44 Quotations from Yel’tsin, Marafon, 74, 77. In addition to stylistic aspects, Lebed shared some physical features with Yeltsin. His nose had been broken repeatedly in boxing matches, and as a party trick he flattened it against his face “like a pancake.” Michael Specter, “The Wars of Aleksandr Ivanovich Lebed,” New York Times Magazine, October 13, 1996.
45 The two had a relationship. Lebed had kept up communication with Korzhakov after his dismissal. When Lebed resigned from his Duma seat, representing Tula province, in order to take up his position with Yeltsin, Korzhakov declared his candidacy. Lebed accompanied Korzhakov to Tula and introduced him as his favored candidate. Korzhakov eventually won the election.
46 Valentin Yumashev, third interview with the author (September 13, 2006).
47 Baturin et al., Epokha, 773–74.
48 Yeltsin’s chief of staff at the time, Valentin Yumashev, who was new to the job and was rarely involved in security decisions, is quite sure that Yeltsin had lost patience with Rodionov and went in intent on removing him. Third Yumashev interview. For background analysis, see Viktor Baranets, Yel’tsin i yego generaly (Yeltsin and his generals) (Moscow: Sovershenno sekretno, 1997); and Dale R. Herspring, The Kremlin and the High Command: Presidential Impact on the Russian Military from Gorbachev to Putin (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2006).
49 Rodionov lamented to journalists that the meeting was conducted “in the spirit of a session of the bureau of a [CPSU] obkom.” He had told Yeltsin a few days before, he said, that he needed thirty minutes for his report, and the president had not objected. Rodionov claimed that Yeltsin further sliced his time allotment to ten minutes after Rodionov protested the fifteen-minute quota, and then called for a show of hands on dismissing him. Rodionov tried to leave the room at that point but Yeltsin ordered him to stay. Vladimir Kiselëv, “Posle otstavki” (After retirement), Obshchaya gazeta, May 29, 1997.
50 Fragments of Yeltsin’s remarks can be found in “Yel’tsin o natsional’noi ideye” (Yeltsin on the national idea), Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 13, 1996; and Mikhail Lantsman, “Prezident poruchil doverennym litsam naiti natsional’nuyu ideyu” (The president assigned his campaign aides to find a national idea), Segodnya, July 15, 1996.
51 Stepan Kiselëv, “Georgii Satarov: natsional’naya ideya—eto nebol’no” (George Satarov says the national idea will not hurt anyone), Izvestiya, July 19, 1996.
52 Details in Bronwyn McLaren, “Big Brains Bog Down in Hunt for Russian Idea,” Moscow Times, August 9, 1997; Michael E. Urban, “Remythologising the Russian State,” Europe-Asia Studies 50 (September 1998), 969–92; Kathleen E. Smith, Mythmaking in the New Russia: Politics and Memory in the Yeltsin Era (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 158–65; and Andrew Meier, Black Earth: A Journey through Russia after the Fall (New York: Norton, 2003), 338. The anthology is Georgii Satarov, ed., Rossiya v poiskakh idei: analiz pressy (Russia in search of an idea: analysis of the press) (Moscow: Gruppa konsul’tantov pri Administratsii Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1997). Yeltsin did not mention the national-idea commission in his annual address to parliament, in March 1997, or in the final volume of his memoirs in 2000.
53 Andrei Zagorodnikov, “Svyato mesto pusto ne byvayet” (A holy place is never empty), Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 30, 1996.
54 First Chubais interview.
55 Smith, Mythmaking, 84.
56 Askar Akayev, interview with the author (September 29, 2004).
57 Yeltsin in Marafon, 396, mentioned one invitation, but family members in interviews said there were several.
58 Valentin Yumashev, second interview with the author (September 11, 2006).
59 S. Alekhin, “Boris Yel’tsin: sokhranit’ kul’turu—svyataya obyazannost’” (Boris Yeltsin thinks it is a sacred duty to conserve our culture), Rossiskaya gazeta, June 10, 1997; Viktoriya Shokhina and Igor’ Zotov, “Vizit” (Visit), Nezavisimaya gazeta, June 7, 1997.
60 Russians favored reburial by 48 percent to 38 percent when first surveyed in March 1997 and by as much as 55 percent to 34 percent in July 1998. In August 1999 the percentages for and against were tied at 41. A. Petrova, “Lenin’s Body Burial,” http:/bd.english.fom.ru/report/cat/societas/rus_im/zahoronenie_v_i_lenina/eof993304.
61 An American journalist aptly remarked that some on the Russian left thought communism was only slumbering and that Lenin, “lying in his glass coffin like Sleeping Beauty, is keeping the movement alive.” Alessandra Stanley, “Czar and Lenin Share Fate: Neither Can Rest in Peace,” New York Times, April 9, 1997.
62 Boris Yeltsin, second interview with the author (February 9, 2002).
63 He made this clear in conversations at the time with Boris Nemtsov, who was in charge of the reburial. Nemtsov, second interview with the author (February 6, 2002).
64 This summary does not do justice to the complexity of Russian attitudes toward the last of the Romanovs. They are well analyzed in Wendy Slater, “Relics, Remains, and Revisionism: Narratives of Nicholas II in Contemporary Russia,” Rethinking History 9 (March 2005), 53–70. The Orthodox abroad, who had always been strongly anti-communist, had control of a female’s finger which they claimed was the only true relic of the family. No tissue attributable to Nicholas and Alexandra’s hemophilic son, Aleksei, or their third daughter, Mariya, was found, which fed the suspicion of the clergy abroad. Yekaterinburg archeologists in July 2007 unearthed remains at Koptyaki that seem to be those of Aleksei and Mariya.
65 Wrote one Russian observer, “Yeltsin made a tactical move of genius, making fools out of the rivals who believed his words and refused to participate in the burial.” The observer suspected Yeltsin saw the ceremony as the first step toward another election campaign in 2000, and Luzhkov was openly eyeing a presidential run. Melor Sturua, “Puteshestviye iz Moskvy v Peterburg za tsarskiye pokhorony” (A trip from Moscow to St. Petersburg for the tsar’s funeral), Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 21, 1998. Political calculations aside, it was reported in 1998, and confirmed by Boris Nemtsov in his second interview with me, that Yeltsin resolved his doubts about participating only after a conversation about the merits of the case with Academician Dmitrii Likhachëv, a leading Russian medievalist and Gulag survivor whom he held in high regard.
66 “Vystupleniye Prezidenta RF Borisa Yel’tsina na traurnoi tseremonii v Sankt-Peterburge” (Statement of President Boris Yeltsin at the funeral ceremony in St. Petersburg), Rossiiskaya gazeta, July 18, 1998.
67 Iosif Raikhel’gauz, “Kak ya gotovil prezidentskoye poslaniye” (How I prepared the presidential message), Ogonëk, November 17, 2000.
68 “Poslaniye Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii Federal’nomu Sobraniyu, ‘Poryadok vo vlasti—poryadok v strane’” (Message of the president of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly, “Order in government, order in the country) (Moscow: Rossiiskaya Federatsiya, 1997), 5–6.
69 Ibid., 9, 29.
70 Lebed was more ambitious than Korzhakov and had already had success as an independent politico. But he lacked the resource that was vital to Korzhakov’s influence—a friendship with Yeltsin.
71 Eugene Huskey, Presidential Power in Russia (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 87–96.
72 Baturin et al., Epokha, 719.
73 Yurii Baturin, interview with the author (June 3, 2002). Schooled in rocket science, law, and journalism, Baturin had been rejected by the Soviet program for poor eyesight. He flew to the Mir space station in 1998 and in 2001 to the international space station with Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist.
74 The membership fluctuated. Valentin Yumashev chaired it after Boiko. Other members of the group in 1996–98 included Tatyana Dyachenko, press secretary Sergei Yastrzhembskii, poll taker Aleksandr Oslon, political consultant Gleb Pavlovskii, Georgii Satarov and Mikhail Lesin of Yeltsin’s staff, and Igor Malashenko of NTV.
75 In Marafon, 41, Yeltsin says it was Chubais who asked him to clarify her status. Chubais left the Kremlin for the Council of Ministers in mid-March, so the matter took
some time to settle and was left to Yumashev to implement.
76 All these points are from the third Yumasheva interview. Yeltsin in his memoirs (Marafon, 36) discusses their interaction in the context of the 1996 election campaign. “As a rule, she kept her personal opinion to herself. Tatyana practically never violated this tacit rule of ours. But if she suddenly made an effort—‘Papa, I nonetheless think ... ’—I would try to change the subject.”
77 The difference between the sisters, and the similarity of Tatyana to their mother, was pointed out by Naina Yeltsina in my second interview with her (September 18, 2007). On disorganization, see the comments of Naina’s former press secretary: Natal’ya Konstantinova, Zhenskii vzglyad na kremlëvskuyu zhizn’ (A woman’s view of Kremlin life) (Moscow: Geleos, 1999), 188.
78 Newcomers to the Kremlin team soon learned the utility of the Dyachenko channel if all else failed. But veterans like Pikhoya often refused to use it. She implied in her interview with me (September 26, 2001) that it would have been beneath her dignity.
79 Dikun, “Yel’tsin v Gorkakh.”
80 The experience of Anatolii Kulikov, the interior minister from 1995 to 1998, was typical. “The whole time I was minister this weekly report to the president was a ritual that could not be violated under any circumstances.” On only one occasion in the three years, when Yeltsin happened to be occupied at the designated hour, did Kulikov miss a planned telephone call. He substituted by calling Chernomyrdin, which infuriated Yeltsin: “The prime minister, that is fine, but you are subordinated to the supreme commander-in-chief and are obligated to report personally to him!” Kulikov, Tyazhëlyye zvëzdy, 415.
81 Author’s first interview with Mikhail Krasnov (June 5, 2000) and third with Yumashev; and Baturin et al., Epokha, 761–66, which relates some details from Krasnov’s point of view. Yumashev denies Krasnov’s charge that he was indifferent to the reform, saying that the means to implement it were lacking.
82 Yeltsin offered these explanations in my second interview with him. Viktor Ilyushin and Oleg Lobov were the last of the prominent Sverdlovskers to leave high posts, as deputy premier, in March 1997.
83 Kulikov, Tyazhëlyye zvëzdy, 417–18. Kulikov seems to have had no awareness that a State Council had existed early in Yeltsin’s first term and had been abolished.
84 Sergei Kiriyenko, interview with the author (January 25, 2001).
85 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 87.
86 Ibid., 88.
87 Author’s interviews with principals; and, on Vyakhirev, “Boris Nemtsov—Yevgenii Al’bats o Yel’tsine” (Boris Nemtsov to Yevgeniya Al’bats about Yeltsin), Novoye vremya/New Times, April 30, 2007. Vyakhirev and Chernomyrdin defended the shares deal until December 1997, when Yeltsin, standing behind Nemtsov at a diplomatic reception in Stockholm, Sweden, asked him if a final decision had been made. When Nemtsov said it had not, Yeltsin pulled Vyakhirev aside and said the “bandits’ agreement” was to be torn up immediately, which it was.
88 “Boris Nemtsov—Yevgenii Al’bats o Yel’tsine.”
89 Thomas F. Remington, “Laws, Decrees, and Russian Constitutions: The First Hundred Years” (unpublished paper, Emory University, 2006). Decrees averaged twenty-one per month in 1992–95 and fifteen per month in 1997–99.
90 “No Improvement in Russian Economy without Land Reform—Yeltsin,” http://news/bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/42632.stm.
91 In sequential ballots, the code went from 213 votes in favor to 220 and then to 225, one short of the 226 needed for passage. The Duma determined on July 17 to postpone further consideration.
92 David E. Hoffman, The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: PublicAffairs, 2002), 385. The best accounts of the Svyazinvest auction and the surrounding controversy are to be found in that book and in Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: Russia’s Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism (Toronto: Doubleday, 2000), chap. 12.
93 “After the last presidential election, in 1996, the oligarchs captured Yeltsin, his successive governments, and the political process.” Lee S. Wolosky, “Putin’s Plutocrat Problem,” Foreign Affairs 79 (March–April 2000), 25. See more broadly Joel S. Hellman, Geraint Jones, and Daniel Kaufmann, “Seize the State, Seize the Day”: State Capture, Corruption, and Influence in Transition, Policy Research Working Paper 2444 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2000), 1.
94 Author’s interviews with Khodorkovskii (June 7, 2001), Fridman (September 21, 2001), and Potanin.
95 Yeltsin’s capacity in principle to dictate the terms was mentioned by every businessman I spoke to about 1996, and was especially stressed by Khodorkovskii, who felt Yeltsin was at first affronted by their offer. Yeltsin in his memoirs (Marafon, 103) emphasizes that the oligarchs took the initiative. “No one asked them, and there were no obligations incurred to anyone. They came to me not to defend Yeltsin but to defend their own businesses.”
96 Second Nemtsov interview.
97 The purpose of Dyachenko’s call was to inquire about the status of Yelena Masyuk, an NTV correspondent, and two crew members, who were kidnapped by a splinter group in Chechnya in May; NTV was to pay ransom for their release several weeks later. Berezovskii, speaking as deputy secretary of the Security Council, assured her that everything possible was being done to save them. The record of the conversation, “Zapis’ telefonnogo razgovora Borisa Berezovskogo s docher’yu Yel’tsina—Tat’yanoi D’yachenko” (Transcript of a telephone conversation between Boris Berezovskii and Yeltsin’s daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko), was leaked in June 1999. It is available at http://www.compromat.ru/main/berezovskiy/dyachenko.htm.
98 Berezovskii called her Tanya and, at one point, Tanyusha, a double diminutive. She called him Boris Abramovich and “you” in the second person plural, and also referred to third parties by name and patronymic.
99 Berezovskii admitted that he personally had not declared all his income and capital on his tax returns. Dyachenko seemed to accept his point that concealment would continue to be widespread. In that case, though, businessmen “should pay more on the basis of their declared capital,” that is, pay at a higher rate and on time.
100 Ul’yan Kerzonov, “Anatolii Chubais stremitsya k polnomy kontrolyu nad Rossiyei” (Anatolii Chubais is striving for complete control over Russia), Nezavisimaya gazeta, September 13, 1997. It was widely believed that Kerzonov was a pseudonym for Berezovskii. I heard of the role of the article in my third interview with Yumashev.
101 Potanin interview. I interviewed two other oligarchs who were present, Fridman and Khodorkovskii, and both shared his puzzlement.
102 His comments to Chubais and Nemtsov are related in “Boris Nemtsov—Yevgenii Al’bats o Yel’tsine.”
103 One of the authors, Al’fred Kokh, had been dismissed in August in connection with another scandal. Aleksandr Kazakov, Maksim Boiko, and Pëtr Mostovoi were fired in November. Hoffman (Oligarchs, 304) presents evidence that the book project was a device for transferring leftover funds from the 1996 campaign.
104 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 111.
105 Ibid., 104.
106 Second Nemtsov interview. As Pëtr Aven of Alpha Group put it, “There was a not very explicit but, I would say, implicit understanding that . . . you help us and we’ll help you.” Aven, interview with the author (May 29, 2001).
107 Hoffman, Oligarchs, 386.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1 Quotations from Boris Yel’tsin, Prezidentskii marafon (Presidential marathon) (Moscow: AST, 2000), 113, 119, 118.
2 Ibid., 118.
3 Yu, M. Baturin et al., Epokha Yel’tsina: ocherki politicheskoi istorii (The Yeltsin epoch: essays in political history) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2001), 778–79; Georgii Satarov, first interview with the author (June 5, 2000).
4 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 119–21. The serving ministers on Yeltsin’s list were Nikolai Aksënenko (railways), Vladimir Bulgak (communications), and Sergei Kiriyenko (fuel and energy). To legislators and other politicians on April 7, he mentioned as serious candidates Yurii Luzhkov (
mayor of Moscow), Yegor Stroyev (governor of Orël province and chairman of the Federation Council), and Dmitrii Ayatskov (Saratov governor), as well as Bulgak, but said nothing about the others whom he later mentioned in the memoir.
5 Ibid., 120–21.
6 In 1984 Nikolayev, as commander of a motorized rifle division in the Urals Military District, spoke at a meeting organized by the Sverdlovsk obkom of the CPSU. First Secretary Yeltsin liked the presentation and said he had “a brilliant future.” Igor’ Oleinik, “Andrei Nikolayev: genshtabist v politike” (Andrei Nikolayev: a General Staff officer in politics), http://www.lebed.com/1999/art997.htm. In 1997 Nikolayev submitted his resignation to Yeltsin in an attempt to gain an expression of support. Yeltsin surprised Nikolayev by accepting: “I don’t like it when people pressure me in this way.” Yel’tsin, Marafon, 121.
7 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 121.
8 Sergei Kiriyenko, interview with the author (January 15, 2001). In 1994 Kiriyenko spoke as a banker at a dinner for Yeltsin hosted by Nemtsov. Yeltsin asked if he would like to move to Moscow but Nemtsov objected. In August 1997 Kiriyenko, in Nemtsov’s company, saw the president at Volzhskii Utës and was invited to dine with the family.
9 Yeltsin’s memoir descriptions of them are similar in many ways, but in volume three (Marafon, 121–22) he contrasts Kiriyenko’s practical experience with Gaidar’s lack thereof. He exaggerates the difference and also misleads in speaking of them as being of “a different generation.” They were born only six years apart, and when Gaidar was made acting premier in 1992 he was seven months older than Kiriyenko was when Yeltsin nominated him in 1998.
10 This is the sequence as reported in my interview with Kiriyenko, whose memory I trust most on these events. In Marafon Yeltsin said he met with Kiriyenko before Chernomyrdin. A recently adopted law on governmental organization specified that only a first deputy premier could be appointed as acting prime minister. Yeltsin was unaware of this detail and, after signing his initial decree, had to retrace his steps, make Kiriyenko a first deputy premier, and then promote him.
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