A Russian Diary

by Anna Politkovskaya

  The surroundings here are warm and clean, as in a good nursery. A sign above the door tells us that the group to which Danila and eleven other little boys and girls belong is called the Baby Starlings. Their patient caregivers are kind, very tired, overworked women. Everything here is good, except that the children don't cry. They are silent or they howl. There is no laughter to be heard. When he is not grinding his teeth, fifteen-month-old Danila is silent, peering attentively at the strangers who have arrived. He does not look at you as you would expect of a fifteen-month-old baby; he peers straight into your eyes, like an FSB interrogator. He has catastrophically limited experience of human tenderness.

  It is the night before Christmas in the orphanage on Yeletskaya Street and a Christmas present has just been delivered. His name is Dmitry Dmitrievich and he has severe liver and kidney insufficiency. He was born in December 2002 and in May 2003 his mother “forgot” him in the entrance to an apartment building. Amazingly enough, the militia managed to track her down and she wrote out the necessary declaration: “I apply to renounce my parental rights.”

  Dmitry Dmitrievich has been brought to the orphanage from the hospital. He has spent half his life in intensive care and now has no hair on the back of his head. It has rubbed off because he has always been lying on his back. The new boy in the group sits in a special baby walker and studies this unfamiliar place. There are rattles and toys in front of him, but Dmitry Dmitrievich seems more interested in people. He examines the consultant. He wants to take a good look at her but does not yet know how to work his little legs, which, since he's been bedridden for so long, are not helping him to turn the baby walker to face Lidiya Konstanti-novna. She doesn't intervene. She wants him to learn how to get what he wants.

  “Come on, Dmitry Dmitrievich,” she says. “Take a grip on life! Fight back!”

  Unaided, Dmitry Dmitrievich does fight back, and a few minutes later he has won and is facing Lidiya Konstantinovna.

  “What kind of work do you feel you are doing here? The work of Mother Teresa, or of someone who has to clean up after our society? Or do you just feel very sorry for these children?”

  “The children do not need pity,” Lidiya says. “That is the most important lesson I have learned. They need help. We are helping them to survive. Because of the work we do they can hope to find foster parents. I and my staff never refer to this as an orphanage in front of them. We call it a nursery so that later, in a quite different life if they are adopted, the children will not have even a subconscious memory of having once been in an orphanage.”

  “You are working so that the children entrusted to your care should be adopted?”

  “Yes, of course. That is the most important thing I can do for them.”

  “What do you think about adoption by foreigners? Our patriotic politicians demand that we put a stop to it.”

  “I think adoption by foreigners is a very good thing. There are some horror stories about Russian foster families too, only they don't get mentioned. Right now there is talk of withdrawing one of our children from his Russian foster parents. He will be coming back to us. Another problem is that Russian foster parents will not take children from the same family. Foreigners are happy to do that, which means that brothers and sisters are not separated. That is very important. We had a family of six children adopted in America. Natasha, the youngest of the six, was brought in to us wrapped in a piece of wallpaper. Her four-year-old brother wrapped her up in that to keep her from freezing because there was nothing else in the house to use. So what is bad about the fact that all six of them are now in the United States? I feel very happy when I look at the photograph I was sent from there. Nobody would believe the state they were in here. Only we remember that. In the past year, fifteen of the twenty-six children who have been adopted from our orphanage have been taken by foster parents from abroad, mainly from the USA and Spain. There were three pairs of brothers and sisters. Russian people just wouldn't take them.”

  “They didn't want to or they couldn't afford to?”

  “They didn't want to. And, as a rule, rich people in Russia don't adopt children at all.”

  What kind of people will they grow up to be, the way our country has turned out now?

  The wave of charitable giving in Russia came to a stop in 2002 when the Putin administration revoked tax privileges for charities. Until 2002, children in our orphanages were showered with gifts and New Year's presents. Now the rich no longer give them presents. Pensioners bring them their old, tattered shawls.

  The World Bank has a special program called A Chance to Work, which gives disadvantaged children work experience and an opportunity to learn valuable job skills. If anyone did that in our society they would most likely be viewed with suspicion. “What's in it for them?” the neighbors would wonder.

  It is the orphans themselves who show compassion. Nadya left the orphanage when she was too old to remain, and was allocated a room by the local authority as the law requires. She promptly moved in four other orphans. Completely unfamiliar with the ways of the world, they had exchanged their own rooms for mobile phones and had found themselves on the street.

  Now Nadya is feeding them, but she is penniless. None of them can find work. Hers is true charity. She can see no point in trying to approach the banks and other wealthy institutions. They wouldn't let her past security.

  Meanwhile, our nouveaux riches are skiing this Christmas in Courchevel. More than two thousand Russians, each earning over half a million rubles [$17,400] a month, congregate there for the “saison russe” in the Swiss Alps. The menu offers eight kinds of oysters, the wine list includes bottles at 1,500 euros [$1,980], and in the retinue of every nouveau riche you can be sure of finding the government officials, our true oligarchs, who deliver these vast incomes to the favored two thousand. Not a word is heard in the televised Christmas reports from Courchevel about hard work having led to the amassing of these fortunes. The talk is of success, of the moment when everything just fell into place, of the firebird of happiness caught by its tail feathers, of being trusted by the state authorities. The “charity” of officialdom, otherwise known as corruption, is the quickest route to Courchevel. It is a modern version of the tale of Ivan the Fool, who just couldn't be poor, no matter how badly his brothers cheated him: just pay the Kremlin and riches and power will come your way.

  January 8

  Zhirinovsky's bodyguard has been registered by the Central Electoral Commission as the first candidate in 2004 for the presidency of Russia. Hip-hip-hooray! Zhirinovsky has power of attorney over Malyshkin.

  In Krasnoyarsk Region the peasants are being paid in sick calves. The potentate ruling over this region is the oligarch closest to Putin, indeed his representative there, Vladimir Potanin. No wages have been paid in cash at the dairy farm in Ustyug for over three years; the peasants are given calves instead. All the machinery has been sold off to settle debts. The vet was fired long ago, so there is nobody to look after the ailing calves.

  January 9

  This really is a first for us. The pupils of the International Orphanage in Ivanovo are on hunger strike. The orphanage was founded in 1933 to provide for children from many different countries whose parents were in the prisons of “states with reactionary or fascist regimes.”

  The children are demanding that the International Orphanage be left alone, not broken up and privatized and the building sold. (They were successful.)

  January 10

  In the Chechen village of Avtury unidentified soldiers have abducted the human rights campaigner Aslan Davletukaev from his home. The kidnappers drove up in three armored personnel carriers and two armored UAZ jeeps.

  January 13

  Today is Russian Press Day. In anticipation, the ROMIR public opinion survey asked people, “Which social institutions do you most trust?” Nine percent trust the media; 1 percent trust political parties, 50 percent trust Putin, 28 percent trust nobody, and 14 percent trust the Russian Orthodox Church. The government
and the army scored 9 percent each. Local government and the trade unions scored 3 percent, and the law enforcement agencies managed 5 percent. People were, of course, at liberty to trust more than one institution. Some did.

  Victims of the terrorist acts of recent years have sent an open letter to all the presidential candidates. It reads:

  The presidential election is a time for reviewing the past and for the outgoing authorities to account for what they have been up to while in office. There must be few people in Russia who have suffered more in this period than we. We lost those dear to us when apartment buildings were blown up in 1999 and when the theater on Dubrovka was seized by terrorists in 2002. We call upon you to include investigation of these terrorist acts in your manifestos.

  … We would like to know what each of you will do if elected. Will you set up genuine, independent, and impartial inquiries, or will the conspiracy of silence surrounding the deaths of our loved ones continue? We have tried in vain to obtain credible explanations from the state authorities. The present president of the Russian Federation was under an obligation to reply, not only by virtue of his position, but simply as a matter of conscience. The deaths of our loved ones were, after all, directly related to his political career and to decisions made by him. The blowing up of apartment buildings persuaded the Russian people to support his hard line on Chechnya during the last presidential election, and he personally gave the order to use gas in Dubrovka.

  The signatories then submit a list of questions to the candidates, which they have previously addressed to Putin without any response. Regarding the blowing up of the apartment buildings:

  Why did the authorities obstruct the investigation of events in Ryazan when FSB agents were caught red-handed preparing to blow up an apartment building?

  How did the speaker of the state Duma come to issue a statement about the blowing up of the apartment building in Volgodonsk three days before it occurred?

  Why was there no investigation of the discovery of the high explosive, hexogen, in sacks labeled SUGAR at the army base in Ryazan in the autumn of 1999?

  Why under pressure from the FSB, was the investigation closed into the transfer of hexogen from army storage facilities to fictitious firms through the Roskonversvzryvtsentr Research Institute?

  Why was the lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin arrested after establishing the identity of the FSB agent who rented the premises for placing the bomb in the apartment building on Gurianov Street?

  Regarding the Dubrovka siege [the taking hostage of the audience of the musical Nord-Ost]:

  Why was the decision made to begin a gas attack at the very moment when a real opportunity had arisen to negotiate the release of the hostages?

  Does the fact that the authorities decided to use a slow-acting gas, which would have given time for explosive devices to be detonated, indicate that they already knew the terrorists had no real explosives on them?

  Why were all the terrorists, including those who had been incapacitated, killed when they could have been arrested and required to give evidence to an inquiry?

  Why did the authorities conceal the fact that K. Terkibaev, who, after his name became known, died in a car crash, was an FSB agent who took part in the seizure of the theater?

  Why, when the assault was planned, was no attempt made to organize on-site medical assistance for the hostages, a neglect that resulted in the deaths of 130 people?

  The only replies were from Irina Khakamada and Ivan Rybkin. She has supported the Nord-Ost victims from the very beginning. Altogether, Khakamada is beginning to seem the most normal of the candidates.

  Everything she has said so far has been worth listening to. She has been saying that under Putin the country cannot progress. Irina Khakamada:

  I have not studied the explosions in Moscow and Volgodonsk, so I shall reply only to the questions about the events at Dubrovka.

  The decision to mount the assault was made on the third day of the siege. I was inside the building on the first day and am replying on the basis of what happened then. My impression is that on the first day it would have been possible to free the hostages through negotiation. I believe the purpose of the assault was a show of strength, and that saving people's lives was not a high priority.

  It remains a riddle to me how it was possible to kill every one of the terrorists, who were situated in different parts of the building and auditorium; and why, after the gas attack, all the terrorists died, while some of the people next to them died and others survived. I suspect they were disposed of because as living witnesses they might have testified in open court that the hostages could have been released. I emphasize that this is a suspicion, because there should be a presumption of innocence.

  We in the Union of Right Forces organized an investigation of our own, and came to the conclusion that no thought was given to trying to rescue the hostages. Everything was unplanned and the result was a shambles. The military side was deemed the most important aspect of the operation, and nobody was even appointed to take care of the civilians.

  I can add on my own account that after the Dubrovka tragedy Mr. Putin misled the whole world. Replying to a question from a journalist from The Washington Post, he said, “These people did not die as a result of the gas, because the gas was harmless. It was harmless, and we can say that in the course of the operation not a single hostage was harmed [by the gas].”

  While President Putin and his cohorts were quaking with fear in the Kremlin, not for the lives of their citizens, but of losing power, a number of people were brave enough to try to save the hostages by voluntarily going in to the terrorists in order to attempt to free at least the children. I thank God that I, the mother of two children, had the courage and resolution to go in and negotiate with the terrorists.

  In the past I have not made public much of what I saw in the Dubrovka theater complex or, in particular, how the president and members of his administration reacted to my effort to save lives. I mistakenly thought that President Putin would ultimately help to establish the truth, and would apologize for his order to employ a deadly gas. Putin, however, remains silent and gives no answers to people who have lost those dearest to them. The president has made his choice and decided to conceal the truth. I also have made my choice and will tell the truth. As a result of my negotiations with the terrorists in the theater on October 23, 2002, and what happened subsequently, I came to the conclusion that the terrorists had not the least intention of blowing up the theater complex, and that the authorities had not the least interest in trying to save all the hostages.

  The main events occurred after I returned from negotiating with the terrorists. Alexander Voloshin, the head of the presidential administration, threatened me and ordered me not to interfere further.

  Thinking over what occurred, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that this terrorist act helped to reinforce anti-Chechen hysteria, to prolong the war in Chechnya, and to maintain the president's high approval rating. I am convinced that Putin's actions in covering up the truth are a crime against the state. I undertake that, when I become president, the citizens of Russia will learn the truth about the blowing up of the apartment buildings, the tragedy at the theater complex, and many other crimes committed by the authorities. Recently, many of my friends have tried to dissuade me from entering the presidential election. In public they state that I am almost betraying the interests of the democrats, who are calling for a boycott of the elections, but in private they warn that I will simply be killed if I tell the truth. I am not afraid of this terrorist regime. I appeal to everybody else not to be intimidated by them. Our children must grow up free people.

  Ivan Rybkin also replied:

  Both the blowing up of the apartment buildings and the events at Dubrovka are a consequence of the “antiterrorist operation” and, more precisely of the second Chechen war being waged in the North Caucasus. President Putin rode into the Kremlin on the crest of this wave, promising to restore order. He has proved incapable of doi
ng so. People are dying in terrorist outrages everywhere. The war continues without respite, for which Putin and his immediate entourage are guilty. To this day there is much that is completely unclear and inexplicable about all these tragedies.

  Concerning the blowing up of the apartment buildings:

  I believe a crime was committed by the security agencies. Even if we accept the claim that [the FSB agents discovered planting explosives] in Ryazan were engaged in “exercises,” all the official rules and instructions were ignored.

  How did Seleznyov, the speaker of the Duma, know? This is not just odd, it is appalling. Having made this announcement, he should face criminal investigation and reveal where he got his information, so that we can see clearly who really ordered and who really carried out this atrocity…

  The approaches and training that the security forces are receiving in the course of the Chechen war are being extrapolated to the whole of Russia. They are totally brazen and believe that the end result is all that matters. This is extremely dangerous.

  On Dubrovka:

  All the behavior of the state authorities points to the fact that when it became clear there was a real possibility of freeing the hostages, they decided to mount an assault. Everyone in Moscow and all over Russia is talking about the fact that the assault was ordered to conceal the real facts about what happened there.