Johnson's Russia List
#6081
16 February 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
  1. AP: Russians Fault Medal for Canadians.
  2. St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Derrick Goold, Tonight's U.S.-Russia clash
evokes 
memories of 1980.
  3. TimeEurope.com: Yuri Zarakhovich, Russia Sings the Same Old Song. 
Meet Boris Berezovski, 'enemy of the people'
  4. The Russia Journal: Alexander Golts, Still in search of a security plan.
  5. The Russia Journal: Andrei Piontkovsky, Bound by a single nuclear chain.
  6. Financial Times (UK) letter: Animseh Ghoshal, A world away from the 
economic truth.
  7. Financial Times (UK) letter: Jim Rogers, Cross 10 Russian borders and 
you'll see the real world.
  8. National Post (Canada): Filip Palda, Wading into Russia's business 
cesspool.
  9. New book: Mark Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse 
of the Soviet State.
  10. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Olga Tropkina, RIGHT FORCES DON'T WANT TO BE 
DIRECTLY ASSOCIATED WITH PUTIN.
  11. Interfax: Helsinki Federation declares war on Russia's "spy mania"
  12. RFE/RL: Jeremy Bransten, Supreme Court Rulings Bring Hope To Pasko, 
Others Accused Of Treason.
  13. EKHO MOSKVY RADIO: INTERVIEW WITH ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA, SPECIAL 
CORRESPONDENT FOR NOVAYA GAZETA, ON CHECHNYA.
  14. Financial Times (UK): Robert Cottrell, Lunch with the FT: Anatoly 
Chubais, Widely regarded as the architect of Russia's privatisation 
programme.]

*******

#1
Russians Fault Medal for Canadians
February 16, 2002
  
MOSCOW (AP) - Russian commentators on Saturday assailed the decision to
award a Canadian skating duo a second Olympic gold medal alongside the
Russian winners. Canada's prime minister defended his country's athletes. 

Russian media suggested that Friday's decision to award silver medalists
Jamie Sale and David Pelletier a gold after the skating union said it
uncovered misconduct by a French judge was a result of pressure by the
North American media. 

``Such close attention to the international judges is seen by many athletes
as an attempt by American television stations and newspapers to raise their
own rating,'' an NTV television anchor said. 

Valentin Piseyev, head of Russia's figure skating federation, said that
Russian duo Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze had been targeted
because other countries were annoyed by Russia's 38-year hold over pairs
skating at the Olympics. 

``If this happened to another pair ... nobody would reconsider the
decision,'' he said. 

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, on a visit to Moscow, was
quoted by NTV as saying that he had watched the skating and in his opinion,
Sale and Pelletier were the winners. 

Because of the time difference, most Russian newspapers did not report the
decision, though many carried commentaries about the uproar over the French
judge's alleged misconduct. 

The skaters that started Russia's record in pairs skating, 1964 Olympic
champions Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopov, wrote in the daily
Rossiiskaya Gazeta that this year's Russian victory ``leaves no room for
doubt.'' 

``We congratulate the Russian school of figure skating on its deserved
victory. It needs no behind-the-scenes defenders,'' they wrote. 

*******

#2
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 16, 2002
Tonight's U.S.-Russia clash evokes memories of 1980
BY DERRICK GOOLD

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah - In his own words he has a "shoebox full" of gold
medals - and that is likely an understatement - so imagine how darkly
humorous all this 1980 nostalgia is to Russian coach Slava Fetisov. 

He was in Lake Placid, N.Y., when the United States stunned the world with
the "Miracle on Ice" upset, and he hasn't been able to escape it since. 

"You remind me every day," Fetisov snapped the moment the numbers 19 and 80
began a question Friday. "How can I forget?" 

In recent weeks, the 1980 U.S. men's hockey team's semifinal upset of the
Soviet Union has been the rallying cry of these Winter Games. The team held
a reunion this month at the NHL All-Star Game. Team members lit the torch
at last week's opening ceremonies. 

Tonight, the past merges, somewhat, with the present in a true game. 

Herb Brooks will be back behind the U.S. bench. That may be the only
concrete similarity between tonight's Team USA-Russia game and the upset in
Lake Placid. 

In the wake of Sept. 11 and the ongoing war, the 1980 team has been
venerated by some as an emblem of American patriotism. Fetisov, who fought
the Soviet system throughout his career, sternly said, no, he has not used
patriotism to fuel his team. They should play for family, for themselves.
"Why normal people do things," Fetisov said. 

So much for a duel of ideals, a political clash on ice. 

The countries have changed too much in the 22 years since for tonight's
game to resonate with the same rivalry. There is no Soviet juggernaut
dominating international play. This U.S. team, which opened its Olympic
play Friday against Finland, is by no stretch an underdog. 

Yet, 1980 helps bind the current U.S. and Russian squads. 

It reminds Team USA what can be repeated on the ice and Team Russia what it
wants never repeated off the ice. 

For the U.S. players, that gold medal team is an echo of childhood. 

For the Russian players, the loss has varied impact. 

Igor Larionov, the captain of this Russian Olympic team, was "shocked when
I head the news" of the Soviets' loss. Now 41, Larionov joined the national
team in 1981. For the 1984 Soviet team, the silver medal in 1980 became an
impetus - and a shackle. 

"It was big motivation," said Larionov, a member of the 1984 and 1988
Soviet Olympic teams. "There was lots of pressure on us. Back then things
were real tight. (It was part of the reason why) we had to hide to talk to
other athletes." 

After Russia defeated Belarus 6-4 in its opening game of this medal
tournament, Larionov described a handcuffed environment on the '84 and '88
Soviet teams, both of which won gold. The players were not allowed to
mingle with other athletes or allowed to speak for themselves. 

They were, it seems, only allowed to win. 

For the younger Russian players, the ones who benefited from Fetisov
fighting for the right to play in the NHL without defecting, the 1980 game
holds little memory. 

Valeri Bure said he had to come to the States to learn about the 1980 game.
Pavel Bure chided: "It is big for you. (We) remember '72 ... when we won
the basketball." 

*******

#3
TimeEurope.com
February 16, 2002 
Russia Sings the Same Old Song 
Meet Boris Berezovski, 'enemy of the people'
BY YURI ZARAKHOVICH, MOSCOW

Friday, Feb. 15, 2002
As the enemy of the people, Lev Trotski proved indispensable to the regime
he had helped install. Back in 1929, Stalin forcibly exiled the erstwhile
Bolshevik Number 2 from the Soviet Union, and turned him into the epitome
of all the horror that threatened the Soviet Motherland, the bogeyman that
the people must rally around the Vozhd to oppose. Moscow show trials were
built on alleged ties of the "criminal trotskiite underground" to their
exiled principal. All the ills and failures of the Soviet society were
explained by the plotting of "trotskiite wreckers." Even after Stalin's
agent murdered Trotski with an ice-pick in Mexico in August 1940, his name
was invoked to justify terror until Stalin's death in March 1953, and
remained a curse till the late 1980s. 

Putin has his enemy abroad in Boris Berezovski, a key wheeler and dealer of
the Yeltsin epoch. Berezovski did not spare his political and financial
resources to make Putin President. Once firmly installed, though, Putin
made it clear that Berezovski's resources were welcome, while Berezovski
himself was not. All the ills and failures of the post-Soviet society are
now ascribed to Berezovski and his fellow oligarchs, like Vladimir
Gusinski, whose Media-Most holding company was destroyed by the Kremlin,
and who settled in Spain, once Moscow's attempts to have him extradited
failed. Berezovski's associates are either in prison — like Nikolai
Glushkov, once Deputy General Manager of Aeroflot — or on the wanted list,
like Badri Patarkatsishvili, Berezovski's right hand man. The embittered
population, fleeced during the reform decade, is receptive to the
propaganda line of rallying around Putin against the miscreant who has sold
out their country. 

Self-exiled to London, Berezovski is now blowing the whistle on the new
Russian authoritarianism he himself has helped launch. He accuses Russian
law enforcers of complicity in Moscow apartment bombings of 1999 that
claimed 230 victims, and paved the way both to the new Chechen war and the
Putin presidency. For their part, law enforcers accuse Berezovski — once
Deputy Secretary of Russia's Security Council, now a wanted person — of
financing the Chechen terrorists. They watch Berezovski as closely as
Stalin did Trotski. Said General Victor Prokopov of the Interior Ministry:
"We know what he has for breakfast, and where he shops." 

However, new times make new songs, as they say in Russia. Unlike Trotski in
the 1930s, Berezovski freely communicates with his friends and foes in
Russia on live TV link-ups, and in the printed media, and finances a new
political opposition. Putin can hardly afford to have Berezovski
ice-picked, but he hammers away at Berezovski's business. Berezovski has
lost ORT and TV-6 national television stations, and his printed media is
slowly coming under siege. It seems vital to Putin to have Berezovski shut
up. 

Karl Marx, once revered in the Soviet Union as the founder of scientific
communism and now referred to in Russia as "a German scholar", said that
history first happens as tragedy and repeats itself as farce. Indeed, the
Putin-Berezovski act lampoons the Stalin-Trotski one. Except the lampoon is
disturbing rather than amusing. Two years of Putin Presidency has been
mostly spent fighting Gusinski and Berezovski, while one-third of Russians
live below the official poverty level and the country is being torn by the
endless and bloody Chechen war. Freedoms of speech and opposition are
becoming collateral damage to the struggle between the President and the
oligarch. And once the specter of the "enemy of the people" looms over
Russia again, once people get imprisoned, and businesses closed for
political expediency rather than justice, even the new time might start
repeating old songs. 

******

#4
The Russia Journal
February 15-21, 2002
Still in search of a security plan
By ALEXANDER GOLTS 

All last week, foreign colleagues kept asking me the same question: Why did
Moscow react so calmly, almost indifferently, to the latest concession that
had cost Washington so much effort?

When it announced late last year that it would withdraw from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the United States said that, in return, it
would dramatically reduce its nuclear arsenal from 6,000 to between 1,700
and 2,200 warheads. This was to set the Russian military’s mind at ease.

As consultations progressed, however, the U.S. side made clear it had no
intention of signing an arms-limitation treaty along the lines of the START
I or START II agreements. The most it would accept was a nonbinding joint
statement. Russian politicians, meanwhile, declared that the Americans had
simply pulled the wool over the eyes of President Vladimir Putin. 

But it turned out that President George W. Bush placed value on relations
with Russia, and the United States was ready to make concessions. Suddenly,
Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that Washington was willing to
sign a legally binding and verifiable treaty.

Moscow, it seemed, should have been happy, but the Russian authorities
acted as if they hadn’t even noticed the U.S. change of tack.

Indeed, rather than expressing their satisfaction, Russian military
officials and diplomats immediately put forward a new demand. Rather than
destroying the warheads removed from their missiles, the Americans plan to
stockpile them so that they can be easily put back in place if the military
situation changes radically. So Moscow demanded the destruction of all
delivery vehicles from which warheads are to be removed.

There is logic in the Russian strategists’ demands. Gen. Yury Baluyevsky,
the military’s deputy chief of staff, said recently that the Defense
Ministry is satisfied with the state of surface-based missiles over the
next 10-15 years. Baluyevsky said the ministry plans to concentrate on the
naval component of the strategic triad over the coming years. But if
someone thinks this means the military is going to start building new
nuclear submarines, he is mistaken.

What this really means is that the military will all but stop the
production of modern Topol-M surface-based missiles. When Igor Sergeyev was
Russia’s defense minister, the plan was to put 30 new Topol-M missiles on
duty every year. This was the only way to replace the heavy missiles that
were fast approaching the end of their service lives.

But Sergeyev managed to deploy only 20 new missiles, and once he was gone,
the situation went from bad to worse. Deputy Defense Minister Alexei
Moskovsky said the armed forces received only six new Topol-Ms in 2001, and
the Defense Ministry plans to buy the same number in the future. But this
would make it completely unprofitable for enterprises producing components
for the missile, and producers say it would in effect liquidate the program. 

The situation with nuclear submarines is no better. The Severodvinsk plant
has been working on construction of a new cruiser submarine, the Yury
Dolgoruky, since 1996, but it still hasn’t been decided what kind of
missiles the submarine will carry, and there are no Defense Ministry plans
to bring it into service. 

Baluyevsky’s statements about beefing up the naval component of the nuclear
triad more likely mean that a considerable part of Defense Ministry’s money
will go on refitting seven Delta IV submarines with new missiles, the
calculation no doubt being that nuclear subs have a longer service life
than surface missiles, and when most of the surface missiles will have been
scrapped, the emphasis will "naturally" shift to nuclear submarines.

As a result, Russia’s nuclear potential will drop sharply by 2010, and it’s
only natural that, in this situation, the Russian military would like the
Americans to liquidate a substantial part of their own nuclear potential. 

The United States is not about to abandon its plans to stockpile the
warheads and keep the delivery vehicles. But this isn’t because it still
sees Moscow as a likely adversary. On the contrary, the Nuclear Posture
Review recently sent to Congress is the first U.S. military-strategic
report that names Russia as a partner of the United States.

The report signals a decisive shift in U.S. strategic priorities. The
emphasis is to shift from strategic offensive weapons to conventional
precise weapons in combination with defensive systems and industrial
infrastructure ready to begin production of strategic weapons at any moment.

What this means is that the United States has set itself the aim of
achieving absolute military superiority over the rest of the world. This
has only an indirect relation to the nuclear balance with Russia. The
Pentagon needs warheads and delivery vehicles as a guarantee that, while it
is reorganizing its strategic triad, it will still be able to deter threats
through traditional means. 

The United States is clearly aiming at dismantling the nuclear
infrastructure inherited from the Cold War. This is not to Moscow’s liking.
Over the 40 years of the Cold War, bilateral relations concentrated on
resolving the one really crucial problem facing both countries: ensuring
that mutual deterrence didn’t lead to mutual destruction.

On an institutional level, these relations were expressed in the system of
arms control treaties. The dialogue between Moscow and Washington revolved
exclusively around these issues. Even after the collapse of the Soviet
Union, Moscow went on believing that having a nuclear arsenal comparable to
that of the United States made it America’s equal. No one wanted to see,
meanwhile, that keeping in place the Cold War-era organizational structure
would inevitably revive the old confrontations. This was the reason the ABM
Treaty issue turned out to be such a stumbling block for such a long time,
and this was what led to stupid acts such as the surprise Russian descent
on Slatina in Kosovo that almost led to a military collision.

Now, when the Americans have become serious about dismantling the old
system, there are fears that neither side has any clear idea of what will
replace it. In Washington there is a lot of talk about strategic
cooperation, but there are few details on what this cooperation would
actually entail. In Moscow, neither the Foreign Ministry nor the Defense
Ministry even have the people to work on a new positive agenda for
Russian-U.S. relations.
 
******

#5
The Russia Journal
February 15-21, 2002
Bound by a single nuclear chain
BY ANDREI PIONTKOVSKY 

The U.S. Defense Ministry presented an important document – the Nuclear
Posture Review – to the U.S. Congress on Jan. 9.

What stands out most in this document is that it goes well beyond its name
and examines the prospects not so much of nuclear-arms policy but of
military policy in general. This is natural, given that the review’s main
thrust is the dramatic reduction of the nuclear factor in U.S. military
policy.

The nuclear factor and emphasis on strategic nuclear weapons was central to
the Cold War period in which the United States and the world’s other
nuclear giant, the Soviet Union, were opposed. But U.S. relations with
Russia today are increasingly about partnership rather than confrontation.
From a military point of view, then, there is no longer any sense in the
mountains of nuclear weapons both countries have piled up, nor in the
military doctrines such as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) they have
adhered to until now. At the same time, the United States now finds itself
confronting a range of new and difficult-to-predict threats (such as the
Sept. 11 challenge) that call for completely new forms of deterrence,
defense and response.

The United States’ new military policy is already being reflected in
specific military-development plans. A considerably increased defense
budget will be spent in the coming years primarily on developing
ultra-modern weapons that have already proved their worth during the
Afghanistan operation (Predator planes, smart bombs and missiles,
night-vision equipment and encrypted communications, including
satellite-based platforms, etc).

But what, then, will happen to the Cold War arsenal – the stockpiles of
strategic offensive weapons? The number of operationally deployed nuclear
warheads will be cut from 6,000 (today’s level) to 1,700-2,000 by 2012. The
review speaks of "Force sizing not driven by an immediate contingency
involving Russia." That is to say, the 1,700-2,000 warheads plus a
"responsive force for potential contingencies" has nothing to do with Russia.

Here, the temptation is to accuse the Americans of not playing their cards
up front. But let’s not be too hasty, because the reality is a lot more
complicated. Let’s take a look at our own situation, which is really quite
similar. After all, we also declared our intention to cut our nuclear
arsenal to a similar figure of 1,500 warheads. If we were asked why 1,500
and not, say, 500, we would respond just as the Americans did and say that
the United States is not our enemy or opponent, and that we want to keep
1,500 warheads not because the Americans have 1,700, we just want them
because you never know what will come up.

The paradox is that we and the Americans are both right and wrong in these
assertions . Yes, we are no longer enemies or opponents, there is no
ideological conflict between us and, in the new geopolitical situation of
the 21st century, we actually share many common interests. War between us,
especially nuclear war, is as farfetched an idea as war between the United
States and Britain or the United States and France. We’ve long since
stopped looking at each other through the prism of MAD doctrine. But we
remain hostage to its material heritage – the accumulated mountains of
strategic offensive weapons that bind us in a single nuclear chain.

We plan to reduce our nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,700 warheads by 2012, but
we could have kept to this level even at the peak of Cold War hostility in
1972, 1979 or 1983. As it is, this level is a MAD-stability level with a
considerable margin of deterrent potential. These words have already lost
all sense when applied to U.S.-Russia relations, but the weapons that
embody them remain, as do the huge corporate interests of the people who
service and support them.

There is also one other thing that seems almost indecent to mention today.
The U.S. Committee of Chiefs of Staff has in its possession a document
called SIOP (Single Integration Operation Plan) that lists the targets the
United States would strike in the event of a nuclear war.

I don’t know what it’s called, but the Russian General Staff obviously has
a similar document. The targets these documents list are respectively on
Russian and U.S. territory. This makes it hard to buy the frequently given
American argument that, "We and the British and the French are friends, and
we don’t count each other’s warheads, so why should we and Russia be so
obsessed with each other’s warheads and sign agreements on cuts?"

We’re not enemies with the United States, and maybe even just as much
friends as the British. But it’s not quite the same. We’re friends with a
different history and a different heritage. The United States and Britain
never had any SIOPs with respect to each other. This isn’t our fault, it’s
our misfortune that we’ve become friends bound by a chain of 6,000 warheads
each. And this means that dismantling the chain link by link and acting
together in a spirit of transparency and predictability is our common
responsibility if we want to strengthen our friendship and free it from the
nuclear heritage of the Cold War.

In this sense, we could agree to the U.S. review’s idea that it would be
good to "achieve reductions without requirement for Cold War-style
treaties." The arms-control treaties signed during the Cold War years
simply codified the highly hostile relations between our two countries,
locking them into the framework of the MAD doctrine as the only means of
preventing a nuclear war.

Now we need completely different agreements that will work consistently
toward taking our relations beyond the MAD-doctrine provisions. First we
need to go as far as our respective militaries are willing to go, and then
we need to move further in order to reach the objective rightly set by the
U.S. review of "ending the relationship with Russia based on MAD."

Over recent weeks, our experts have followed just this reasoning in
official and unofficial contacts with their U.S. colleagues in Washington
and Moscow. This hasn’t been any revelation for the U.S. professionals, who
are well-acquainted with nuclear-strategy and disarmament issues. They
agreed in principle, but pointed out the ideological idiosyncrasy toward
arms-control agreements characteristic of some top U.S. officials.

But ideological idiosyncrasy isn’t the best negotiating position, and this
is why it wasn’t such a surprise after all when U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell announced at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that
"the United States would meet Russia’s demands for a written legally
binding commitment to slash arsenals of offensive strategic arms."

Now it’s a more or less safe bet that this agreement, or at least its
general framework, will be ready for signing when U.S. President George W.
Bush comes to Russia in May.

(The writer is director of the Center for Strategic Research.)
 
******

#6
Financial Times (UK)
February 9, 2002
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: A world away from the economic truth 

From Prof Animesh Ghoshal.

Sir, I read with interest and enjoyment "Around the world in 1,000 days"
(FT Weekend January 26-27). Jim Rogers' millennial drive and his goal of
learning "what was really going on in the world" by travelling over-land
through 116 countries in his yellow Mercedes are admirable.

It is, however, easy to fall into the trap of making flip (and incorrect)
pronouncements about a country's economy on the basis of a few days spent
in it visiting car dealerships.

Mr Rogers' investment clients would not be well served if they were led to
believe that "Russia has had a balance-of-trade deficit for a long time".
In reality, Russia has shown a large surplus in its trade balance in every
one of the past eight years (Dollars 60.7bn in 2000 and Dollars 52.3bn in
the year to November 2001 - the largest surplus among emerging economies).
Its current account also shows a huge surplus, second only to that of Japan.

If the "International Monetary Fund and World Bank gang keep pouring huge
amounts of money in there", it is not because of a trade deficit. The cause
may be capital flight, which, Mr Rogers should know, is a horse (or
Mercedes?) of a very different colour.

Animesh Ghoshal, Professor of Economics, DePaul University, Chicago, IL
60604, US

******

#7
Financial Times (UK)
February 16, 2002
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Cross 10 Russian borders and you'll see the real world 

From Mr Jim Rogers.

Sir, I am delighted that Prof Animesh Ghoshal (Letters, February 9) finds
"admirable" my goal of discovering "what was really going on in the world".
We agree on little else - at least as far as Russia is concerned. I did not
spend "a few days in it visiting car dealerships" but 11 weeks crossing the
whole country - my second drive across the entire country from the Pacific
to Europe. The Russians say I am the only westerner ever to drive
completely across their country twice.

As for investment, which Prof Ghoshal mentions, an extensive public record
documents that I was short on Russia and the rouble in mid-1998 when so
many were wiped out because they were wildly bullish. There is a similar
public record that I was short in the collapse a few years earlier.

As for Russia having shown "a large surplus in its trade balance in every
one of the past eight years . . . and in its current account", the currency
markets do not believe it and have never done so, nor do Russians on the
ground. They know Moscow continues to tell outsiders what they want them to
hear.

I crossed 10 different Russian borders on this trip and can assure Prof
Ghoshal there is little accurate recording of either imports or exports. In
fact, there is little record-keeping or control of any kind. Smuggling and
black markets are the norm everywhere. Any figures Moscow reports are
fabricated by bureaucrats who have learnt what they are supposed to say.
Yes, I did visit a few car dealerships - and suggest the professor also do
some research close to the ground. There are hundreds of thousands of
foreign cars in Russia but the dealers readily acknowledge they did not
sell them. They mainly provide service and smuggled spare parts. Nearly all
foreign vehicles in Russia have been smuggled in from abroad and certainly
do not show up in official figures. Every Russian knows this is true of
vehicles and everything else, which is but one reason they all want to get
their money out of roubles. If Moscow's figures were true, Russia should
have much more than Dollars 32bn of reserves after "eight years of surplus
. . . second only to Japan", plus the gigantic amounts lent to Russia
during this period.

"Capital flight" cannot explain the discrepancy. There would not be such
huge "capital flight" if the numbers were real. There would be huge inflows
of capital from foreigners, Russians, me and other investors if the numbers
were real. In fact, I am willing to short Prof Ghoshal as many roubles as
he wants if he believes the numbers. I suggest he spend a lot of time close
to the ground - and close to the borders in the vastness of Russia. He
would certainly learn a lot about the real world.

Jim Rogers, New York, NY 10025, US

*******

#8
National Post (Canada)   
February 16, 2002
Wading into Russia's business cesspool
By Filip Palda
Filip Palda is a professor of economics at the Ecole nationale
d'administration publique in Montreal.
 
A protocol handbook issued by our Foreign Affairs Department warns
businessmen on Jean Chrétien's Team Canada mission to Russia that the
natives they will meet in the course of diplomatic trade rituals are heavy
boozers who should not be encouraged or imitated.

The warning is about as helpful as the airline safety brochures that
suggest bending low in your seat in the event of a crash. Sixty years after
Winston Churchill said it, Russia is still a riddle, wrapped in a mystery,
inside an enigma; at least to Canadian politicians desperate for photo
opportunities with figureheads of a faded power, and businessmen who think
money can be made on the frontier of anarchic capitalism.

Ask Alex Rotzang, chief executive of Norex Petroleum Ltd. His oil company
invested in Russia with a local partner and found itself put to the door by
hoodlums working for a competitor called the Alfa Group. Alfa is a
consortium headed by Pyotr Aven, who in 1992 resigned his post as foreign
trade minister, where one of his tasks was to oversee Alfa Group. His new
job was in the private sector as -- surprise -- head of Alfa Bank. To
manage this financial empire he had the help of Mikhail Aleksandrov, a whiz
kid who helped start up Alfa. He stated that "When an American investor
comes to Moscow, everybody will try to cheat him. No one would try to cheat
us. We would catch them and bash their face. We could always hire some Ivan
to shake the money out of them."

By Russian standards, a shakedown such as that at Norex is no big deal, and
Alfa Group can be seen as one of the more peaceful businesses in Russia's
markets. Alfa is one in a clique of conglomerates that rules the Russian
economy and deals justice gangster-style, often in alliance with government
officials. This alliance believes in Al Capone's dictum that violence is
sometimes necessary, but is generally bad for business.

No business can operate in Russia without a "krysha," which literally means
a roof, and figuratively means a form of private protection and
adjudication service. The details are not public, but possibly Norex was
expropriated by the Alfa Group because it failed to pay the proper
protection money. The Foreign Affairs handbook warned of corrupt business
practices in Russia but would have been of more help to Team Canada if it
had tried to give the schedules of extortion money required to do business
there.

The legal system in Russia works badly in part because Russia did not have
a legal code until 1830. Before that, all was deemed to belong to the Czar.
England took more than a thousand years to slowly "grow" its laws into a
system of property protection and dispute resolution people trusted and
understood, and which some historians see as a key to England's lead in the
industrial revolution. Communism stretched Russians over a legal rack that,
for 70 years, party officials tightened or loosened at the their whim.

The people who ran the Communist system until 1991 now preside over Russia
and view the law as a set of moveable goalposts for sale to the highest
bidder. As Canadian officials have discovered, negotiating reform of
business law with Russia is, like the building of gothic cathedrals, a task
requiring several generations of craftsmen from the same family.

Russian government is slow to negotiate legal reform because Russia does
not have much of a government. Government is an organization that works for
the common good of its people. Russia today ranks along with Nigeria as one
of the world's great kleptocracies: countries ruled by thieves in official
garments.

We may well wonder what "deals" await the Canadian businesses who have
waded with our Prime Minister into this swamp of corruption. Chrétien seems
happy to indulge in the self-delusion that Clinton showed when he routinely
discounted CIA reports about corruption in Russia.

Canadian businesses would do better to follow Churchill's other bit of
wisdom, which likened intrigues in Russia to bulldogs fighting under a
carpet. Instead of crawling under this carpet, Team Canada should ignore
the Foreign Affairs handbook, and match their hosts drink for drink.
Extended toasting will leave no time to sign deals, and at worst will
produce a mass hangover for the valiant businessmen and politicians who
have flown to Russia on a carpet of our tax dollars.

******

#9
Date: 15 Feb 2002 
From: Juliet Barnes  
Subject: new book announcement 

Cambridge University  Press is pleased to announce the publication of:

Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State
Mark R. Beissinger

This study examines the process by which the seemingly impossible in
1987—the 
disintegration of the Soviet state—became the seemingly inevitable by
1991.  
It provides an original interpretation of not only the Soviet collapse, but 
also of the phenomenon of nationalism more generally.  Probing the role of 
nationalist action as both cause and effect, Beissinger utilizes extensive 
event data and detailed case studies from across the U.S.S.R. during its 
final years to elicit the shifting relationship between pre-existing 
structural conditions, institutional constraints, and event-generated 
influences in the massive nationalist explosions that brought about the 
collapse of the Soviet Union.
Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
0-521-80670-4  Hardback  $80.00
0-521-00148-X  Paperback  $30.00

For ordering information, call 800-872-7423 or visit our web site at 
www.us.cambridge.org/politicalscience.

******

#10
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
No. 29
2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
RIGHT FORCES DON'T WANT TO BE DIRECTLY ASSOCIATED WITH PUTIN
By Olga TROPKINA
     
     A catastrophic fall in the rating of the Union of Right 
Forces (SPS) made them search for new ways to the hearts of the 
electorate. The results of an opinion poll recently held by the 
VTsIOM National Public Opinion Research Centre show that if 
State Duma elections were held next Sunday the SPS would win 
only 4% of the vote, a major fall since the previous elections 
when they got 7%. 
     The SPS Political Council has met to discuss the reasons 
for this dramatic fall and ways out of this complicated 
situation and map out actions to promote the electoral policy 
of the party. The SPS keeps its action programme secret but 
this newspaper has learned that Leonid Gozman, head of the SPS 
creative council, delivered a report at the session in which he 
put forth mechanisms of overcoming the "electoral crisis." In 
particular, the Right have determined what voters they want to 
woo, beginning with their educational standards and ending with 
their incomes. 
     As for the reasons for the fall of the rating, our sources 
say that members of the Political Council agreed that the 
voters no longer divide the SPS and the policy pursued by 
President Vladimir Putin. The thing is that the president 
accepts and implements the bulk of SPS ideas. In this situation 
the SPS has revived the old slogan, which won it 7% of the vote 
at the previous elections. It sounds like this: "You can vote 
for any party but you will nevertheless live in the country 
where SPS programmes are implemented."
     On the other hand, the SPS found a very strange 
explanation for the fall of its rating because the rating of 
the president keeps growing. If the people linked the work of 
the president with the SPS, the rating of the party would have 
been comparable to that of Putin. Anyway, the Right don't plan 
to stand in opposition to the president. 
     Trying to determine the reasons for the deterioration of 
their situation, members of the SPS Political Council 
formulated their main virtues and vices. In particular, they 
believe that the people should vote for the SPS if only because 
it is a party of professionals. And the negative image of the 
party is based mostly on the people's belief that the SPS is 
being torn apart by internal differences, that it is far 
removed from the people and too lightweight. 
     Nemtsov's colleagues plan to save the rating by 
implementing ten basic political programmes. Our sources say 
they are concerned above all with the completion of the 
military and agrarian reforms, the implementation of the 
anti-bureaucracy programme and a programme of assistance to 
small and medium businesses. The Right plan to mark the 
beginning of the agrarian reform by submitting to the State 
Duma a draft law on marking the day when serfdom was abolished 
in Russia. The SPS will join forces with the Agrarian Russia 
public movement, to be created in the next few days, to canvass 
for the agrarian reform. 

******

#11
Helsinki Federation declares war on Russia's "spy mania"

MOSCOW. Feb 15 (Interfax) - The International Helsinki Federation for Human
Rights (IHF) on Friday declared a wide-scale campaign against a "spy mania"
in Russia. 
   Many countries and rights groups will join the campaign, which was set
off by spying charges against military journalist Grigory Pasko, scientist
Igor Sutyagin and former diplomat Valentin Moiseyev, IHF executive Director
Aaron Rhodes told a news conference in Moscow. 
   Rhodes called Russia a democratic country and said its leadership must
for that reason heed the will of its population. 
   He wondered who in Russia needed a "spy mania." He said the result was
the intimidation of Russian scientists and intellectuals. 
   He said proceedings against Pasko, Sutyagin and Moiseyev violate a
number of articles in the European Convention on Human Rights, the
International Covenant on Human Rights and the Paris Charter. 
   He also said a letter on the Pasko case written by the IHF had been sent
to 1,500 addresses in many countries. 
   IHF President Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who also heads the Moscow Helsinki
group, said: "Spy mania should not alarm Russians alone. Unless the spy
mania is cut short, Russia's business and academic contacts with foreign
countries will be curtailed. We may again become the population of a closed
country." 

****** 

#12
Russia: Supreme Court Rulings Bring Hope To Pasko, Others Accused Of Treason
By Jeremy Bransten

The military branch of Russia's Supreme Court this week handed jailed Russian 
journalist Grigorii Pasko his second victory in two days when it overturned a 
Soviet-era order on state secrets that served as a basis for his conviction. 
The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court threw out a Soviet-era order that 
banned military officers with access to secrets from having any contact with 
foreigners. A day earlier, the collegium struck down a secret order defining 
what constitutes a secret. But for Pasko to be released from his four-year 
sentence, judges will have to find that the two rulings offer grounds to 
overturn his treason conviction. That remains uncertain, as does the fate of 
others facing similar predicaments.

Prague, 15 February 2002 (RFE/RL) -- Human rights advocates in Russia are 
hailing the Supreme Court's decision to overturn two Defense Ministry orders 
that gave military judges broad latitude to prosecute people for treason.

One order banned military officers with access to classified information from 
having contact with foreigners. The other allowed the Defense Ministry to 
keep secret lists of what constitutes classified information, and was known 
as Order Number 55. The two orders formed the underpinning of the 
government's case against military journalist Grigorii Pasko.

Pasko was originally detained on treason charges in 1997 after the Federal 
Security Service (FSB) accused him of taking notes at a meeting of naval 
officers, allegedly regarding secret maneuvers, with the intention of passing 
them to the Japanese media. But his lawyers said the treason charge was only 
a pretext. Pasko, as a journalist, had collected information about the 
Russian Pacific Fleet's illegal dumping of nuclear waste at sea -- 
information that was publicized by the Japanese media, angering Moscow.

After 20 months of preventive detention, Pasko was sentenced to three years 
in prison on a lesser charge of "abuse of office."

Russia's Supreme Court subsequently granted Pasko amnesty, but he appealed to 
clear his name. The result were fresh charges of treason, which earned him a 
four-year prison sentence last month, which he is currently serving in a 
Vladivostok jail. 

Pasko's appeal is due to be heard in about a month. Moscow lawyer Karina 
Moskalenko tells RFE/RL that this week's rulings considerably raise his 
chances of getting a favorable hearing.

"The highest court in the land has abolished, has pronounced Order Number 55, 
to be an invalid basis for initiating any legal action. And it was this order 
which regulated the question of state secrets. And since this order has been 
judicially invalidated, it raises the question of the unprosecutability of 
Pasko's actions in any circumstance. And I consider this judgment to be an 
accomplishment by his lawyers."

Prosecutors say that even if Order Number 55 has now been ruled invalid, it 
does not alter Pasko's conviction, which took place when the rule on secrets 
was still being applied. Moskalenko calls this a specious argument.

"If the judges had said the order was applicable up to a certain date, it 
would have been strange, but nevertheless such a decision would have had to 
be respected. But the judges ruled that the document has no legal weight. And 
why does it have no legal weight? It has no legal weight because it was never 
registered with the Justice Ministry, and this is a basic requirement. And 
because of this, it cannot be applied in any circumstance -- going back to 
any time -- until it is registered with the ministry."

Simply put, Russian Supreme Court judges ruled that Order Number 55 is 
invalid now and always was. It cannot and could not serve as the basis for an 
indictment. This, say legal experts, could have a bearing on several other 
cases affecting Russian journalists, scientists, and a former diplomat -- all 
of whom have been charged by the FSB with treason for allegedly passing 
classified information to foreigners under the provisions of Order Number 55.

Even before this week's rulings, Moskalenko had filed a petition on behalf of 
Pasko and her own client, former diplomat Valentin Moiseev, with the European 
Court of Human Rights. Moiseev, like Pasko, was convicted by a military court 
of treason and sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for giving a South Korean 
colleague materials deemed classified by the FSB. The material in question 
was a previously published report on Russian foreign policy, written by 
Moiseev.

Moskalenko says Russia's system of closed military courts does not serve the 
cause of justice and should be abolished. 

"The system of military courts is a system of courts bearing allegiance to a 
specific ministry which does not fall into the category of dispassionate, 
impartial courts. You can have great lawyers working in those courts. They 
can have great legal knowledge and experience. But this is a system of courts 
bearing allegiance to a specific ministry, which I believe must be rooted out 
from Russia."

Moskalenko says she hopes a European Court judgment could help to make this 
argument: "I understand that the European Court of Justice will not rule that 
Grigorii Pasko is not guilty or that Valentin Moiseev is not guilty. This 
goes beyond the framework of their judicial mandate. The European Court does 
not deal in questions of guilt or innocence. But if, according to a decision 
by the European Court, a person is recognized as a victim of an unfair trial, 
then you understand that a verdict calling him a spy will become rather 
unconvincing. And that is what my representatives are hoping to achieve."

Moscow lawyer Anna Savitskaya has her fingers crossed that her colleague will 
succeed. It could help to set her own client, researcher Igor Sutyagin, free. 

"I very much hope that this is a decisive moment. We all hope that this will 
have a strong influence on all these 'spy cases' -- if, of course, the FSB 
doesn't think up something new, because it's very easy to think up something 
new, in response to a court decision. But for the moment, the document which 
served as the basis for these secrecy orders no longer exists."

Sutyagin, who had been working as a military technology analyst for the 
Russian Academy of Sciences, was arrested in October 1999 after the FSB 
accused him selling state secrets to foreign agents.

At the time, Sutyagin was cooperating with two Canadian universities on 
research concerning civilian-military relations in post-communist countries. 
He also received payment for some of his articles from a British consulting 
firm. Police found no classified military documents in his possession upon 
his arrest. In fact, Sutyagin's only sources for his research was material 
already published in newspapers, scientific journals, and magazines. But 
thanks to his considerable analytical skills, the FSB maintains that Sutyagin 
reached conclusions which in themselves represent state secrets. 

Perhaps the best-known recent treason case in Russia before Pasko's was the 
trial of former Northern Fleet captain-turned-journalist Aleksandr Nikitin, 
who was finally acquitted by Russian judges in 2000 after repeated trials and 
imprisonment on charges of treason. Nikitin's "crime" was documenting, in 
cooperation with the Norwegian environmental group Bellona, nuclear-waste 
dumping by Russia's Northern Fleet in the Arctic Ocean.

Lawyer Anna Savitskaya says that, despite this week's victories, the battle 
for justice for clients like hers will be a long one in Russia. The FSB 
appears intent on limiting its citizens' contacts with foreigners, especially 
when it could result in an exchange of information embarrassing to Moscow. 
The existing legal system makes it relatively easy to prosecute cases brought 
by the agency.

"It's very hard in our country to count on anything because the system is 
skewed toward the accuser, so we can only count on our strengths, our 
knowledge and ability. And we count on a positive verdict as a result. We 
think that's how it should be. But what will happen in actuality? I don't 
know."

Lawyers like Savitskaya and Moskalenko say they are committed to keeping 
their clients' cases in the public eye, with the hope that, eventually, 
justice will prevail. 

(RFE/RL's Francesca Mereu contributed to this story.)

******

#13
TITLE:  INTERVIEW WITH ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT  
        FOR NOVAYA GAZETA, ON CHECHNYA 
        [EKHO MOSKVY RADIO, 15:00, FEBRUARY 13, 2002]
SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (http://www.fednews.ru/)

     Anchor: You are listening to Radio Ekho Moskvy. I am your
anchorman Matvei Ganapolsky. Our guest is Anna Politkovskaya, a
well-known journalist. Good day, Anna. 

     Politkovskaya: Good day. 

     Q: You are back from Chechnya and you know that we get
questions about you on our pager. And I will remind listeners that
our meeting will last for half an hour. You can ask your questions
by dialing 964-2222 to get to Ekho Moskvy.
     There was this question: "Why is it that whenever
Politkovskaya travels to Chechnya, she disappears all the time?"
So, I would like to begin with this strange question. 

     A: You know this is not quite so because this is my 39th
business trip to Chechnya and it does not at all mean that I have
disappeared 39 times. It is quite an exaggeration. 

     Q: Maybe there is some biased attitude to you on the part of
the authorities, be that the Chechen or the Russian authorities?

     A: Today, two odd years since the war began, one can say that
it is almost impossible to work there. Both sides do not like the
journalists, do not like those who gather information, on both
sides. 

     Q: Why "both"? Maybe this lack of love is traditional on the
part of the Russian military authorities. But the Chechens?

     Politkovskaya: The Chechens are a mass of people far from
homogeneous. These people, the participants in bandit formations,
participants in the avenger units and civilians sick and tired of
all and everything. I have in mind the side which is mainly
represented by the detachment of Basayev, Khattab and some other
field commanders, who are clearly as interested in continuing the
nightmare in North Caucasus as are many of the Russian top brass. 

     Q: What was the goal of your trip?

     A: It is very simple, ordinary. I was supposed to conduct a
journalistic investigation in Shatoi district, a tragedy has
occurred there that can be compared to what happened in the year
2000, something many have already dubbed "Budanov-2" case. The
tragedy occurred when officers from an elite unit of Russian armed
forces, a special unit from GRU (Russian Military Intelligence)
executed six inhabits of the village Nokhchi-Keloi, in Shatoi
district, and people who had no connection with the bandit
formations. This has already been proved not by me but by the
prosecution and all the other entities. The result of the tragedy
was that in a small mountainous village, where people are extremely
poor and cornered, there appeared 28 orphans. The murderers were
arrested and are kept in prison so my assignment was to meet with
the military prosecutor. The main witness in that case is the
major, one of the military, a major of army intelligence. It is
natural that it is an ordinary assignment for a journalist to visit
the village, to talk with people and do the work. 

     Q: To avoid hearsay that Politkovskaya invented the case
herself and investigated it herself, it was said it is an official
case which is registered with the Prosecutor's Office and numbered.
So, I could say you sort of followed the traces of the arrests? 

     A: Without a doubt I knew that those people were arrested,
without a doubt I knew that they did the burning in addition to me
being a journalist conducting an investigation and collecting
facts, I wish to know how an elite officer can burn people. One of
them was a pregnant woman. I wished to see those people in order to
understand them. And I did it. I think this is the main thing I did
and I will be able to write a good article, I will say. 

     Q: So, you saw those people and now let us talk about the
causes, did they do it because they were drunk? 

     A: No.

     Q: Were they in a fit or something?

     A: No. 

     Q: Would you tell us in a little more detail why such things
can happen today? 

     A: I cannot answer it briefly. The fact is that there are big
problems in the relations between the officers and the military in
the mountains and those stationed in Khankala. The people who take
decisions in Khankala do not know the situation in the field and
are afraid to go there. So, at a certain point in time all of a
sudden they decided to launch a special operation. I take it that
they did it to affix a tick to an item in the "work plan." It was
a special operation to catch the wounded Khattab. The officers who
are in Shatoi district warned the special unit and its commander
Plotnikov that there is no wounded Khattab there and that they know
all this. But you know all that "descends from the sky", comes from
Khankala -- they are taken to those mountainous areas and to use
the military parlance accepted in those places -- you kill everyone
you see. 
     So, the officers of the elite unit saw a mini bus traveling
from the district center, a regular bus which shuttles once a day
to that mountainous village and they began the "rubbing out". Then
they committed an unmotivated action. They killed and burned and
beheaded people and then they realized what they have done, so they
decided to cover up the traces, to destroy everything. But there
were eyewitnesses, so they failed to burn everything to the end, so
to speak. Some evidence of the crime has remained...

     Q: Were they drunk?

     A: No, that was proved. They were in the condition known as
the Chechen syndrome. 

     Q: What's that?

     A: The people affected with the Chechen syndrome cannot stop
making war, and anyone coming from anywhere is an enemy. They are
always on their guard. 

     Q: Will we be able to read this story in Novaya Gazeta?

     A: Yes, oh, yes.

     Q: Now I would like to discuss the problem of journalists'
safety in Chechnya because our question and answer session for 35
minutes will deal precisely with this. Did you have problems with
that during your latest visit?

     A: Yes.

     Q: Or rather, what key problems of journalists' safety in
Chechnya would you identify?

     A: You know, I have a special view of these problems. I
believe that in principle I am little different from the people who
are having a rough going over there. I have as much safety as they,
and I am getting just as much of it. 
     No one in that area can feel at peace or even in any relative
safety. 

     Q: But the military say: Stay next to us, tell us where you
go, and you will be okay. 

     A: Well, as a matter of fact...

     Q: And the Chechens seem to be interested in their "rough
going," as you say, being broadly publicized. 

     A: You know, the military indeed say so, but this staying next
to the military has only one result: you cannot gather information.
Indeed, this has become explicitly clear over the two-odd years of
the war, when --

     Q: No, it is explicitly clear to you, but our listeners hardly
know everything in detail, like you do. Please, tell us. 

     A: You cannot work with the military because you have to
gather information from all sides. You will interview the military
about their view of the matter. But I need to go out to a village,
right? But I am not so reckless as to go there alone. You cannot go
alone to a mountain village. So, on that occasion I was escorted by
Chechen militiamen, it was not the first time I worked with them,
and I trust them...

     Q: Just a reminder, these are Chechen militiamen, who are on
the federals' side. 

     A: They are government officials, just like the militiamen
downstairs in the street. 

     Q: They are Kadyrov's men, right?

     A: They are government officials of Russia's Interior
Ministry. By status they are the same militiamen... Perhaps, I used
the words "Chechen militiamen" only because out there they draw a
line between Chechen militiamen and Russian militiamen. They have
that distinction there. I don't think we should go into that now,
this is very... They are certified people, with ranks, weapons and
credentials, absolutely equivalent to any offices of the interior.
I had two such men escort me, and we worked together. 

     Q: Did you feel safe? 

     A: No, and neither did they because everyone is on the lookout
against an attack of the federal troops. 

     Q: Federal troops?

     A: Quite so.

     Q: Against them?

     A: Against them, too, and many of them have been killed by
federal troops there. I am also on the lookout against such an
attack, we are very similar in this respect.

     Q: In other words, there is no relative safety there, right?
I am not speaking about absolute safety, of course, there is no
such thing. But where is relative safety?

     A: No, there is no relative safety, even for an hour. Indeed,
when you are with Chechens, with officers of the Chechen militia,
you are afraid of the Wahhabites and the bandits, seeking revenge
against those serving the Russian state, and you are simultaneously
afraid of federal troops. When you are with federal troops, you
should be afraid of all the others. 

******

#14
Financial Times (UK)
16 February 2002
Lunch with the FT 
Anatoly Chubais, Widely regarded as the architect of Russia's privatisation
programme
By Robert Cottrell

The love affair between Muscovites and Japanese food is a mystery to me,
but a welcome one. Izumi has some of the best, which is one reason I am
pleased Anatoly Chubais has chosen it as the venue for our lunch. 

My second reason for being pleased is that it gives me a chance to revisit
old haunts. Izumi occupies a big 19th century house on Spiridonovka, a
quietly prosperous street where I rented a long, thin, gloomy flat when I
first moved to Moscow in 1995. 

Soon afterwards I discovered the previous occupant had plunged to his death
from what was now my fifth-floor balcony, while caught in the midst of a
diamond-smuggling scandal. I moved out a few weeks later. 

Frankly, if Chubais had proposed a hotdog at the railway station, I would
have agreed as readily. Here is a person who privatised Russia, ran the
Kremlin for Boris Yeltsin and is commonly ranked among the dozen most
influential men in the country. 

We are due to meet at 2pm, early for lunch in Moscow on a Saturday. But my
guest has another appointment at 4pm, he explains - with the prime
minister, Mikhail Kasyanov. And if that sounds like name-dropping, it can
be bettered. We were going to have lunch the previous Saturday, but Chubais
cancelled at the last minute. President Vladimir Putin had summoned him. 

We have taken a private room at the suggestion of Chubais's office, and it
proves to be a happy fudge of style and comfort. There are scrolls and
tatamis and a low Japanese table but beneath the table is a pit. We can sit
on the edge of it and dangle our legs happily beneath, instead of
scrunching them up and pretending to be comfortable. 

The first thing that strikes me is that he is on time - a pleasing gesture
in a city where time gets treated more cavalierly the higher up the social
scale you go. The second thing I notice is that he has lost a bit of weight
since I last saw him a year ago, a process in which Japanese food has
doubtless played its part. 

The third thing I notice, when the picture menu does its rounds, is his
courtesy to the waitress, a Russian girl wrapped up in a Japanese gown. His
talent for enraging the public at large is matched by his talent for
charming them as individuals. 

I stab my finger at a photograph showing a generous-looking plank of mixed
sushi and I deduce that Chubais has done something similar. The assortments
that arrive after 10 minutes look much the same. 

He orders green tea and I follow his example. I could have wished for some
thing stronger but the prospect of Kasyanov hangs over our meal. 

We begin to talk. Ten years have passed since his privatisation programme,
a fire-sale of state factories, forced capitalism of a harsh and wild kind
on Russia. It made a few people very rich and left a lot of people very
poor. Most Russians hated him for it. 

I ask him what he thinks now of the results. "What we finally have," he
replies, "is what we were thinking about then... But it took much more
effort, it brought much more pain, it cost far more than we had hoped." 

But the main point, he continues, is that it was done at all. Because of
it, Russia will have private property for generations to come. "And I did
it," he says. "With all the mistakes. Despite all the criticism. I did it." 

He has no regrets, either, about getting Boris Yeltsin re-elected president
in 1996. He took over the campaign when Yeltsin had a popularity rating in
the low single figures and was so ill with heart problems he could barely
speak a coherent sentence. A clique of tycoons bankrolled the election,
then rewarded themselves with state assets worth billions of dollars for
which they paid very little. Russians blamed Chubais for that also. 

"If I found myself in the same situation," he says, "I would make
absolutely the same decision." It was "a fundamental historical choice".
The asset-stripping that followed was "the price we paid for not allowing
theCommunists back into the country". 

By this time we are well into our sushi, which is good but not spectacular.
The usual question about sushi in Moscow is not "is it fresh?" but "has it
been thawed properly?" I reckon this is fresh. 

Talking of "fundamental historical choices", I ask Chubais about the most
dramatic of them all; the decision taken by Yeltsin to use tanks against
the Russian parliament in 1993 when it challenged and blocked his authority. 

The event still divides Russians. At this point I see the merit of our
private room. His reply would start a fight in half the bars of Moscow. 

"If the country had not paid this small blood in 1993," he says, "it would
have paid huge blood in the next two or five or 10 years. The decision for
Yeltsin, personally, was fantastically difficult. And that is why finally
he lost his political momentum. He had to live with the results of it. Only
one person, Yeltsin, could know the real price of his decision when you say
to the defence ministry, 'Shoot! With tanks!'". 

He admires Putin, whom he thinks is making courageous long-term decisions
in economic and foreign policy. But he also surprises me with his reply
when I say that some in the west think Russia is turning into a police state. 

"The fear is not only in the west, it is here, too," he says. "We can't
just push it aside and say it is stupid. No, it is serious. There are
political forces not far from Putin who would support exactly that style of
development for Russia. But there are political forces strongly opposing
it, including the Union of Right Forces [a centre-right party of which
Chubais is a leader]. We should not just discuss if it will happen or not.
We should fight against it." 

The time is coming for Chubais to leave. These days he runs UES, Russia's
national power company, and I imagine Kasyanov wants to talk to him about
the price of electricity. He decides against dessert and seems faintly
irritated when a plate of creamy sticky things arrives, compliments of the
house. I see him off, pay the bill and wander out on to Spiridonovka. 

It looks little changed but then it always was a posh street. More of
Moscow, and of Russia, is catching up with it. The privatised economy is
beginning to work. In a sense, Russia is coming round to Chubais's way of
thinking. 

And he is still only 46. For all his protestations to be happy in business,
I would eat my chopsticks if he did not have his eye on the Russian
presidential election of 2008, when Putin's second term is over. And at
Izumi, the chopsticks are made of stainless steel. 

*******

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