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Vladimir Putin Toppled Himself
// Dmitry Medvedev became the new Russian President
Yesterday Russia’s new president was sworn in. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov, who attended the inauguration in the Kremlin, watched the fierce struggle of the guests of the ceremony for their “place in the sun,” and the key people changing places. Yesterday’s ceremony differed from the previous ones at least in that there were not enough coatracks for all the guests. And coatracks are indispensable, you know: Stanislavsky once said that theatre starts with them.
At some moment you could notice an improper throng in the entrance hall, and the creams of the nation’s creams grew red in the face. The reason was simple: There were no free coatracks in the cloakroom any more.
This was for the first time in the history of the venue. The size of the cloakroom hasn’t changed, evidently. So, you could presume, the Russian elite had grown in number drastically. It seemed it had gotten twice as big.
And so, the people having a small talk about the weather (and it was certainly the issue to discuss: on the day of the inauguration, just at that very moment, it began snowing, whereas the day before yesterday it was as “hot” as +21°C) a minute ago rushed to the only queue remaining, with their changed faces. But the cloakroom attendant claimed that the last queue had seized to exist. All those people, finding themselves bankrupt, did not know what to do with their coats and jackets. And themselves, too.
In a situation like that you can see who is who. People show their best, not to mention the worst. So, Vladimir Gurevich, editor-in-chief of the “Vremya novostey” (“News times”) paper, happened to be the only person to show his best. Five days ago he became grandfather, and he came to the inauguration right after bathing his grandson. That’s why he was in a way more dignified than the rest, and offered to share his coatrack unit with someone of those present.
The cloakroom attendants began treating coats as hand luggage and even put them in the shoes sections. Mr Gurevich attracted the attention of Grigory Yavlinsky to the fact that the coats were laid, rather than hung. The leader of the Yabloko party replied that in Russia they would always hang you, and then lay you down.
I couldn’t help asking Mr Yavlinsky whether Vladimir Putin had offered him a post in his government and whether he was considering the offer.
Mr Yavlinsky got embarrassed and then said with a kind of artificial excitement, “Putin ordered me to consider it, and I’m doing it now.”
Alas, Grigory Yavlinsky didn’t answer anything to my question whether he always did what Mr Putin ordered him to do.
But according to the information of Kommersant, Mr Yavlinsky has been really offered a key post in a department responsible for solving ecological problems. And you can’t rule out that he’ll be offered a post in the ministry. This is truly an issue to consider; it would be silly to reject it, because no one will offer you anything like that in the future, and at the same time it would be uneasy to accept the relatively minor post compared, say, with the Ministry of Industry and Energy, with the volume of work immense.
In the Grand Kremlin Palace, the audience was separated in three parts: in the St. Andrew, St. Alexander and St. George Halls. The ceremony proper was held in the St. Andrew Hall, where the closest circle was present. In the St. Alexander Hall there were MPs and senators. And the largest hall, the St. George one, where Dmitry Medvedev was to walk through, hosted journalists, businessmen, Administration officials, and cultural workers, who were anxiously waiting for Dmitry Medvedev to appear.
Member of the Public Chamber of Russia, lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said, squeezing his invitation card in his hand, that he hadn’t minded which hall to enter. And only at the moment when the secret was finally revealed to him, he understood everything. You might think, however, that Anatoly Kucherena didn’t mind the matter only because he had always been invited to the St. George Hall.
Businessmen preferred to stick together – something they would avoid in real life. You could see Onexim fund president Mikhail Prokhorov, MIRAX Group president Sergey Polonsky, and Severstal head Alexey Mordashov standing together. Mr Polonsky shared his trouble with me: He was almost the first to arrive, at 9 o’clock, but the ceremony would not start before midday.
“What for did you do it?” I wondered. “Did you fear you would not be able to have your place at the aisle?”
It need be said that by that time the people at the aisle had formed sort of a brick wall five bricks thick.
But Sergey Polonsky’s story was far more dramatic. He said that at the previous inauguration, he had arrived the last moment, like another businessman, Vim-Bill-Dann CEO David Yakobashvili, and they hardly managed to get in. Yesterday Sergey Polonsky decided to avoid the same mistake and came before the massive oak doors were opened. And surely, David Yakobashvili was the first person he met.
People around us discussed in a low voice how Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev were going to rule the state. You could hear the words “duumvirate” and “dual power” more often than “Good day.”
“And to my mind everything will be all right. For example, I had to share the same office room with my partner without suffering too much,” Sergey Polonsky shared another trouble with us.
The brick wall was getting thicker: Everyone wanted to see Dmitry Medvedev, and, what was more important, to arrange it so that Dmitry Medvedev could see them. Oleg Mitvol, Deputy Head of Russia’s environmental watchdog, was impressed by what he saw.
“Some of them arrived as early as 9 a.m.,” he told me, which meant that he arrived no later. But, to tell the truth, he preferred to stay away from the aisle. “But there are those smarter and craftier. You see that man close to the turning? The one standing sideways? He was good at physics at school, I presume. You see, he wants to look the President in the eye, which would be like sending a message “I will always be there to help you at hard times!” And he may be shown on TV later, who knows.”
The final assumption was not pointless, I’d say. The TV preparation was unprecedented as usual, and the tourists visiting Red Square that day will surely remember two lifting cranes at St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin embankment, and a videocamera hovering between them a hundred meters above the Earth. But judging from the fact that from time to time the footage of the ceremony got trembling, the creativity of the organizers was not duly rewarded.
Omitting those video imperfections, everyone saw what was happening in the Kremlin, and I barely need to describe it. Everybody saw the soldiers, freezing in their new uniform and with their noses red, turn their heads following Vladimir Putin who passed by. It was like sunflowers followed the sun. And then another sun rose – Dmitry Medvedev got out of his car.
He entered the Grand Kremlin Palace and went through the crowd. You could only get amazed at how his gait resembled that of Vladimir Putin: He walked quickly, with his right hand close to the body, and waving his left one. But their looks are quite different. Vladimir Putin had never looked anyone in the eye during his ceremonies of inauguration (and everyone wanted to look him in the eye). He kept walking without looking at anyone, and only when turning, he would blink.
And Dmitry Medvedev cast his look down sometimes. Perhaps he was walking along that red carpet for the first time (though he had been there, like Vladimir Putin, before the ceremony, and had studied that way during rehearsals). But mostly, he looked at the audience, I’d say, with sort of curiosity. It seemed he was trying to remember them, and so, the efforts of those who arrived at 9 a.m. were not in vain. And as he walked back, he managed to greet dozens of people nodding his head. I watched him thinking that, to my surprise, he was so much polite.
At that, Dmitry Medvedev, who would become President in 5 minutes, was paler than usual on his way to the hall – something he had never dreamt of, perhaps. Weren’t it the ceremony of the inauguration of the Russian President, where he, Dmitry Medvedev, was going to be sworn in, you could say that one would hardly envy that man’s fate.
Then everybody heard Vladimir Putin say that he had taken up the commitment to protect Russia, and he had lived up to his promise and would stick to it in the future. You also heard him say that he had pledged to work faithfully and openly, and he hadn’t broken his promise.
And you certainly heard his final phrase “Let’s support him!” Everybody remembers Boris Yeltsin’s final phrase addressed to Vladimir Putin “Take care of Russia!” And now everybody knows that Vladimir Putin told Dmitry Medvedev “Let’s support him!”
Did he mean that Dmitry Medvedev needed that support badly? Apparently, yes. At least that was what Dmitry Medvedev spoke about when taking his oath.
“You might understand how deep my feelings are now. I would like to express a hearty gratitude to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for his personal support I have always felt. I am sure I’ll have it in future.”
The second ceremony followed the first one: Dmitry Medvedev inspected the parade of the Kremlin guards. The two men were standing together, they only changed places. Now it was Dmitry Medvedev who inspected the parade. He stood at the microphone saying what was due to be said at that moment, and as he finished, Vladimir Putin gave him a nod and said only with his lips moving, “That’s it.”
As you walked out of the hall, you could get a gift – a package with a medal “The Inauguration of the President of Russia Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev.” One package pro person. But not everyone managed to get them (like the coatrack units in the cloakroom), because the military, who were the first to leave the hall as if on command, grabbed two packages each.
They might have feared not to be invited to the next inauguration, I guess.
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All inaugurations of the Presidents of Russia
The inauguration ceremony of the First Russian President Boris Yeltsin was held in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses July 10, 1991, lasting 50 minutes. At 10 o’clock the grand session of the Congress of Soviets of the Russian SFSR opened. Boris Yeltsin, accompanied by the blares of the trumpets, came up to the lectern, and took the oath with his hand at his heart. Then the Russian anthem followed (Glinka’s variant), and the flag of the Russian SFSR was raised next to that of the Soviet Union. Then Patriarch Alexiy II anointed the president. Boris Yeltsin and the USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev delivered their speeches. After it they shook hands and left the podium.
August 9, 1996 the second inauguration of Boris Yeltsin was held in the State Kremlin Palace (formerly, the Palace of Congresses), which was attended by 4500 guests. Boris Yeltsin entered the hall at 12 o’clock accompanied by the anthem of the Russian Federation. Central Electoral Committee Chief Nikolay Ryabov gave him the President’s certificate. The President took the oath, with his hand on a copy of the Constitution. His speech lasted for 45 seconds only (he needed an operation because of his recent infarction). The Presidential colour was raised above the Kremlin, and Chairman of the Federation Council Yegor Stroev gave him the medal of the President. Then Alexiy II addressed the Head of State. After it the Patriotic Song by Glinka was performed, and cannons fired 30 times. The ceremony lasted for half an hour.
Vladimir Putin assumed office in the Grand Kremlin Palace May 7, 2000. 1500 guests attended the ceremony. Standard bearer took the flag of the Russian Federation through the St. George, St. Alexander and St. Andrew Halls. At 12 o’clock Vladimir Putin came onto the podium accompanied by the strokes of the Kuranty. There, a number of high-ranking officials and president Boris Yeltsin were waiting for him. Alexander Veshnyakov, head of the Central Electoral Committee, read the act of the election of the President, and Marat Baglay, Chairman of the Constitutional Court, swore Vladimir Putin in. The anthem was performed, and the colour was raised. Vladimir Putin preferred not to put on the chain with the medal of the President, leaving it to lie on the stand. He delivered a 20-minute speech, and then inspected a parade of the Kremlin Regiment in Sobornaya (Cathedral) Square. The ceremony lasted for 30 minutes and finished with salute.
The second inauguration of Vladimir Putin was the shortest in Russia’s history, lasting no longer than 20 minutes. At 12 o’clock the president entered the St. George Hall, went through the St. Alexander Hall and proceeded to the St. Andrew Hall. This time Boris Yeltsin was absent – he had fallen ill. The Head of State took the oath, then the anthem followed (the Alexandrov variant), cannons fired 30 times, and the colour was raised. Vladimir Putin preferred not to put on the medal of the President, just like he had done the previous time. After giving a brief speech, he watched a parade in Sobornaya Square and was congratulated by the guests. 1700 people were present there.
What Vladimir Putin has done within the 8 years in office
According to the official site of the President, president.kremlin.ru, Vladimir Putin has worked for 2494 days. He has managed to accomplish 9906 deals (the number of positions mentioned in his schedule), with moving from one destination to another and work with documents excluded. Workdays account for 85% of all days of the year (common people usually have 70% of workdays). The majority of the deals regarded meetings with different people (37%). Every year Russia’s PMs were the leaders in terms of the frequency of meetings with the president – he received them as often as twice a week on average. Visiting various sights, and telephone talks take an important place in the schedule (10-11% each), with participation in ceremonies and sessions accounting for 8-9%.
Public speeches have been part and parcel of the president’s life. Vladimir Putin has delivered speeches 1900 times and said 2.2 mln words within the eight years. Assuming that he pronounced some 160 words per minute, he had to spend 230 hours on giving speeches.
Trips and visits of the President are an indispensable part of his work. Vladimir Putin covered a 1.4 mln km distance (it means that he could travel round the Earth 35 times). His longest journey was the one of 2007 on the route Moscow – Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – Jakarta (Indonesia) – Sydney (Australia) – Abu Dhabi (the UAE) – Moscow (36.500 km in total). During his term in office Vladimir Putin visited 54 countries (Ukraine – 16 times, Germany – 12, Kazakhstan – 11, France – 9, Belorus – 8). The favourite destinations of the President in Russia were St. Petersburg (38 visits) and Sochi (34).
Vladimir Putin paid much attention to his staff: 60 people have managed to work as ministers for the eight years. Three PMs (Mikhail Kasyanov, Mikhail Fradkov and Victor Zubkov) and three Chiefs of the Presidential Administration (Alexander Voloshin, Dmitry Medvedev and Sergey Sobyanin) have been changed. Only five Deputy Prime Ministers and Ministers who were in the government early 2000 are still in office (Alexey Kudrin, Sergey Shoigu, Alexey Gordeyev, Leonid Reyman and Nikolay Patrushev).
Besides, Vladimir Putin has worked much with documents. He has signed 1.853 Federal Laws, 46 Constitutional Laws, rejected 39 bills, issued 13.006 decrees and 5.299 orders. In sum, the President signed 20.243 documents of that kind, that is 8 pieces daily.
Vladimir Putin’s terms in office. The bottom line
The population of the Russian Federation decreased by 4.88 mln people. It amounted to 146.89 mln (January 1, 2000), and dropped to 142.01 (January 1, 2008). Occupying the 6th place in the world 2000, Russia sunk to the 8th position 2008. At that, the natural loss fell from 929.6 to 477.7 people per annum.
From 1999-2007 an average monthly salary grew 9 times (from 1522.6 roubles to 13.518 roubles), pensions – 7 times (from 521.5 roubles to 3682.3 roubles). The number of Russians on the bboks of labor registry offices remained the same (1.791.800 and 1.774.500 correspondingly).
According to the IMF data, the Russian GDP boosted 6 times in current terms (from $195.91 bln 1999 – the 23th place in the world, – to $1289.58 bln 2007 – the 11th place). Russia is now the world leader in producing oil. The mining increased from 305 mln tons to 490.7 tons annually, and as to gas, – from 592 bln to 651 bln m2. The volume of agricultural production grew 3 times (from 611.9 bln roubles to 2017.2 roubles), the volume of house-building got twice as high (from 32 mln m2 to 60.4 mln m2). Exports grew 5 times (from $75.6 bln to $355.5 bln), and imports – 6 times (from $39.5 bln to $223.4).
The state budget surged 10 times becoming a surplus one, incomes went up from 615.53 bln roubles to 6644.45 bln roubles, and public spending – from 666.93 bln roubles to 6570.3 bln roubles. The oil and gas sector used to account for 5.6% of the GDP, whereas now it amounts to 6.8%. Gold and exchange currency reserves soared 40 times (from $12.456 bln on January 1, 2000 to $534,422 bln on May 1, 2008), which allowed Russia to occupy the 3rd place in the world. A Stability Fund was set up in Russia ($162.52 on May 1, 2008). The state foreign debt decreased 3 times (from $158.4 bln to $44,1 bln). Overall inflation from 2000-2007 was 131% (the 22nd place in the world).
The bureaucratic apparatus grew 150%: 1999 there were 397.240 executive officials in Russia, and 2007 – 655.790. At the same time Russia lost 30 positions in the Heritage Foundation economic liberty rating (it fell from the 104th place to the 134th one), and 61 positions in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (dropping from the 82nd place to the 143rd one).
The number of registered crimes grew from 3 mln 1999 to 3.58 mln 2007. Though there are less people in jail now (1.06 mln on January 1, 2000 compared with 891.7 on April 1, 2008). The incarceration rate in Russia is only lower than that in the United States, occupying the 1st place.
Who leaves with the old president
According to Article 3 of the Constitution and the Federal Law “On the Government of the Russian Federation,” the government announces its stepping down to the new president. According to these statutes, the government consists of the Chairman, his Deputies and Federal Ministers, that’s why the heads of agencies, services and state committees are to remain in office.
More to the point, the Federal Law “On the Principles of State Service in the Russian Federation” reads that the work of state officials of the B category, who are in office to “directly provide for the work of officials of the A category” (the latter embraces the President, the Prime Minister, the Chairmen of both Chambers of the Parliament and Ministers), is limited by the terms in office of their chiefs. This said, the Secretary of the Security Council and his deputies, the Head of the Presidential Administration and his deputies, heads of the Administration departments, the Press-Secretary, the Head of the Protocol, Aids and Advisors to the President are also to step down.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of May 08, 2008
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