
of the event, but it is clear already that the world order and the 
disposition of the political and military powers were turned over and that 
the concealed processes that have been smoldering for years became explicit. 
The safety of the civilized world turned out to be an illusion. Russia had to 
define its position in the new political environment, and it did so, I 
believe, very astutely and wisely.

"The most interesting and surprising thing for me was an attempt to marry 
high culture with the 'low' passion for gambling, which I saw with my own 
eyes in Las Vegas. It was a joint exhibition of the Hermitage and the 
Guggenheim museums. It was the first experiment that I could remember when a 
serious museum was given a chance to earn money at an absolutely flippant 
location so that the 'moneybags' would spend not only on gambling in a 
casino, but also on art. For me, it was a success."

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the Moscow 
Patriarchate's Department of External Relations:

"The most important thing, in my opinion, was the change in the West's 
attitude toward Russia and the problem of terrorism in the wake of the tragic 
events of Sept. 11.

"The most interesting event, in my opinion, was the course and results of the 
Sixth World Russian People's Assembly [a forum of politicians, intellectuals 
and religious figures organized by Metropolitan Kirill, which held its latest 
session in December dedicated to tackling the consequences of terrorism and 
20th-century revolutions].

"The swift passing through the State Duma of economic and judicial reform 
bills proposed by the government was the most surprising development."

Nikolai Mikhailov, member of the board of directors of AFK Sistema and former 
first deputy defense minister:

"The most significant is Russia's clearly specified refusal to follow the IMF 
course and its decision to rely on its own power.

"The most interesting and also inspiring was the unification into one 
European currency, the euro. In such unification, genuine integration of 
opportunities is implemented. As an example and experience, we must 
definitely follow it.

"The most surprising is the coincidence in time and in character of the 
events in Afghanistan and the Middle East. There were no officially 
sanctioned actions, and it looks like now anyone could be proclaimed 
anything. Anything could be justified."

John McCallin, regional representative for the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Refugees in the Russian Federation and the United Nations 
humanitarian coordinator:

"In 2001, UNHCR marked the 50th Anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating 
to the Status of Refugees, which, as the first human rights instrument 
following the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, defines the rights of 
people who were forced to leave their homes and responsibilities of states 
toward these people. This instrument has enabled millions of refugees around 
the world to find safety and to build new lives. Russia was one of 140 
countries that ratified the convention. In my opinion, the commemoration of 
this anniversary in Russia was one of the most important events in 2001 
because it once more demonstrated the considerable progress Russia is making 
in protecting refugees' rights. 

"This year, Russia was among many countries that marked World Refugee Day for 
the first time. This was also a very important event for me and for UNHCR, 
which currently cares for some 21 million refugees, internally displaced 
people, stateless people and other groups of concern.

"In 2001, some positive and negative changes occurred in Russia concerning 
refugees' issues, which were important and interesting at the same time. The 
government passed the resolution on temporary asylum and the first 200 
asylum-seekers were granted temporary asylum in 12 regions of Russia. Courts 
on granting asylum to refugees reached more positive decisions. 

"On the other hand, the majority of asylumseekers in Moscow remain improperly 
documented, and xenophobic attitudes and incidents are the common fate of 
African asylum seekers in Moscow."

Stanislav Ilyasov, prime minister of the Kremlin-appointed Chechen government:

"The most important was that, at last, Chechnya -- the most painful spot in 
Russia -- started to revive. We paid all our debts in wage arrears, pensions 
and allowances, schools started to work, and all oil wells [that were on 
fire] were put out. A few banks, some enterprises, transportation and 
communications started to operate. Life is coming back here.

"The most interesting was that Chechnya grew its biggest-ever crops this year 
despite everything -- more than 200,000 tons.

"Surprising? I am surprised every day here. But the biggest my surprise is 
the great tolerance of the [Chechen] people."

Anna Politkovskaya, journalist, Novaya Gazeta:

"The most important was that the war in Chechnya did not end. That meeting of 
Viktor Kazantsev with [rebel leader Aslan] Maskhadov's envoy resulted in 
nothing; it was apparently only a PR action. 

"The most interesting fact for me was the fact that no one is interested in 
the second book that I wrote about our life in Russia with [President 
Vladimir] Putin, about how much we, Russian people, have changed, since this 
war has been on. I offered it to several publishers, but they neglected it.

"I was really surprised to see how the focus of attention of Russian 
journalists moved to Afghanistan to report about the war there while we have 
our Chechnya. I have just come from there, and I am surprised at how 
abandoned and helpless the local people are. They seem to be losing hope of 
getting help from either [head of the Kremlin-appointed Chechen government 
Stanislav] Ilyasov or [head of Kremlin-appointed Chechen administration 
Akhmad] Kadyrov. For example, Shali -- a big town -- has no gas, and 
tuberculosis is raging there, while all we hear are brave reports about the 
restoration works in Chechnya."

Viktor Pokhmelkin, State Duma deputy and Liberal Russia party co-chairman:

"The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have become a turning point for Russia, 
mainly because it forced Russia to reconsider the priorities in its foreign 
policy and become more pro-Western and more integrated into the global 
community.

"Unfortunately, due to the standardization of our life, this year has brought 
us little that was interesting. What became a pleasant surprise for me, a 
devoted theatergoer, is the fact that Moscow theaters perform to packed 
houses. While the political life of the country is dull, the cultural life is 
booming."

Filipp Kirkorov, pop singer:

"Apart from the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., which shocked me like everybody 
else, I should name the lifting of the Kursk [as the most important event of 
the year]. The oppressive feeling when the submarine was raised made me 
recall everything we had gone through a year earlier.

"As for the most interesting and surprising event ... I was captivated by 
'No. 13,' a performance by the Chekhov Art Theater. The play and the superb 
performance by [actor] Yevgeny Mironov was the strongest emotional experience 
I had this year."

Vladimir Pozner, anchor of the ORT television show "Vremena" and president of 
the Russian Television Academy:

"For me, the most important and the most surprising coincide. What I mean is 
President Putin's clearly pro-Western moves, which I see not so much as being 
tactical as being strategic and long-lasting. I don't think it is possible to 
exaggerate the importance of that, and, considering Russia's tradition, it is 
very surprising.

"The most interesting thing in this past year, in my opinion, were all the 
discussions surrounding the attempted cloning of a human being -- the 
reaction of conservative people, the reaction of the church and the reaction 
of scientists was the most interesting and actually thrilling of all the 
events in the year 2001."

Alexei Mitrofanov, State Duma deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party of 
Russia:

"This year has been rather stable and most favorable for the country's 
economy, but lacked bright and interesting events. Two things surprised me 
this year.

"Apart from its tragic side, the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States have 
changed our way of picturing the contemporary world. Leading wars has become 
pointless. It showed that a group of 20 airplane terrorists, or five letters 
with powder, is enough to keep the world in fear, and there is no need to 
beef up military power. 

"The 'Za Steklom' television show was rather surprising for me, as it showed 
how new technologies have made it possible to control everything and everyone 
in our world."
 
*******

#4
Baltimore Sun
December 28, 2001
Oil is czarina of Russia's economy
Industry is vital, subject to vagaries of climate, market 
By Douglas Birch
Sun Foreign Staff

NEAR KHARYAGA OIL CAMP, RUSSIA - Sitting next to his shortwave radio in a 
wood hut near the Arctic Circle, Vladimir Milukov keeps a lonely vigil over 
Russia's economic lifeblood. 

Every half-hour, he puts on his oil-proof parka and trudges into the 
deepening gloom of winter here, where temperatures reach 50 degrees below 
zero. He makes sure the seven wells clustered around the hut are pumping 
petroleum up through the permafrost fast enough. If a pump begins to fail and 
the pressure falls, the oil slows and cools, and the pipe can freeze solid - 
cutting the flow until next summer. 

Milukov has worked for seven years in the hut, with its big oil heater, 
blazing electric lights and wood benches. As senior man, he gets the day 
shift: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. In winter, he sees only a few hours of gray twilight. 
Winds roar through, shaking the walls. Blizzards make it seem as if someone 
painted his window white. Is he bored? "We are used to it," he shrugs. 

When things are quiet, he listens to the news on Radio Russia, sips tea and 
stares at the landscape. A few days ago, he watched a herd of thousands of 
reindeer sweep by. When a well begins to freeze, he radios for the dispatch 
of a team that forces boiling oil down the pipes. 

Thousands of wells across Russia together yield 7 million barrels of crude 
oil daily - making Russia the world's second-largest producer after Saudi 
Arabia. It's Russia's pumps and pipelines, many of them in some of Earth's 
most desolate regions, that have helped drive the country's economic revival 
for the past two years. 

But now that recovery is threatened by recession in the West and slumping oil 
demand. Oil prices have dropped from $28 a barrel in the month before Sept. 
11 to about $19 last week. 

Falling demand isn't the only problem. The Organization of Petroleum 
Exporting Countries recently called on nonmember Russia to cut exports by 5 
percent, or 150,000 barrels a day. Russia agreed, at least for the first 
three months of 2002. But analysts consider them phony production cuts. 
Because of severe cold in the Arctic fields, production always drops in 
winter. And while the Kremlin wields significant influence over the private 
oil industry, it has no direct power to regulate output. 

If Russia fails to reduce exports, OPEC has threatened a price war. That 
would be good news for the United States and other industrial nations. But it 
could mean hard times for Russia, where oil accounts for about 40 percent of 
its revenue from exports, says Professor Alexsay Khaitoun of the Russian 
Academy of the National Economy. 

Memories are still sharp among workers in Kharyaga of the last time oil 
prices fell, in the mid-1990s. 

The region's largest oil company, Komineft, pumped oil at a furious pace but 
wouldn't spend the money needed to repair broken equipment. Many wells had to 
be shut down. Workers weren't paid for months at a stretch; they eventually 
were put on eight-hour weeks. Oil workers and their families began to leave 
their homes in this region, about 1,000 miles northwest of Moscow. 

Government employees, high school graduates and retirees fled Usinsk - the 
main town of 60,000 people about 100 miles south of the Kharyaga camp. Usinsk 
eventually lost one resident out of five. 

Among those who stayed, there was a sharp increase in alcoholism and 
suicides. Residents talk of a man who sold his apartment for three bottles of 
vodka, of a woman who jumped off the roof of her apartment building with her 
baby in her arms - tales of despair. 

Komineft's aging oil pipeline sprang several leaks in the summer of 1994. But 
the company neither made repairs nor stopped the flow of oil. 

By some estimates, 700,000 barrels of oil spilled into the creeks, swamps and 
bogs that feed the meandering Kolva River. That's almost three times the 
volume that gushed from the hull of the Exxon Valdez off Alaska in 1989. In 
some areas, fish were nearly wiped out. 

Despite international criticism, little was done. Vladimir Zamoiski, who 
served as an environmental expert with a group set up to monitor the cleanup 
of the 1994 disaster, resigned in frustration a couple of years ago. 

"What kind of ecology could there be in a bandit state with a bandit 
economy?" he says. "A bandit ecology!" 

The industry was already an important source of hard currency in Soviet times 
and an indispensable tool for subsidizing shaky socialist regimes from 
Bucharest to Havana. Production peaked in 1988, when the industry produced 
11.4 million barrels a day - 63 percent more than Russia does today. 

But those levels could not be sustained. The Russians pumped oil out of the 
ground as quickly as possible, rather than using slower, more expensive 
techniques to squeeze the most oil out of each field. By the time the Soviet 
Union dissolved in 1991, many wells were running dry. 

When the industry was privatized, few Russian oil executives showed much 
interest in replacing rotting pipes, buying modern machine tools or drilling 
new wells. When oil prices dropped, there was less incentive to invest. The 
industry drifted to the brink of collapse. 

Then in the late 1990s, world oil prices began to rise, and the buccaneering 
oil business in Russia grew a little tamer. 

Lukoil, Russia's largest and best-run oil company, bought Komineft in 1999. 
It did what its predecessor had failed to do: renovated repair shops and 
refineries, laid new pipe and drilled new wells. The company brought in 
Western experts and technology to find new oil deposits and squeeze more 
petroleum out of existing fields. And it tripled the size of Komineft's work 
force. 

Meanwhile, Western oil companies resumed investing in Russia. Lukoil struck a 
deal with Conoco to drill offshore wells in the Barents Sea. Oil giants Royal 
Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco might join Russian companies to 
tap oil deposits off Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East. 

But to environmentalists, oil remains a dirty business. Company executives 
concede that nearly two-thirds of the 1,700 acres polluted by Lukoil's 
predecessor during the 1990s remains soaked in oil. Only about one-third of 
the Komineft's leak-prone, 26-year-old pipeline has been replaced with 
modern, corrosion-resistant pipe. 

When Oganes Targulan, special projects coordinator with Greenpeace, visited 
Usinsk in the summer of 2000, he saw oil leaks near the pipeline along the 
main road north. (Most of the polluted landscape is now hidden by snow.) 
Residents told him that new leaks occur all the time and said the company 
burns off some of its oil spills - a practice that pollutes the air and 
leaves a toxic residue. 

However, the company says the pipeline is closely monitored and can be shut 
down quickly if a spill occurs. Lukoil denies that it sets fire to spills. 

"It doesn't matter what Greenpeace people say, I operate only with facts," 
says Viktor Lukashov, environmental director of Lukoil. 

As oil prices fluctuate, Russia is holding its breath. Khaitoun, the 
economist, said Russia's oil companies can continue to expand if prices are 
$19 to $20 a barrel. Below $18 a barrel, he says, there will be little new 
development. Moscow and local governments will be forced to cut taxes on oil 
production. 

That would be very bad news for Usinsk. 

"The whole budget of the town is based on the taxes from the oil industry 
here," says Raviya Bikbaeva, head of the town's Department of Social 
Development. More than half of Russia's federal tax revenue comes from its 
oil and gas industries. 

If prices drift significantly lower, oil companies might find themselves 
breaking pledges that they would not cut salaries or staff. "We hope that the 
prices will not fall that low," Bikbaeva says. 

Meanwhile, progress in cleaning up the environment remains slow. 

This is a vast region of bogs, swamps and meandering rivers that cut through 
the dwarf birch and snow-clotted pine trees of the taiga. Abandoned derricks, 
oil tanks and "walkers" - teeter-totter style pumps that are now obsolete - 
litter the landscape. Plumes of orange flame and gray smoke bloom on the 
horizon, as waste gases are burned off. 

Kharyaga is little more than a scattering of metal Quonset huts, pipes and 
tanks. Nobody lives here permanently. About 210 Lukoil workers - including 
Milukov - work in 12-hour shifts for two weeks at a stretch. 

Geologists say the oil reserves that sprawl from the Urals in the east to the 
Barents Sea are the second-largest in Russia, after those in western Siberia. 

There is enough oil near Kharyaga, said Igor Revnyi, the manager of Lukoil's 
operations here, to keep pumping for the next century, "or even much longer." 

But the oil is deep - most of it more than 2 miles down. And it is loaded 
with paraffin, a waxy petroleum byproduct that lends this oil the consistency 
of chocolate mousse. (Russians, who love home remedies, use Kharyaga oil to 
treat cold sores and rheumatism.) The paraffin quickly gums up pumps and 
pipes. And the sluggish pace of pumping makes pipes more prone to freeze 
during the long northern winter. The nights are long, the work is 
never-ending. 

Since 1992, Mikulov has been stationed in the little wooden hut on the ragged 
edge of the world. The late 1990s, he says, brought great hardship. Komineft 
seldom paid him on time. He was forced to borrow money from friends and 
family, who had little to spare. 

Yes, things are better now, he says. He has money now and new job benefits. 
The town of Usinsk is booming. But would he want his 5-year-old son to work 
in the oil business? He stares at his callused hands and shakes his head. 

"No," he says. "It is too hard." 

*******

#5
Los Angeles Times
December 28, 2001
Russian Painter Brushes Away Regrets on Artistic Compromise
Marketplace: Sergei Yushkevich makes a comfortable living copying works but 
thinks wistfully of those who 'aimed higher.'
By ROBYN DIXON, TIMES STAFF WRITER

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- He started out convinced that he would become 
Russia's Picasso. But it's unlikely you will have heard of Sergei Yushkevich.

At 43, his hair is graying and slightly wispy, and the skin around his eyes 
is delicately etched with the wrinkles left by a million smiles. He knows he 
is good at what he does.

He wields his brushes and oils with dexterity and skill. But doubts swirl in 
his soul like snowflakes whipped by the winter wind outside his studio 
window. Is he an artist? When Yushkevich graduated from the Repin Institute 
of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in St. Petersburg in 1985, the Soviet 
artists' gravy train--which guaranteed a living to approved artists painting 
approved subjects--was chugging into decline. Artists were suddenly free. It 
was an exciting, inspiring, terrifying time. But those schooled in the only 
approved style, Socialist Realism, had a hard time figuring out who they were 
or could become.

Like yachts racing out on a stormy sea, Yushkevich and other young artists 
launched themselves into a chaotic, undeveloped art market. "I had no fear," 
Yushkevich recalled. "I felt optimism and enlightenment."

Artist Envies Creative Drive

Today, older and wiser, he derides much of what he did then, some of which, 
garish and amateur, is turned to the wall in his studio.

Sometimes Yushkevich thinks wistfully of artists who struggle--restless 
slaves to creativity who do not starve, yet barely survive. And he envies the 
hungry, creative kernel that makes their lives both torment and delight.

No matter that he lives quite comfortably, has a decent car, supports his 
family: He knows that as well-executed as his canvases are, they are only 
copies.

Oh, he might remove a horse or some other living beast from a masterpiece he 
is copying for the Arab hotel market. He might get a commission to paint the 
faces of an Englishwoman's children into a famous Impressionist work. He can 
paint seascapes galore for an American hotel. He can change the shape of a 
masterpiece to fit a space on someone's wall. He is fast, efficient and 
utterly reliable.

Whenever the icy regrets blow too hard in his soul, he impatiently brushes 
them away. He smiles with quiet philosophy, and the lines around his eyes 
deepen.

Life has sweet moments. When he puts the final brush stroke on one of his 
reproductions and takes a few paces back to find it turned out particularly 
well, he gets goose bumps.

"Vanity and ambition is not something that is alien to me. Of course, I 
should have aimed higher and become something bigger," Yushkevich said. "I'm 
trying to quell those feelings of envy and wistfulness. I think it's better 
to concentrate on the positive things. It's better to concentrate on enjoying 
the process."

"I don't consider myself a loser. The Picasso story didn't turn out. What I 
turned into was a normal, honest executor of paintings.

"Some people torture themselves with what they didn't achieve," Yushkevich 
said. "But if it doesn't come naturally, why torment yourself and your family 
because it didn't turn out that way?"

When Yushkevich was starting out, a Soviet state body called 
Kombinat--literally the Factory--was operating, listing thousands of art 
orders from all over the country. It guaranteed approved artists a living, 
even if they painted only a single work all year, perhaps a Lenin portrait 
for a factory somewhere in the Urals or a fairy tale scene for a kindergarten.

Yushkevich painted a series on the life of railway construction workers 
destined for a barracks.

Introducing Country to Contemporary Art

The Socialist Realist style was the only one Soviet art schools and the 
Kombinat required. According to Alexander Borovsky, head of the contemporary 
art department at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Russian art has not 
yet recovered.

"I thought the Kombinat would be forever, Soviet government forever, Lenin 
forever," Borovsky said. "I was 100% sure I could never do what I am doing 
now."

But in its final years, the Soviet state could not afford to pay artists for 
pictures of nuclear submarines or socialist visionaries. Officially sponsored 
artists and underground artists alike "felt themselves absolutely naked in 
the new situation," Borovsky said. "Ten years ago, no one knew what 
contemporary art was.

"People, especially old people, had a lot of trouble adjusting. Some of them 
sold their paintings in the street," Borovsky said. Others sold to new rich 
Russians.

Abstract art had been seen as anti-Soviet. There were huge gaps in Soviet art 
museums and ignorance among the population.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Borovsky has striven at the Russian 
Museum to foster an understanding of contemporary art--which he sees as a key 
step to creating a normal art market in Russia. The museum is running a large 
exhibition of contemporary Russian art.

Yushkevich said that what most artists produced at first was far below museum 
quality.

"People thought that now they were free they'd be able to produce something 
the likes of which the world had never seen. But when they got freedom, they 
were lost. They didn't know what to do."

Of his own early efforts to develop a contemporary style, now stacked in his 
studio, he said: "This is all rubbish. This is the manifestation of that 
freedom I was telling you about."

Demand for Russian Art Collapsed in 1990s

In the early 1990s Yushkevich sold still life paintings in Sweden, Finland 
and the Netherlands. The first time he went to Sweden, he sold six and made 
enough to buy his first car.

But international demand for Russian art collapsed in the 1990s because much 
of what was snapped up out of curiosity in the late 1980s was later judged to 
be junk.

With the Russian market undeveloped, the mid-1990s were tough. Yushkevich 
spent three years selling almost nothing, confused about what the market 
would accept. He eked out a living using his car as a freelance taxi.

In the late 1990s, through a Russian artist in Britain, Yushkevich started to 
get bulk orders for quality reproductions, 20 at a time. Yushkevich gathered 
a group of five to 10 artists, who were paid for their paintings by the 
square foot, reaping $700 or more for a work that might take a few weeks. 
Compared with many of his contemporaries, it was fantastic money.

The English firm was used to dealing with artists who specialized in one 
subject.

"They asked me strange questions: 'Can you paint a horse?' 'Yes.' 'Can you 
paint a man on a horse?' 'Yes.' 'Can you paint the sea?' 'Yes.'

"They were shocked. How could one person paint all these things?"

Sometimes he copies works in the Russian Museum. Sometimes his clients send 
pages from British art catalogs, with instructions for changes.

"It's going back to the idea of the Kombinat we had in Soviet times," 
Yushkevich said. "It's not highly paid. But it's guaranteed employment."

"I'm not driven by a creative desire to paint, like some," Yushkevich 
explained. "Sometimes it is enough for me to picture a painting in my head."

Even some purists are forced to compromise a little to avoid going hungry. 
Andrei Kolkutin, 44, of Nalchik in southern Russia, a classmate of Yushkevich 
at the Repin Institute, describes himself as a postmodernist. There have been 
occasions when there was nothing to eat in the house.

"But I never wavered, I never let it touch or affect my inspiration, my 
calling," he said by phone from his studio. "If I can't sell a single 
painting in a year, it doesn't mean that my attitude is wrong, that my art is 
not required. It is required by me and that is the main thing."

He has no car and lives simply. His wife lost her job as a waitress recently 
and probably won't get another. But Kolkutin said he would never take a more 
commercial path. To do so, he said, "kills your art and kills your soul. Why 
live then, if you are ready to kill or sell what you live for?"

With two daughters to support, Kolkutin can dash off a traditional landscape 
or still life and sell it when he is really desperate.

Last year, when a Danish gallery exhibited some of his works, he sold 36 of 
them, more than during the previous decade in Russia. But he shrugs at the 
good fortune.

"It is good that my paintings are sold now, but even if they were not it 
wouldn't affect the essence of my work. I will continue painting the way I 
feel I should, whether I am rich or poor."

There is no longer a confrontation between an artist and the state. An 
artist's work is his own choice. Yushkevich has chosen a less tortured path, 
but he respects artists who struggle against all odds for their creative 
ideals.

"That's what I lack," he said. "Maybe if I had it that way, things would be 
different for me now."

With deadlines to meet and reproductions to deliver, Yushkevich usually works 
12 or more hours a day. He slaves to achieve precisely the right highlight on 
a beetle or an ant.

"I never thought of changing my job," he said. "I don't know how to do 
anything else." 

*******

#6
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001
From: Ilya Vinkovetsky <vintik@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Subject: REVIEW: VINKOVETSKY ON BATURIN et al., _EPOKHA EL'TSINA:
  OCHERKI POLITICHESKOI ISTORII_.

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Russia@h-net.msu.edu (December, 2001)

Yu. M. Baturin, A. L. Il'in, V. F. Kadatskii, V. V. Kostikov, M.
A. Krasnov, A. Ya. Livshits, K. F. Nikiforov, L. G. Pikhoia, G.
A. Satarov. _Epokha El'tsina: Ocherki politicheskoi istorii_.
Moscow: Vagrius, 2001. 815 pp. Index. No price listed (cloth),
ISBN 5-264-00393-9.

Reviewed for H-List by Ilya Vinkovetsky
<vintik@uclink4.berkeley.edu>, Department of History, University
of California, Berkeley

A Chronicle for the Time of Boris

By resigning from the Presidency of Russia on the last day of 1999, Boris
Yeltsin has given us a good round number to mark the end of Russia's
twentieth century.  Historians are already beginning to put "the Yeltsin
era" into a broader historical context.[1]  Those who wish to look at
Yeltsin's Kremlin will have plenty of sources to choose from, including
several memoirs by close associates and three (partially ghostwritten)
autobiographies of the President himself.[2]  _Epokha El'tsina_, however,
differs from the rest of the memoir literature in both style and breadth.

The authors of this hefty tome are Boris Yeltsin's former press
secretary (Viacheslav Kostikov), advisers (Yurii Baturin,
Mikhail Krasnov, Aleksandr Livshits, Georgii Satarov), and
speech writers (Liudmila Pikhoia, Aleksandr Il'in, Vladimir
Kadatskii, Konstantin Nikiforov).  They chose to write the work
collectively, without claiming individual authorship for the
specific parts of the book, although at times the content makes
it appear obvious who is primarily responsible for a particular
section or chapter.  This book is dense and fairly
comprehensive--its 800 plus pages read more like 1500.  Part I
tells us Yeltsin's story up to the dissolution of the Soviet
Union.  Much of this is a rehash of Yeltsin's first
autobiography, but we also get interesting tidbits on Sverdlovsk
in the 1970s and 1980s, when Yeltsin was a prominent Party
leader there.  (Like many in Yeltsin's inner circle, some of the
authors have ties to Sverdlovsk; Pikhoia, for example, lived
there for many years.)  Part II covers the period between 1991
and October 1993; Part III continues the story up through the
1996 election; Part IV is wholly devoted to the first Chechen
War; and Part V chronicles Yeltsin's second term.  Within these
sizable parts, the work is organized more thematically than
chronologically, but there is inconsistency in this; while some
chapters cover broad subjects like the economy, military reform,
and legal reform, others deal with specific events, like coup
attempts and elections.

The authors' stated aim is to produce an account that is as objective and
balanced as possible, but it is clear from the outset that they have a
vested interest in presenting a certain image of their former boss and the
other major characters of the Administration and the Government.  They do
not want to embarrass "the first President" with any revelations yet
unknown, in the manner of Aleksandr Korzhakov.[3]  These are still Yeltsin's
loyal people.  They take the opportunity to settle some old scores with
personal rivals.  But that is to be expected.  Aside from the authors'
personal biases, the institutional bias of the Presidential Advisers Service
(_Sluzhba pomoshchnikov Prezidenta RF_), subordinated to Viktor Iliushin,
Yeltsin's chief adviser until after the 1996 election, to which most of the
authors (including the speechwriters) belonged, is evident throughout.  The
authors' dislike for Anatolii Chubais, for example, stems primarily from his
role in downgrading the Advisers Service as part of his reorganization of
Yeltsin's Administration in 1996-1997, after Iliushin had left the
Administration and was no longer there to protect his old subordinates.  But
at least the authors do not bother to make an attempt to conceal their
biases.  Instead, they give us an informative, if partisan, peek inside
Yeltsin's Kremlin.

_Epokha El'tsina_ is most authoritative and detailed on the period
1992-1996, when most of the authors were at the peak of their influence.
They devote well over a hundred pages to the first Chechen War, but
ultimately these pages are disappointing.  Far more ink is devoted to
defending the positions of Baturin and some others and to condemning the
reckless advise of the so-called war hawks than to analysis of the war
itself and the degree of Yeltsin's responsibility for it.  The book provides
little insight into the first Chechen War, except perhaps as a demonstration
of just how desperate the Yeltsin team was to create the impression that
the war was over and done with in time for the 1996 presidential election.

On the other hand, the book does provide a close look at the
day-to-day operations of Yeltsin's Administration.  The authors
delve into substantial detail on the structure and functioning
of the Presidential Administration (before and after Chubais's
reforms of late 1996) and its interaction with the Government
(particularly when it was headed by Viktor Chernomyrdin), the
legislature, and the courts.  This is the strength of this book.
Its description of the governing apparatus makes it a worthy
complement to Hough and Fainsod's work on the governance of the
Soviet Union.[4] In order to highlight the novelty of governance
in the post-Soviet order, especially after the adoption of the
new constitution in December 1993, the authors frequently make
explicit comparisons to the Soviet experience.

Despite its partisanship, the book is remarkably frank about
some of the abuses of the 1996 presidential election campaign.
Both the Yeltsin and the Zyuganov sides blatantly violated
election financing laws, the authors proclaim, and how could
things be otherwise?  Because both sides were complicit in the
violations, neither was in a position to accuse the other
publicly (p. 572).  The authors are quite open about the fact
that Yeltsin's campaign used considerable "Administration
resources" to win the election.  They excuse this violation,
arguing that similar incumbent-favoring practices are common in
other countries (p. 567).

The authors also recall some of the campaign promises.  For
example, on May 16, 1996, as the campaign was heading for the
home stretch, Yeltsin issued a decree establishing an
all-volunteer army for Russia by the year 2000.  The authors
write that this was a blatantly populist initiative, conceived
by the election campaign team, and never meant to be
implemented.  Baturin protested against this misleading measure;
many in the military were also disturbed.  Nevertheless, the
decree was adopted with much fanfare.  The authors see nothing
wrong with this tactic.  Such are "the rules of the game," they
argue, and "most voters" knew that this "promise" was a lie;
lies are part of the election "ritual" and are totally
acceptable in the context of an election campaign (p. 462).

This kind of glib reasoning displays the cynical side of these
Yeltsin camp insiders.  After all, at least some people did
believe--naively, to be sure--at least some of the lies, and
these former advisers know it.  The ethics of deceiving voters
on such an emotionally-charged issue as the military draft are
not as clear cut as they present them here.

Boris Berezovsky is presented as playing an instrumental role in
getting Yeltsin re-elected.  The importance of Berezovsky and
the other so-called oligarchs in the 1996 election is well
known, but it is the candid emphasis on his instrumentality that
is striking in this account.  By contrast, in Leon Aron's
biography of Yeltsin, it is Satarov, one of the authors of
_Epokha El'tsina_, who is so credited.[5] In Yeltsin's own
memoir, he adopts a dismissive and irritated, if revealing,
posture toward the billionaire--"I don't like him," Yeltsin
writes, "because of his arrogant tone, his scandalous
reputation,and because people believe he has special influence
in the Kremlin.  He doesn't."[6] And yet in _Epokha
El'tsina_--even with Satarov as one of the authors--Berezovsky
emerges as Yeltsin's savior.  Even as the tycoon participated in
the meetings of Yeltsin's initial re-election team (coordinated
by Korzhakov and Oleg Soskovets), he quickly saw that this
team's strategy would lead Yeltsin to certain electoral
disaster, and soon convinced Yeltsin's daughter, Tat'iana
D'iachenko, who also attended these meetings, of the urgent need
to change course (p. 554).  It was Berezovsky, the authors
emphasize, who then took the initiative at Davos in late January
1996 to organize and unite the oligarchs to back and finance
Yeltsin, and to recruit Chubais to head an alternative
re-election campaign team (p. 556).  The rest is history: the
Chubais team's strategy is widely acknowledged with getting
Yeltsin re-elected.

The authors speak with disappointment about Yeltsin's second
term, complaining first about Chubais, then the oligarchs, and
then, especially, the "Family."  Former advisers all, the
authors also view the decline as somewhat connected to their own
waning influence and, in some cases, dismissals (p. 715). They
state emphatically that Yeltsin was preoccupied with finding a
successor throughout his later years in the Kremlin, and most
poignantly after the default of August 1998; after briefly
considering and discarding liberals for the role (notably Boris
Nemtsov), the authors note that Yeltsin began, as if to
compensate for the loss of his old bodyguard, to look primarily
at "young Korzhakov types"; the most prominent candidates were,
respectively, Nikolai Bordiuzha, Sergei Stepashin, and finally
Vladimir Putin (p. 782).

The final chapter of the book; "Yeltsin--the Myth, the Man, the
Politician"  (pp. 792-804) serves as the book's conclusion.
Here the authors argue against the common perception that
Yeltsin was motivated primarily by the desire to acquire and
maintain power (pp. 792-94).[7] In decisive moments, the authors
contend, Yeltsin was primarily motivated by a sense of mission
(p. 795).  "It is indisputable that Yeltsin loved power and had
the ability to fight for it," they write.  "He enjoyed its
outward attributes, popularity among the people, and the
trembling of his retainers.  But when he had to choose between
power and mission, he chose mission" (p. 795).  As evidence, the
authors emphasize Yeltsin's now famous 1987 Central Committee
outburst, arguing that at the time such an outrageous act could
not but put an end to one's career (p. 793).  They further argue
that had Yeltsin wanted to be a real dictator, he would have had
several chances, especially in the aftermath of the
confrontation of October 1993, when Yeltsin's response was to
hold the elections at the earliest possible date.

The authors also argue against the myth of Yeltsin's apparent
unpredictability.  On a grand scale, they contend, Yeltsin could
change tactics endlessly and with great skill but in the long
run he invariably returned to the pursuit of the same mission
that he chose at the beginning of his coming to power (p. 795).
As for the "unpredictability" of his tactics--that too is
exaggerated; many of the moves that seemed unpredictable were
well thought out long in advance--as an example, they cite the
March 1998 dismissal of Chernomyrdin's Government (p. 796).

This last point needs an explanation.  Earlier on in the book,
the authors discuss in detail what they call the "experiment" of
1997--Yeltsin's attempt to combine Chernomyrdin and his team
with the team of young reformers.  Chernomyrdin was regarded as
a strong Prime Minister, the thinking went, and the reformers
(Nemtsov, Chubais, and others) could conduct the reforms under
his protection--and his tempering influence.  At that time the
President liked to praise the Premier publicly, and in April
1997, we learn from _Epokha El'tsina_, Yeltsin even gave an
order to his speechwriters to provide assistance in building up
Chernomyrdin's image rhetorically (p.  729).  But when Yeltsin
did let go of Chernomyrdin in March 1998, he felt that he was
late by exactly a year (p. 731).  He deemed the "experiment" of
1997 a failure (p. 731).

The authors write that Yeltsin had planned the sacking of
Chernomyrdin long in advance.  His motives for replacing
Chernomyrdin with Sergei Kirienko had everything to do with
Yeltsin's sense of mission--and the desire to go down in history
as a great reformer of Russia.  He wanted to use the new
Government to initiate a fresh round of reforms--like those
produced by Yegor Gaidar's Government in 1992--in time before
the dawning of the 1999-2000 electoral season (p. 732).  The
formation of the Kirienko Government, the authors write, was
Yeltsin's last attempt to push through decisive economic reforms
(p. 732).

Earlier in this review, I have argued that the primary value of
this book is in the details.  Concrete examples now follow,
mainly from the section of the book devoted to Yeltsin's first
term.  As the authors were, after all, Yeltsin's advisers, it is
to be expected that the President looms large throughout the
book.  Having observed Yeltsin making strategic and tactical
decisions from up close, the authors are in a position to
provide insight into his approach to governing Russia.  Given
Yeltsin's personalistic governing style, it should come as no
surprise that face-to-face interaction between the President and
the Prime Minister constituted one of the most effective levers
of Presidential power.  The President and the Prime Minister
held weekly meetings behind closed doors.  During these private
encounters, the authors write, the President's word to the Prime
Minister was absolute law--it had to be obeyed.  Unlike written
edicts (_ukazy_), oral orders given by the President to the
Prime Minister were implemented without fail.  As the authors
clarify; "words said eye to eye carried more weight in the
apparat than papers.  That, perhaps, is our political tradition"
(p. 424).

This "political tradition" went a long way.  The authors report
that Yeltsin emphasized the oral and the personal in his
relations with all the forces he deemed important in Russian
politics.  Take, for example, their portrayal of his
relationship with the military.  Yeltsin often visited various
military units, especially in times when he felt threatened.  In
cultivating the armed forces, the President arranged lengthy
banquets with the generals.  The generals appreciated this
attention.  As they raised toasts and drank together, Yeltsin
took measure of their willingness to back him should a crisis
come up (p. 152).  Tellingly, he visited the Tamanskaya and the
Kantemirovskaya divisions outside Moscow on August 30, 1993;
these would be the military units that would be utilized by the
President's side in October 1993 (p. 350).  During that visit,
the President viewed military exercises--including tanks
shooting.  After the exercises, he sat down for a long dinner in
a military tent with the officers of these divisions and the
highest-ranking military officials who had come from Moscow for
the event.  The officers drank to the President's health, yelled
"Hurrah!" and assured him of their support (p. 350).

The authors relate an early episode that sheds another light on
Yeltsin's handling of the military.  In the turbulent days of
January 1992, an all-army officer meeting took place in the
Kremlin.  The highly emotional meeting brought together well
over four thousand participants, from all over the freshly
divided Soviet Union.  Yeltsin, Nursultan Nazarbaev, and Askar
Akaev came to attend in the morning; but after the lunch break,
only Yeltsin remained.  Visibly nervous, according to his former
adviser, he rose to address the officers, telling them that
Russia and Kazakhstan were for keeping the CIS military forces
united.  Yeltsin's speech was able to take off the edge of
emotion at the gathering, even though the officers remained
anxious about the future.  This was the last time such a
congress of military officers was held.  Russia's minister of
defense soon issued an order, whereby officers participating in
such meetings were subject to dismissal (pp. 445-446).

Of no lesser consequence has been Yeltsin's equally personalized
style of dealing with the country's regional elites.  It was by
the summer of 1993, the authors report, as Yeltsin's conflict
with the Supreme Soviet was coming to a boil, that the President
solidified his co-optation strategy for the regional bosses.
Part of the idea was to court the regional leaders regardless of
their professed ideologies, and then, so the reasoning went,
many of them would tone down their rhetoric and come around to
his side.  So Yeltsin put on the charm offensive, "delicately"
reaching out to selected regional leaders.  He handed out such
perks as prestigious posts, access to the best medical care,
cars, dachas and Moscow apartments.  Drawing on the experience
of his own nomenklatura and regional leader past, Yeltsin had
considerable success with this co-optation and patronage
strategy (p. 339).

Yeltsin's particular specialty was co-opting and converting the
"practical-minded" among the former Communists.  Prominent early
examples included Yegor Stroev, the Communist leader of the Orel
region, who came into office with strident anti-Yeltsin
rhetoric, which was rapidly toned down with the help of the
President's "carrots," and Ivan Rybkin, the speaker of the first
(post-1993) Duma.  Yeltsin saw through the veneer of the
rhetoric of these politicians and understood their mentality.
Aside from the obvious perks, these politicians were induced to
make a move toward the center and increasing cooperation with
the Kremlin by pragmatic political considerations.  Even Viktor
Chernomyrdin, Yeltsin's Prime Minister from 1992 to 1998, whose
transformation was perhaps the most successful, fit the pattern
(p. 339).

Yeltsin was adept at using the carrot of access to the Kremlin
to draw various politicians to his side, especially in times of
crisis.  He invited important political actors to confidential
meetings.  A personal meeting with the President was a big
deal--politicians of all stripes competed with each other to get
this privilege (p. 340).  Many of the politicians who detested
Yeltsin, "still felt an odd attraction," the authors report (p.
340).  Regional leaders who came to see Yeltsin for an audience
quickly learned that he liked to make spontaneous on-the-spot
decisions, granting favors without consultation with advisers.
They thus came to him with requests, which he often granted (p.
435).  This kind of personal intervention was not conducive to
institution building, to say the least, but, the authors argue,
the President's modus operandi was politically astute because
Russia's regional leaders, brought up as they were in the Soviet
order, sought a visible demonstration of "who is the boss."
Having the _apparat_ appear more powerful than the President
would have made Yeltsin appear weak in their eyes (p. 435).

Yeltsin's trips around the regions were dubbed "_poezdki po
gubernatoram_"  ("visits to the governors").  He also
established the practice of meeting the governors
semi-officially in Moscow.  "As a rule," the authors report,
"about 15-20 people at a time were invited to these meetings,"
which took place in the relaxed settings of cottages well
outside the Kremlin walls ( most often, in the "ABTs" residence
in southwest Moscow), "and constituted an exchange of opinions
in a roundtable format.  Afterward, there was always dinner,
where the conversation would continue, sometimes for several
hours" (p. 397).  As with the armed forces, Yeltsin played
master of the banquet.

Especially after the 1993 constitution went into effect, Yeltsin
gave regional leaders plenty of leeway as long as they supported
him, or at least stayed out of the way, as he battled his
opponents in Moscow (p. 397).  Yeltsin was willing to trade
autonomy for loyalty.  "In exchange for political loyalty, he
could forgive a lot, especially to regional leaders"  (p. 339).
Aside from the glaring example of Chechnya--and in part perhaps
because of it--Yeltsin tried not to challenge regional leaders
(p. 397).  On some issues, the President even took the side of
the regions (or a particular region) against his own Prime
Minister's Government--Yeltsin claimed to seek "balance" in
center-regional relations (p. 397).  We learn elsewhere--not
from _Epokha El'tsina_--that in November 1993, Yeltsin
personally inserted an amendment to the new constitution to
allow regional governors and republic presidents to become
members of the Federation Council.  This move opened the door to
wide scale corruption for regional bosses.  As Lilia Shevtsova
has pointed out,"parliamentary status conferred legal immunity
from criminal prosecution, so the powerful bureaucrats could use
their powers to enrich themselves without fear."[8]

By 1996, the authors of _Epokha El'tsina_ claim, Presidential
advisers drafted a proposal for establishing a mechanism for
removing from office those governors who were violating laws.
Yet, at that time Yeltsin had more pressing problems in Moscow,
and the project was shelved (p. 398).  It seems that "the
Yeltsin era" as a whole--this was, after all, a time when the
Soviet Union collapsed yet the Moscow bureaucracy grew--was
plagued by a ceaseless succession of such pressing problems.

Notes
[1]. For an early sign, see Stephen Kotkin, _Armageddon Averted:
The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000_ (New York and Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press, 2001).
[2]. Yeltsin's three autobiographies, all of them ghostwritten
to various degrees by Aleksandr Yumashev, are:_Ispoved' na
zadannuiu temu_ (Sverdlovsk:  Sredne-Ural'skoe knizhnoe
izdatel'stvo, 1990), _Zapiski prezidenta_ (Moscow:  "Ogonek",
1994), and _Prezidentskii marafon_ (Moscow: AST, 2000).  One of
the authors of the present volume also produced a previous
memoir:  Viacheslav Kostikov, _Roman s prezidentom: Zapiski
press-sekretaria_ (Moscow: "Vagrius," 1997).
[3]. Aleksandr Korzhakov, _Boris El'tsin: Ot rassveta do zakata_
(Moscow:  Interbuk, 1997).
[4]. Jerry F. Hough and Merle Fainsod, _How the Soviet Union is
Governed_ (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).
[5]. Leon Aron, _Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life_ (London:
HarpersCollins Publishers, 2000), pp. 580-591.
[6]. Yeltsin, _Prezidentskii marafon_ (Moscow: AST, 2000), p.
109.  For the English-language version see Boris Yeltsin,
_Midnight Diaries_, trans.  by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick (New
York: Public Affairs, 2000), p. 98.
[7]. One of the most articulate relatively early presentations
of this view is in Tatyana Tolstaya's review of Yeltsin's second
autobiography: Tatyana Tolstaya, "Boris the First," _The New
York Review of Books_, vol. XLI, no.  12 (June 23, 1994), pp.
3-5.
[8]. Lilia Shevtsova, _Yeltsin's Russia: Myths and Reality_
(Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
1999), p. 93.
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