But whom did Patarkatzishvili meet?
His answer: “Sergey Ivanov; he was still the secretary of the Security council back then.
– Did the initiative come from you or from the power? The journalist demands.
– From us, because we wanted to release Nikolay and understood what they wanted from us.
– Once they showed on television that you have met with Sergey Ivanov. Everybody thought that it was to discuss about some Georgian problems.
– No, it was when we talked about Glushkov. But everybody though it was about military bases in Georgia.
– How many times did you meet?
– Twice. Ivanov acted on Putin’s order. I was proposed to do any business but not to meddle with politics or mass media. And I have made only one condition: give us Nikolay back.
(How do you like this trade, comrades and gentlemen readers? Do you want Sergey Ivanov, merchant of living merchandise, to become Putin’s successor?)
– So how did the power formulate the conditions?
– That we sell the media empire and Berezovsky stops his political activities.
– All of your media or only e-media? The journalist asks.
– No, all of them including the newspapers. And Kommersant too.
– But if you had answered a categorical “no” it would have meant the end of negotiations about Glushkov’s fate.
– Exactly. But I didn’t say “no”. /…/
– So you left Sergey Ivanov’s office with some arrangement?
– The arrangement consisted of them telling us whom we should talk to before March 25th.
They did. First they gave the name of Alekperov. “We had to agree with Alekperov about the selling of all of our media.” When Berezovsky and Patarkatzishvili did not succeed to agree about acceptable conditions for transferring their business they were hurried. On April 11th (on April 9th I arrived to Lefortovo) 2001 the FSB organized a provocation with an “escape attempt” by Glushkov from the hospital where he was just transferred under the guard of the FSB. (“Glushkov has a hereditary blood disease and he can die without a regular treatment,” Patarkatzishvili said.) “Any talks about Glushkov’s escape and the preparation to it are just a stupid FSB special operation related to the crumbling Aeroflot affair and the power’s maniacal desire to stop Berezovsky’s political activities.”
In the end Berezovsky was forced to sell his 49%-share holding of ORT to whom? -… To Putin’s close oligarch Roman Abramovich for an insignificant amount. Today Berezovsky filed a suit against Abramovich. “According to him Roman Abramovich forced him to sell his assets at a low price,” Vedomosti writes on 05.07.05 and cites Berezovsky: “It wasn’t a sale, it was a racket organized by Putin, Abramovich and the former head of the president’s administration Voloshin”, Berezovsky said.
For people who want to know where do negotiations about the fate of State hostages take place: here is what Patarkatzishvili said to the question “Where did your meetings with Ivanov take place? In the governmental residence on Kosigina, 34. On March 2nd and 13th 2001. Very confidentially. I was brought there by car.”
In November 2000 Berezovsky left Russia and now lives in Great Britain. As soon as ORT was taken away from him a campaign was started to take away the TV-6 channel from him. Mister Alekperov was put at work again. In Fall 2001 V. Alekperov’s Lukoyl obtained a court decision about the liquidation of TV-6 through his filial Lukoyl-Garant (junior partner of TV-6). In the beginning of January 2002 TV-6’s appeal of the court’s decision was rejected by the presidium of the Appeal Court despite the fact that the law, on which the decision was based, became invalid from January 1st 2002.
On January 15th 2002 president Putin announced that the State would not intervene in the situation around TV-6. In the night of January 21st 2002 TV-6 stopped broadcasting. On January 29th 2002 Putin gave the government an order to work out the question of creating a national sport channel in Russia. However on March 27th 2002 the channel was given to the non-commercial partner Mediasocium headed by Evgeny Primakov and Arkady Volsky, in which E. Kiselev’s team was the junior partner. Actually the “victory” was only momentary. A few months later broadcasting on TV-6 was stopped and a sport channel started to broadcast from the TV-6 frequency.
In this chapter I have told only in general traits how the largest television channels were taken away in order to make them Kremlin’s property and Putin’s mouthpieces. Apart from this in the last years the Kremlin expropriated less significant channels, radio stations and hundreds of newspapers and journals.
THE STAFF OF THE RULING REGIME
The RF president’s administration possesses huge informal powers although its legal status is not written in any laws. This is how the director of the Institute of problems linked with liberal development Yuly Nisnevich defined the role of the president’s administration in an interview to Kommersant: “His administration is mentioned only in the Constitution and is not defined by other laws. Politically it is the staff of the ruling regime, which uses the power resource of other official bodies of power in its interests.” But in essence the Administration is not even second after Fradkov’s government but the first and the main government. The media name 43 people among the leaders of the Administration. The Administration is situated in large buildings on Ilyinka Street and on the Old Square. The total number of the Administration’s employees is obviously several thousand people.
From the 43 leaders of the Administration, the highest in the hierarchy is Dmitry Medvedev. This chapter was already written when rearrangements have followed. Medvedev was just transferred to the post of the government’s deputy prime minister. Former governor of the Tyumen region Sergey Sobyanin was appointed head of Administration. Still this rearrangement did not modify the essence of the Administration. He is 40 years old; he is the son of a Leningrad’s professor. He graduated from the juridical faculty of the Leningrad’s State University in 1987, and then he finished his post-graduate studies in the faculty. But his main quality is that he is Putin’s long time friend. In his biography in the Kommersant-Power newspaper it is said: “From 1990 he becomes the assistant of Lensovet’s chairman Anatoly Sobchak (he postulated for the post on an invitation of Sobchak’s advisor Vladimir Putin)”. He owns his further successes and the growth of his career to Putin’s advancement into power. Together with him he moves to Moscow. From August 31st 1999 he becomes deputy head of the president’s Administration Alexander Voloshin. It is interesting to note that in the year of Putin’s appointment on the post of FSB director in 1998, Putin and his group start to lay their hands on the financial power as well. In 1998 Medvedev is elected only as member of the Directors’ Board of the “Fraternal timber industrial complex” joint-stock company. We can only guess at how it was achieved. Maybe they hinted on the FSB powers (unlimited) and proposed the timber industrials to move aside. Actually in 1998 Vladimir Vladimirovich was certainly already an artist in the sphere of property theft. They asked the timber industrials to move aside. Unlimited opportunities opened up before Putin’s group after he became president. He became president on March 26th and on June 3rd 2000 Medvedev, Putin’s faithful companion, became first deputy of the Administration’s head (Yeltsin left Voloshin to Putin; it was impossible yet to remove him) and on June 30th Putin’s group is already taking over, not some fraternal timber industrials, oh no, Medvedev becomes chairman of Gazprom’s Board of Directors. Naturally, conserving his post of head of administration. If we remember that Alexey Miller (from 1991 he was member of the Committee of Saint Petersburg’s city hall’s external relations) becomes Gazprom’s general director almost at the same time, then these two appointments are called “Gazprom’s takeover” by Putin’s group.