Sochi is what Russia has inherited from the former extensive holdings of the Soviet Union on the shores of the Black Sea. The small and – by Soviet standards – elegant town is just beginning to prepare for the 2014 winter Olympics: major road building, brush clearing, hotel building and refurbishing of sports arenas in Sochi and in the mountains above the city, plus a tremendous amount of upgrading, will have to be done. Putin, when he persuaded the International Olympic Committee in Guatemala in early summer of 2007, had displayed his Sunday-best English and French to convince the sports officials that Sochi, although blessed with a Mediterranean climate, was really made for the winter Olympics; that Russia, never mind global warming, could still guarantee enough snow on the mountains to the north of the city, and that money was no object.
The airport is on one side of the city – which is essentially a narrow settlement between the steep mountains with their dark forests and the misty clouds above and the seashore. The mansion of the President is on the far side of the city. Travellers without a presidential escort flashing blue and red lights will experience endless traffic jams. Nobody was indiscreet enough to ask Putin directly whether or not he would still be around to oversee the realization of his pet project.
Russia, Putin said, is ‘a multireligious country’. Throughout the centuries the fate of the country depended on the ability to coexist and cooperate. When mistakes were made – did he mean the Bolsheviks? – the consequences were painful and long-lasting. The future he sees in strong government – he indicated that only a presidential system could deliver enough authority. However, strong parties were also needed, preferably in a multiparty system. At present, and for a long time to come, United Russia looks poised to supply the necessary societal foundation. But Putin left no doubt that the party was more dependent on the President than the President on the party. He also mentioned Just Russia which, for good measure, he had created to the left of the Kremlin party – an exercise in Russian social democracy. Together those two parties were well equipped to win the December elections and control the State Duma for the next four years.
But who, the question was on everybody’s mind, will be President? And would not every successor, whoever he might be – a ‘she’ would have been the surprise of all surprises given Russia’s macho society – be forever in the shadow of Mr Putin, and therefore rather weak? Putin: ‘I am not interested in a weak president after me. Russia cannot exist without a strong president – or did he mean strong authority, in whatever constitutional guise? Whether he could imagine returning to the Kremlin after a while? Putin leaves the answer open. ‘I hope I will be fit enough. That would be one factor.’ Meanwhile, rumours from Moscow suggest that Putin might want to become chief of Gazprom in St Petersburg in order to make real money.
But in late summer of 2007 all of this remained mere speculation. Putin would not be the gifted tactician if he were to unveil his plans. Either everything was still open, or everything was already settled and, known only to a small circle inside the Kremlin.
For the time being the new government and what it means are the focus of attention. Why the new premier? Why just now, before the Duma elections in December and the presidential elections three months later? And why Mr Subkov? Putin responds angrily to the hint that the reshuffle was undemocratic. What about France? Or the US? Or Germany? Everything happened strictly within constitutional lines. It was a ‘technical decision’. On the one hand the ministers had paid too much attention to their friends and their own personal future – did he hint at corruption in high places? – while a government ought to work ‘like a Swiss clock’. On the other hand, he put much emphasis on ‘continuity’. But why, of all people, Victor Subkov, arguably the most faceless of bureaucrats? Putin answered that the man from St Petersburg brought much experience to the job, first as an agricultural expert who had made the Kolkhoz under his thumb a model for many others, then as a financial expert and, during the last six years, as the head of the tax police where he had obtained no fewer than 421 convictions. Subkov, Putin concluded, was the right man to steer the country through the uncertainties of the forthcoming elections. But would Subkov also be the right man to modernize Russia’s desolate infrastructure? To clean up Russia’s cities? To reinvigorate the education system, even under the Soviets the pride of Russians and now in a state of decay? To reverse the destruction of the environment? Perhaps an experienced apparatchik type might be best equipped to channel the wild dynamics of Russia’s economy and give them productive direction. But doubts linger on.
Therefore, once again, the inescapable question was who would be his candidate to succeed him as president. It cannot have been convenient that Subkov, in his first press conference, had hinted that he could conceive of himself running for president. Who else? ‘There are five or six excellent candidates.’ All of them enjoy the support of United Russia, the Kremlin’s party. It is obvious that Putin plays his cards close to his chest, and does not want to have his hands tied. ‘I am still around, and 2012 is far away.’ Is there a roadmap? ‘Much can change in the course of a few months,’ he says, to end that particular subject.
With gusto he went on to answer the next question as to the economic future of the country mercilessly running through facts and figures: more than 7 per cent overall growth each year since 1999 – that was the year when the oil price, after its catastrophic fall to $10 per barrel, picked up. The rouble is now a hard currency. Russia, until 1999 a basket case, was able to repay its debt. Unemployment was down to 5 per cent, inflation reined in from a destructive 40 per cent to 8 per cent over the last twelve months: ‘But you have to pay attention.’ In fact his experts fear, if too high a proportion of the petrodollars were channelled into pensions and infrastructure, rampant inflation.
The question as to ‘sovereign democracy’ gives him the cue to express bitterness at the sight of the massive US presence throughout Eastern Europe: ‘ministers have to be approved by the US ambassador’. At the same time, Russia claims its own path. He does not mention human rights. Instead he praises the role of democratic institutions, more specifically law and order, civil society, a multiparty system and freedom of the press. It sounds good when he adds: ‘We cannot build the country on the will of one person or a single group.’ Is what he says an attempt to please and reassure his interlocutors? Or is it a vision for the Russia of his dreams? It is with admiration that he speaks of the older, ‘mature democracies’ of the West, able to manage complex societies. Russia, he adds, was still on its way. ‘But we do not have to invent our own wheel.’
Could not Russia, by selling less and earning more, increase oil revenues? Putin’s answer comes like a conditioned reflex: ‘On the contrary. We have to produce. We shall even expand production. Demand continues to rise. We have always acted responsibly. Our interests [he addresses the Westerners] should be in harmony. We are not part of OPEC. We are not interested in monopolies or excessive pricing. If we did, it would put a premium on substitution and ersatz. Everywhere the search is on for other sources of energy. This we have to take into account.’ As far as distribution is concerned, he is looking for more outlets. Again he mentions construction of two major pipelines to the Far East and a giant oil pipeline in the same direction – ‘bypassing Lake Baikal by a wide margin’, he adds, referring to environmentalists’ criticism of the original route. And who knows what new opportunities for transport along the northern shores of Russia climate change will one day open?