Yeltsin полностью

20 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 204. Boris Nemtsov, Kiriyenko’s mentor and now one of his deputy premiers, believed a stabilizing devaluation could have been done in the first few weeks of the Kiriyenko premiership. Like Yeltsin, he said Kiriyenko would not hear of it. Nemtsov, second interview with the author (February 6, 2002).

21 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 203.

22 Aleksandr Livshits, interview with the author (January 19, 2001).

23 Russian GKOs were first issued in February 1993. Coupon-bearing OFZs (Federal Loan Bonds) were introduced in 1995 as a complement, but GKOs defined the market throughout. Western advice paved the way for both types. Although GKOs were denominated in rubles, instruments known as dollar-forward contracts hedged against reduction in the exchange rate. Once the ruble went into collapse, the dollar-forward contracts hastened its demise.

24 See Venla Sipilä, “The Russian Triple Crisis, 1998: Currency, Finance, and Budget,” University College London, Centre for the Study of Economic and Social Change in Europe, Working Paper 17 (March 2002); and Padma Desai, “Why Did the Ruble Collapse in August 1998?” American Economic Review 90 (May 2000), 48–52. For historical perspective, see Niall Ferguson and Brigitte Granville, “‘Weimar on the Volga’: Causes and Consequences of Inflation in 1990s Russia Compared with 1920s Germany,” Journal of Economic History 60 (December 2000), 1061–87.

25 The package, and the expectation that it would be granted, aggravated the crisis by facilitating the conversion of rubles into dollars by Russian and foreign speculators. Brian Pinto, Evsey Gurvich, and Sergei Ulatov, “Lessons from the Russian Crisis of 1998 and Recovery,” in Joshua Aizenman and Brian Pinto, eds., Managing Volatility and Crises: A Practitioner’s Guide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 406–39.

26 Vera Kuznetsova, “Boris Yel’tsin v ocherednoi raz poobeshchal ne idti na tretii srok” (Boris Yeltsin makes his latest promise not to seek a third term), Izvestiya, June 20, 1998. Kuznetsova added that the mill would need to put together a sound business plan to get assistance, but the gist of Yeltsin’s remarks was that a subsidy was on the way. For a humorous account of Yeltsin’s high spirits and how he mistook a female journalist for a model from the factory, see Yelena Tregubova, Baiki kremlëvskogo diggera (Tales of a Kremlin digger) (Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2003), 81–84.

27 Mikhail Fridman, interview with the author (September 21, 2001).

28 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 211–12.

29 Indicative are remarks made by Stephen F. Cohen of New York University on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on September 14: “The country is in profound crisis. It’s coming apart at the seams politically, economically, socially, psychologically. The economy has collapsed. Winter is coming. People have no money. They have no food. There’s no medicine. . . . The so-called free market reforms in Russia have collapsed; they’re over.” Transcript at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/july-dec98/russia_9-14.

30 Sergei Parkhomenko, “Podoplëka” (The real state of affairs), Itogi, September 15, 1998.

31 Vitalii Tret’yakov, “Vopros o vlasti” (The question of power), Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 10, 1998.

32 Tret’yakov did not explain how to reconcile the council with the constitution or what would happen if its head disagreed with Yeltsin, who would still have the highest standing in the state, or with the prime minister, who would continue to answer to the president.

33 Family members were emphatic on this point in interviews. Some press articles in late August and early September cited Kremlin sources and even provided the date on which Yeltsin would supposedly hand in his resignation.

34 Viktor Chernomyrdin, interview with the author (September 15, 2000); and Valentin Yumashev, fifth interview with the author (September 17, 2007). Yeltsin reiterated in Marafon, 219–20, that his former prime minister was not the best leader for the future. But in August 1998 he accepted the Chernomyrdin option. Had the nomination gone through, Yeltsin, Yumashev said, could not have faced up to dismissing him a second time prior to the 2000 election.

35 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002), 288.

36 On the way in from the airport on September 1, Chernomyrdin “used the half-hour ride to lobby the president [Clinton] to support his nomination with Yeltsin, who was rumored to be giving up on him.” Ibid., 287. Clinton was smart enough not to intrude.

37 Vitalii Tret’yakov, “Vitse-prezident i drugiye” (The vice president and others), Nezavisimaya gazeta, September 12, 1998.