In the summer of 2005, Moscow was abuzz with talk about the ‘orange revolution’ in neighbouring Ukraine. Could something similar occur his side of the border? Putin sounded less than relaxed: ‘I think we have no reason to expect destabilization’ – codeword for democratic change. But he is obviously aware of the potential for trouble, especially through the vast gap between the super rich New Russians and the rest of the population. ‘We have to continue the policies which we have conducted so far. Over the last few years real income of the broad population has grown by ten per cent. We have to strengthen the middle classes, the party system and independent mass media.’ The last point in particular visibly raised some eyebrows and made everybody wonder what he meant. ‘The main reasons for the Ukrainian revolution were poverty and unemployment, on top of endemic corruption.’ We are not against change in the post-Soviet space. But we want to make sure that those changes do not end in chaos.’
Does he see Western intentions to meddle in Eastern Europe? His answer was clearly more diplomatic than realistic: ‘We entertain, to be sure, nothing like a hostile attitude towards the EU. We want stability in the former Soviet space. We want to avoid a split between east and west in Ukraine. The Russians in Ukraine deserve a safe future. We cannot go back to the Russian Empire. Even if we wanted to – it would be impossible.’
Managed democracy or authoritarianism – is this the style he wants? ‘Democracy exists, or it does not exist. A state of law, democratic elections are part of it. All politicians draw criticism. How would that materialize without free institutions? We try to optimize the fabric of society. We aspire to peace and prosperity for the people.’ Sometimes Putin cannot help using Western jargon. ‘Of course we have to grapple with the traditions of this country. We cannot live on imitation. I listen to criticism. And if it sounds justified, I act accordingly.’
How does he see his own future after the end of his second term as president in 2008? ‘I shall leave the Kremlin, but not Russia,’ he answered, avoiding anything more precise. But the question was thrown back to him. There were rumours that he would aim for a third term. What role would he play? ‘I would like to see that my experience and my knowledge are being used by the Russian people.’ But the question was tossed back a second time. Were there not indications that he might seek a third term? ‘Is that a recommendation?’ Putin quipped. And then, on a more serious note: ‘I repeat, I shall not run for President in 2008. The most important thing is to secure stability. No, we shall not change the constitution. You will see.’ As for the oil price: what will the President do when and if the price for a barrel reached $80, and windfall profits continued to accrue. Putin answered, ‘Eight months ago I had a visitor who wanted to know my prognosis for the oil price. I quoted roughly eighty dollars. Without the shocks and upheavals of the last few months the price would have been between forty and fifty US dollars. This I see as healthy. What we are going to do with the money? Presently we have a budget surplus and a positive balance of trade. Our gold reserves are high. We recognize a high risk of inflation. Therefore a good part of the petrodollars will go into the stabilization fund, another into the repayment of foreign debt. A third into social improvements, education, science, reduction of taxes.’ In fact, only a few days before, Putin had decided to improve the tough lot of Russia’s underpaid public employees and announced a programme of financial improvements for doctors, nurses, teachers and the like. It was a sign not only that the losers of the reform deserved some belated help but also that Putin and his people had taken a page out of Western democracies’ book on how to win elections. While the Porsches and Jaguars zigzagging across Moscow’s vast highways and byways are the toys of the newly rich, those left behind in the new Russia must receive a consolation prize and a share of the vast petrodollar fortune that Russia had amassed ever since Putin had come into office.
The shifts in the population and the future imbalances between the old and the young, but also the rising percentage of the non-Russian population are strategic concerns of the first magnitude for the Kremlin. Russia, in the nineteenth century a land of infinite population growth, is now a land of elderly women, mostly widows, as men tend to die in their mid-fifties ‘of excessive drinking and work accidents resulting from booze’ – as Putin put it, disapprovingly. Children are a rare sight in Moscow’s busy centre but also in the suburbs. Except in Muslim areas like Tatarstan, Russia is the land of the one-child family, and of early death. What is to be done about it? Putin indicated a panoply of social improvements. ‘The solution is obvious. We are lacking, above all, a comprehensive and efficient health-care system. That can be set up administratively, but no longer through the centre, which is too far away from the real needs of the people. The regions must be made to administer health care. Therefore, the regional governors will receive the necessary budget allocations. In addition, we have targeted programmes to help young families. Economic growth will also do its part. But we have no magic wand. And as far as those twenty-five million Russians beyond our borders are concerned, we want to harmonize legislation with the other CIS countries and make the respective health-care and pension systems mutually compatible. Moreover, we do hope to transform Russia so that people queue up to come home on their own account.’
In the end, Putin put in a note of warmth and sympathy for the Americans hit by Hurricane Katrina: ‘I have talked to George [Bush] and offered all the help that we can give. What does this disaster mean? We are nothing in the eyes of nature and of God Almighty.’
Putin, inspired by his tsarist predecessors, posed as a social conservative, fearful of instability abroad and social disruption at home. In his youthful days he must have repeated, time and again, Karl Marx’s famous exhortation that it is not enough to interpret the world, but to change it. In the Kremlin there was a man keen to present a picture of himself as a pillar of world order and of Russia as a status quo power, part of an emerging world balance, trying to recover from post-imperial blues.
One year on, in September 2006, another meeting with what by now was known as the Valdai Club took place with Mr Putin as host. This time the venue was a princely dacha just outside Moscow called Novo-Ogarevo. When we had exited from the eight-lane motorway, the well-kept winding road, with a policeman standing guard at every hundred metres, passed woodlands and extensive 1930s villas as well as more modern buildings, including the stylish mansion that Mr Khodorkovsky, when CEO of Yukos, had built for himself. The billboards crowning the road at regular intervals advertised Western luxury goods that most Russians probably had never heard of. After about ten kilometres, a narrow road branched off, allowing no entry except with special permits. It ended in front of a steel gate painted white and adorned with two imperial double-headed eagles. The remote-controlled gate opened and allowed access to a park, with a wooden church in the distance, a small lake and a yellow-painted mansion in the timeless heavy neoclassical style at home in Russia since the tsars, but most probably built in the 1930s. It would have been interesting to know whose ghosts inhabited the well-kept structure. Instead, the President’s guests were ushered into an extensive dining room on the first floor. A lavish early dinner awaited them, announced on an eagle-and-gold-embossed menu card and prepared by an Italian cook.
Putin came unannounced, greeted the guests one by one with a handshake and a softly spoken word of welcome. He had come back from an African tour only a few hours before but looked as fit and energetic as ever. He gave a brief introduction, referring to the recent G8 Summit in St Petersburg where he had been in the chair, relishing the global exposure. He immediately raised the issue of energy demand and supply, and made it clear that for the foreseeable future the combination of oil, natural gas and – ‘of course’, he said – nuclear energy would be the basis for growth. Oil prices, the Middle East, Iran, the future of the nuclear non-proliferation system – all of this would develop as a function of energy. ‘We have much in common, there are overriding interests. But it takes a proactive effort.’ Energy security is the key theme: his particular theme since the days as an adult Ph.D. student at the mining institute of St Petersburg.