Yeltsin полностью

38 They were Andrei Kokoshin, secretary of the Security Council; Yevgenii Savast’yanov, deputy head of the Kremlin executive office; and Sergei Yastrzhembskii, press secretary and foreign-policy assistant.

39 Yeltsin felt after his conversations with Yumashev that a Chernomyrdin restored to the prime minister’s office would have “the aura of an unjustly offended person.” “In that sense, my moral loss would turn out to be a win for Chernomyrdin.” Marafon, 221

40 Viktor Zorkal’tsev, a Zyuganov deputy, had signed for the KPRF on August 28, and the pact was supported by Nikolai Ryzhkov and other pro-communist factions in the Duma. Chernomyrdin was more favorable to it than Yeltsin.

41 Yevgenii Primakov, Vosem’ mesyatsev plyus . . . (Eight months plus) (Moscow: Mysl’, 2001), 14.

42 In his memoir account (ibid., 7), Primakov says Yeltsin offered the post of prime minister to Maslyukov, in a desperate outburst in the presence of him and Chernomyrdin. Maslyukov, he says, declined the offer but said he would work under Primakov. Valentin Yumashev, who conducted most of the negotiations with other candidates, has strongly denied (interviews) that any such offer was made, as Yeltsin could not accept a member of the KPRF as his head of government. Yeltsin’s own memoir only mentions Maslyukov as someone he considered. It is possible that he made a statement that Maslyukov or Primakov misconstrued as an offer, or that he made and retracted one without informing his chief of staff.

43 This success should not be exaggerated. The day before Yeltsin fired him in May 1999, Primakov spoke proudly of having cut the state debt to pensioners in half and of public-sector doctors and teachers waiting two months for their pay instead of five.

44 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 239–40.

45 These trends are summarized in Goohoon Kwon, “Budgetary Impact of Oil Prices in Russia,” http://www.internationalmonetaryfund.org/external/country/rus/rr/2003/pdf/080103.pdf; and Philip Hanson, “The Russian Economic Recovery: Do Four Years of Growth Tell Us That the Fundamentals Have Changed?” Europe-Asia Studies 55 (May 2003), 365–82.

46 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 232.

47 Michael R. Gordon, “A Rough Trip for Yeltsin Adds to Worries about Health,” New York Times, October 13, 1998.

48 Yekaterina Grigor’eva, “Vladimir Shevchenko: za rabotu s Yel’tsinym ya blagodaren sud’be” (Vladimir Shevchenko: I am grateful to fate for the chance to work with Yeltsin), Izvestiya, May 21, 2007.

49 Maksim Sokolov, “Zhenikhi v dome Yel’tsina” (The bachelors in Yeltsin’s home), ibid., June 17, 1999, 2.

50 Talbott, Russia Hand, 350.

51 Quotation from Yelena Dikun, “I prezident imeyet pravo na miloserdiye” (The president, too, has the right to charity), Obshchaya gazeta, October 15, 1998. Dikun, reporting on Yeltsin’s abbreviated trip to Central Asia, said he had come to resemble Brezhnev and Konstantin Chernenko, and urged family members to take matters into their own hands: “You have nothing to explain, you know perfectly well what is going on. Every person is entitled to grow old, anybody can get unwell—there is nothing in this to be ashamed of. But to turn the process of a person’s dying away into a public spectacle or attraction is inhuman and un-Christian.”

52 Mikhail Margelov, a then-official in the executive office, interview with the author (May 25, 2000).

53 Yeltsin reclaimed first place in the April poll and held it until September 1999, when Vladimir Putin took the lead.

54 On the phone conversation, revealed to the press by Samuel Berger, Clinton’s national-security adviser, see David Stout, “Yeltsin Dismisses Graft Allegations,” New York Times, September 9, 1999. Pacolli said in 2000 that he had arranged for credit cards for Yeltsin’s daughters in 1995; his guarantee expired in two months, and Mabetex paid no bills on their behalf. Carlotta Gall, “Builder in Yeltsin Scandal Discounts Its Gravity,” ibid., January 21, 2000. The Swiss case was closed in late 2000.

55 If anyone doubts the downward spiral in Chechnya, read as follows: “There was violation of human rights on a mass scale. . . . A slave market openly operated in the center of Grozny, with hundreds of people (mainly Chechens) held captive as hostages and subjected to violence. Kidnapping people for exchange acquired epidemic proportions, with more than 3,500 Chechens ransomed between 1996 and 1999. Bandits and terrorists killed thousands. . . . Not only did Chechnya become the criminal cesspool of the CIS countries; it also became a base for international terrorism. Terrorists from many different countries became active on its territory, with their activities financed by foreign extremist centers.” Dzhabrail Gakaev, “Chechnya in Russia and Russia in Chechnya,” in Richard Sakwa, ed., Chechnya from Past to Future (London: Anthem, 2005), 32.