When he was a vice-mayor Putin has organized the sell of submarines abroad through Leningrad’s admirals association. In 1994 the deputy general director of the association was killed (one of the versions – for refusing to illegally sell military property abroad).
The BFG – the Baltic Finance Group (whose general director is Kapish) provides monthly financial assistance to Putin and Cherkesov. In 1994-95 Kapish had a conflict with one of the founders of the oil terminal of the Sea Harbor. Kapish ordered the murder of this founder. For $30 million Putin convinced the founder to solve the conflict after what the latter left to Israel. According to the existing information Kapish gave $6 million to Putin supposedly for the 1996 presidential campaign. The money went through one of the district banks, which was closed soon after. /…/
The XX Trest Corporation created by Putin together with the legislative assembly deputies Nikeshin and Goldman transferred the money it received for construction, including the construction of the Peter the Great business-center to Spain where a hotel was bought in the city of Torviejo. Part of the stolen money went to buy a villa for the Putins in the Spanish city of Benidor (the materials are kept by Saint Petersburg’s Control Department of the Finance ministry). /…/”
I have cited the “informative-analytical note” with small abridgements. And I started to ponder. Whatever the accusations are all true (and now it is impossible to investigate these accusations because Putin is the first person of the State) one has to acknowledge that Putin was occupying a lucrative post. A post, on which he could have done all of this. Moreover, during these years from 1991 to 1996 all of this was not considered a crime. Many functionaries, if not all, enriched themselves and used their official post shamelessly. And it was customary in these days to employ criminal methods. You will agree with me that after what you have read you think that Putin did not have the moral right to try Khodorkovsky.
What was I doing during these years? I worked as a military journalist in hot spots: in 1991-93 I was on three Serbia wars, in Transdniestr and Abkhazia. I shared the sorrow and the joy of peoples who defended their independence with arms: the Serbs, the Moldavians, the Russians, and the Abkhaz. In October 1993 I fell under the Ostankino fire on the side of the Supreme Council, I was in the White House. I founded the National-Bolshevik Party. I founded the Limonka newspaper. I remember that until March 1995 I was renting an apartment without telephone. I had no money at all. I earned the reputation of a red-brown. Editors in France and in Russia refused to publish my books because I was politically incorrect. The NBP ideology was developing; the Party was growing slowly but steadily.
YOU CAN’T SPOIL PORRIDGE WITH BUTTER
Was Putin doing politics during these years? According to some in the fall of 1994 he was supervising the pre-elections to Saint Petersburg’s legislative assembly. Since about half of the seats in the assembly went to businessmen loyal to the city hall as well as center and moderately democratic politicians, his supervision, if there was any, can be considered more or less successful.
In the beginning of 1995 Putin obtained the removal of the candidacy of the rear admiral Vyacheslav Sherbakov to the legislative assembly’s speaker post, unacceptable for Sobchak. The more neutral Yuri Kravtzov was elected as a speaker in a same bunch with the speaker deputies and independent deputies Sergey Mironov (now head of the RF Federal Assembly) and Viktor Novoselov (later killed).
In April 1995 Viktor Chernomirdin charged Sobchak creating a regional department of the movement Our House – Russia in Saint Petersburg. After all the party in power was preparing for the elections and it was clear that the people will not vote for Gaidar who has robbed them and his party. A fictive party was hastily created right for the elections. Sobchak in his turn charged Putin with the creation of the regional fictive organization of a fictive party. In the beginning of May Putin headed the organizational committee of Saint Petersburg’s department of the Our House – Russia party and was elected as the council’s chairman on its constitutive conference. In Moscow on May 12th 1995 on the OHR constitutive congress Putin was elected as one of the 126 members of the OHR Assembly.
In summer and fall 1995 Putin was leading the OHR campaign for the State Duma elections. He showed the qualities of a perfect finance manager in such a way that he managed to raise almost 1 billion 100 million rubles (non-dominated) provided by Saint Petersburg’s banks while only 15 million rubles were transferred to Saint Petersburg from the OHR central quarters. It is revealing that if the OHR election campaign was financially overflowed with the money provided by Putin, the political result was a failure. The OHR candidate, the only one for some reason put in one of Saint Petersburg’s first-past-the-post districts, has lost the elections, while in the proportional system OHR occupied the third place in the city after Yabloko and Russia’s Democratic Choice, receiving two seats. Who got one of them you think? Sobchak’s wife Lyudmila Narusova.
The posters with the picture of Viktor Chernomirdin plastered on almost every lamppost in the city were an example of the lack of political judgment from the organizers of the OHR campaign. When he was asked “Why?” Putin has then answered: “You can’t spoil porridge with butter”. And we too, the Russian people have thought: “Why should they go to waste?” The nonsense with Chernomirdin’s portraits (I explain for the slow ones) is that Chernomirdin was not running in Saint Petersburg.
However, in cases where Putin was convincing and acting behind the scene he was able to achieve something. It is considered that Putin managed to obtain the passing of the 1996 budget in the legislative assembly. In exchange for the ratification of the budget the deputies received the right to the so-called deputies’ “reserve funds”. (We, Russian people, call this deputies’ bribing). Putin also assisted the formation of the Mariinskaya fraction in the legislative assembly headed by the first vice-speaker Sergey Mironov; the fraction supported the city hall’s policies.
In January 1996 Putin joined the manufacturers’ and businessmen’s club Club-2004 created to support Saint Petersburg’s candidacy for the 2004 Olympic games. It remains a mystery whether he considered himself a manufacturer or a businessman. And in March 1996 he joined the staff of Saint Petersburg’s regional department of the All-Russian movement of social support of the president, where were reunited organizations in favor of B. Yeltsin’s reelection as the RF president.
It is striking but despite the failure on the State Duma elections, in April-May 1996 Putin was appointed by Sobchak (together with Alexey Kudrin) to lead Sobchak’s campaign for the elections of Saint Petersburg’s governor. Why did Sobchak decided to appoint him, who has failed the Duma elections? Most probably the answer should be looked for in the events of March 1996. In March 13th 1996 Putin arrived to the legislative assembly with a decree from president Yeltsin allowing reporting the elections and then managed to practically force the deputies to adopt a resolution about reporting the elections from June 16th to May 19th 1996. The shortening of the pre-electoral campaign duration was advantageous for Sobchak because his opponents were not so publicized as he was.
As it is known Sobchak lost the May 19th elections. It was the fault of Putin, his campaign manager, but Sobchak’s as well. During the campaign Putin came up with and realized a not so bright idea about making a public (in the presence of the press) loyalty oath to Sobchak by the top-management of Saint Petersburg’s administration. During the campaign Petrosovet’s chairman Alexandr Belyaev, Sobchak’s opponent in the elections accused Putin of management violations and also of having real estate on France Atlantic coast. In response Putin sued him for moral damage and asked a compensation of 200 million non-dominated rubles. However since the suit was not addressed to Belyaev’s residence, no action was taken. One of the newspapers has then published an article entitled “A spy must know where his respondent lives”. The press was affirming that Putin “despite his service in the foreign intelligence service” claimed, “He doesn’t know where France’s Atlantic coast is”.