Yeltsin полностью

29 The involvement in the oil trade came to light in Yevgeniya Al’bats, “Vlast’ taino sozdaët svoyu tenevuyu ekonomiku” (The authorities are secretly creating their own shadow economy), Izvestiya, February 1, 1995. Borodin is said to have asked for an oil-export quota from the Ministry of Economics after it turned down as unaffordable, and unacceptable to the Duma, his request for funds to pay for the restoration of the Grand Kremlin Palace. An unidentified ministry official recalls: “Pal Palych . . . said, ‘Then give me 5 million tons of oil.’ I agreed—where else was he going to turn?” Maksim Glikin, “Oni v svoikh koridorakh” (They are in their own corridors), Obshchaya gazeta, February 8, 2001. The quota, the same source said, was later increased to 8 million tons. That much oil would have sold in the late 1990s for the better part of $1 billion, some of which would have gone to Russian producers, to taxes, and no doubt to middlemen.

30 Boris Fëdorov estimated that in his day 1 percent of requests for apartments and the like made their way to Yeltsin. Yeltsin usually routed them to Borodin, sometimes with a handwritten note. On one occasion, Yeltsin offered a toast at a banquet to an official in the executive office, mentioning in passing that this man’s housing conditions were poor. Borodin dealt with the problem without further ado. Fëdorov interview and Leonid Smirnyagin, interview with the author (May 24, 2001).

31 In 1994 Borodin controlled twenty premium dachas with a chef and security guards, 150 year-round dachas without these services, and 200 summer-season dachas. Eugene Huskey, Presidential Power in Russia (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 52.

32 “Poslaniye Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii Federal’nomu Sobraniyu, ‘Ob ukreplenii rossiiskogo gosudarstva’” (The message of the president of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly, “On strengthening the Russian state”) (Moscow: Rossiiskaya Federatsiya, 1994), 14.

33 Gennadii Burbulis, second interview, conducted by Yevgeniya Al’bats (February 14, 2001). The idea was not original with Burbulis. The constitutional scholar Avgust Mishin and others had been circulating it for some time.

34 Grigorii Yavlinskii, first interview with the author (March 17, 2001).

35 James MacGregor Burns, Transforming Leadership: A New Pursuit of Happiness (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003), chap. 10.

36 Aleksandr Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin: ot rassveta do zakata (Boris Yeltsin: from dawn to dusk) (Moscow: Interbuk, 1997), 253–54.

37 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002), 177.

38 Baturin et al., Epokha, 423.

39 Vyacheslav Kostikov, Roman s prezidentom: zapiski press-sekretarya (Romance with a president: notes of a press secretary) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 1997), 12. The comparisons to a magnetic field or a snake come from my interview with Yevgenii Yasin (May 31, 2001). Gennadii Burbulis (first interview, June 14, 2000) saw a similarity to a wolf lying in ambush.

40 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 413.

41 Baturin et al., Epokha, 449.

42 Mikhail Zinin,”Yel’tsina zhdët Boldinskaya osen’” (A Boldin-type autumn awaits Yeltsin), Nezavisimaya gazeta, September 18, 1991.

43 Yasin interview. Decree No. 226 also relieved lobbying pressure on government bureaucrats. They could now indicate sympathy with the petitioner while saying their hands were tied. See Baturin et al., Epokha, 442.

44 Huskey, Presidential Power in Russia, 73.

45 Ibid., 40.

46 Anatolii Chubais, first interview with the author (January 18, 2001).

47 Mikhail Bocharov, interview with the author (October 19, 2000).

48 Of the first position, Yeltsin writes (Zapiski, 241), “It was thought up ‘especially for Burbulis,’ to underline his special status.” The second was bestowed in part to compensate Burbulis for not being named vice president. Burbulis (second interview) said it was a “role,” not a “position.”

49 Poltoranin had been minister of the press and information since 1991 and favored a more restrictive attitude toward the media than Fedotov. When Yeltsin, responding to parliamentary sentiment, made Fedotov minister in December 1992 (for the second time), he put Poltoranin in charge of a new Federal Information Center, which duplicated many of the ministry’s functions. Ministry and center were both dissolved in December 1993.