86 See, for instance, the description by Yeltsin of Korzhakov’s advocacy of Barsukov (Marafon, 78); and details on his role in the decision on the procurator general, in Yurii Skuratov, Variant drakona (Version of the dragon) (Moscow: Detektiv, 2000), 68–70. The procurator whom Skuratov replaced, Aleksei Il’yushenko (the man who charged NTV with slander for the Kukly satire), had also been appointed at Korzhakov’s behest in 1994. Korzhakov was godfather of Soskovets’s first grandson in 1994, and at the same ceremony Soskovets himself was baptized, with Korzhakov again as godfather.
87 Anatolii Kulikov, Tyazhëlyye zvëzdy (Heavy stars) (Moscow: Voina i mir, 2002), 358.
88 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 24.
89 Ibid., 78, 256–57.
90 Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin, 243–46.
91 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 326.
92 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 257.
93 Alena V. Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 11.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1 Aleksandr Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin: ot rassveta do zakata (Boris Yeltsin: from dawn to dusk) (Moscow: Interbuk, 1997), 308; Nikolai Zen’kovich, Boris Yel’tsin: raznyye zhizni (Boris Yeltsin: various lives), 2 vols. (Moscow: OLMA, 2001), 2:465. In the interview, published in Komsomol’skaya pravda, Yeltsin said he favored training a group of twenty leaders from which his successor would be elected. Nothing was done about the suggestion.
2 Dmitri K. Simes, After the Collapse: Russia Seeks Its Place as a Great Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999), 139.
3 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002), 33.
4 Yu, M. Baturin et al., Epokha Yel’tsina: ocherki politicheskoi istorii (The Yeltsin epoch: essays in political history) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2001), 525–30; Georgii Satarov, first interview with the author (June 5, 2000).
5 There is scathing commentary in Vyacheslav Kostikov, Roman s prezidentom: zapiski press-sekretarya (Romance with a president: notes of a press secretary) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 1997), 120–21.
6 Sergei Medvedev, interview with the author (May 28, 2001).
7 See http://www.fotuva.org/newsletters/fot13.html.
8 Tatyana Malkina, interview with the author (June 13, 2001).
9 See Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin, 329–31; and Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman, Without a Map: Political Tactics and Economic Reform in Russia (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000), 47.
10 Malkina interview. She added that Yeltsin now and again acted as if he were in a trance or “not of these parts” (nezdeshnii).
11 See especially M. Steven Fish, “Russia’s Fourth Transition,” Journal of Democracy 5 (July 1994), 31–42; Marc Morjé Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and Henry E. Hale, Why Not Parties in Russia? Democracy, Federalism, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
12 Source: scattered press reports; second interview with Gennadii Burbulis, conducted by Yevgeniya Al’bats (February 14, 2001); Sergei Stankevich, interview with the author (May 29, 2001).
13 Yevgenii Krasnikov, “Demokraty sozdayut izbiratel’nyi blok” (The democrats create an electoral bloc), Nezavisimaya gazeta, June 17, 1993.
14 Details here from Yegor Gaidar, second interview with the author (January 31, 2002). Gaidar was bitter that Yeltsin did not tell him man-to-man that he would not show up for the Russia’s Choice congress, but delegated the honor to Viktor Ilyushin. Government minister Aleksandr Shokhin and presidential adviser Sergei Stankevich stood with Shakhrai on the list of his Party of Russian Unity and Accord.
15 Second Gaidar interview. As it was, Russia’s Choice received 16 percent of the votes in the party-list half of the vote, 7 points fewer than Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s LDPR. Shakhrai’s miniparty received 7 percent, which if added to the Russia’s Choice vote, even without assistance from Yeltsin, would have put it into a dead heat with the LDPR.
16 Author’s first interview with Sergei Filatov (May 25, 2000) and second interview with Aleksandr Yakovlev (March 29, 2004).
17 Ivan Rybkin, interview with the author (May 29, 2001); first Satarov interview.
18 Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin, 382.
19 Boris Yeltsin, second interview with the author (February 9, 2000).
20 Yevgenii Savast’yanov, interview with the author (June 9, 2000).
21 Viktor Chernomyrdin, interview with the author (September 15, 2000). As prime instigators, he mentioned the Korzhakov-Soskovets group and Viktor Ilyushin. See also Baturin et al., Epokha, 541.
22 Oleg Poptsov, Khronika vremën “Tsarya Borisa” (Chronicle of the times of “Tsar Boris”) (Moscow: Sovershenno sekretno, 1995), 220.
23 Fifteen percent of citizens polled by VTsIOM in September 1994 said they would vote for Yeltsin if an election were held tomorrow. This number slid to 6 percent in March 1995. A poll by the same organization in October 1994 revealed that a mere 3 percent had complete trust in Yeltsin, which were fewer than trusted six other politicians. Oleg Moroz, 1996: kak Zyuganov ne stal prezidentom (1996: how Zyuganov did not become president) (Moscow: Raduga, 2006), 10–11.
24 Lee Hockstader, “Yeltsin, Communist Zyuganov Launch Presidential Bids,” The Washington Post, February 16, 1996. The Russian media reported on January 22 that Gaidar was advising Yeltsin not to run at all, saying any Yeltsin candidacy would be “suicidal” and “the best present that could possibly be given to the communists.” Yeltsin wrote him a letter on February 2 asking him to be governed “not by emotions but by the interests of Russia.” Yegor Gaidar, Dni porazhenii i pobed (Days of defeats and victories) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 1996), 357–58.
25 The most thorough tracking polls on degrees of support were done by the VTsIOM organization, but it did none of this kind between April 1994 and March 1996. Not much seems to have changed through the end of 1995, and so we can take the April 1994 results as indicative. They showed a mere 4 percent of citizens unreservedly supporting Yeltsin and 4 percent supporting him “as long as he is leader of the democratic forces.” Thirty-one percent were opposed to him in varying degrees, while a plurality of 42 percent indicated ambivalence. In March 1996 supporters of Yeltsin, by this measure, still came to only 12 percent, with 41 percent opposed and ambivalent citizens coming to 38 percent. Yu, A. Levada et al., Obshchestvennoye mneniye—1999 (Public opinion—1999 edition) (Moscow: Vserossiiskii tsentr izucheniya obshchestvennogo mneniya, 2000), 100–101.
26 Author’s interviews with family members, which directly and persuasively contradict the assertion in Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin, 316–17, that the family pushed him to run in order to preserve their style of life. Boris Yel’tsin, Prezidentskii marafon (Presidential marathon) (Moscow: AST, 2000), 23, notes Naina’s opposition.
27 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 25.
28 Mark Urnov, interview with the author (May 26, 2000).
29 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 24–25.