3 Author’s interviews with El’dar Ryazanov (May 30, 2001) and Irena Lesnevskaya (January 24, 2001).
4 The chain was instituted in 1994 but Yeltsin’s decree specifying its use in the inauguration came out only on August 5, 1996. It consists of a Greek cross, seventeen smaller medals, and links of gold, silver, and white enamel.
5 Yu, M. Baturin et al., Epokha Yel’tsina: ocherki politicheskoi istorii (The Yeltsin epoch: essays in political history) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2001), 575. Yeltsin wrote later (Marafon, 50), “Never in my life had I been so tense” as on August 9.
6 Yeltsin had offered the job to Igor Malashenko of NTV, who pleaded personal circumstances. But it would appear that he made the suggestion first to Chubais and returned to him after Malashenko’s refusal.
7 Ye, I. Chazov, Rok (Fate) (Moscow: Geotar-Med, 2001), 259.
8 Author’s interviews with Sergei Parkhomenko (March 26, 2004) and Viktor Chernomyrdin (September 15, 2000). The article appeared in the Itogi of September 10, 1996. It was reported in the press that Chernomyrdin had a bypass operation in 1992, but in fact the procedure he had was an angioplasty.
9 Renat Akchurin, quoted in “Postskriptum” (Postscript), Izvestiya, April 28, 2007.
10 “Ekslyuzivnoye interv’yu Prezidenta Rossii zhurnalu ‘Itogi’” (Exclusive interview of the president of Russia with the magazine Itogi), Itogi, September 10, 1996.
11 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 53.
12 Lawrence K. Altman, “In Moscow in 1996, a Doctor’s Visit Changed History,” New York Times, May 1, 2007. Citing an interview with DeBakey after Yeltsin’s death the previous week, Altman claims that “his Russian doctors said he could not survive such surgery.” But the fullest Russian account, by Chazov, says the Russians had already decided that the bypass was necessary and survivable and that they wanted DeBakey for psychological and strategic support. “And that is what happened. Yeltsin confirmed for himself the correctness of his decision, his family calmed down, and the press and television redirected themselves to DeBakey, leaving us finally in peace.” Chazov, Rok, 262.
13 Yeltsin had communicated his intent to do the temporary transfer in a decree dated September 19. Chernomyrdin took his provisional duties to heart: “He called military specialists in and acquainted himself in detail with the automated system for controlling [Russia’s] strategic nuclear forces.” Baturin et al., Epokha, 725.
14 See on this point Chazov, Rok, 271.
15 Akchurin in “Postskriptum.”
16 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 57.
17 Interviews with family members. Khrushchev put up Vice President Richard Nixon at Novo-Ogarëvo in 1959, since at Gorki-9 “it was not possible to provide the conveniences to which guests were accustomed. For example, there was only one toilet for everyone, located at the end of the [first-floor] hall. The bath was there, too. By American standards, only people in the slums lived in such conditions.” Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, trans. Shirley Benson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 352.
18 See Sergei Khrushchev, Pensioner soyuznogo znacheniya (Pensioner of USSR rank) (Moscow: Novosti, 1991), 69–71.
19 Anatolii Chubais, first interview with the author (January 18, 2001).
20 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 58.
21 Madeleine Albright, with Bill Woodward, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 253–54.
22 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002), 246.
23 In the VTsIOM tracking poll in April 1997, 3 percent of the electorate gave Yeltsin unqualified support, 7 percent gave him qualified support, 41 percent were opposed to him in one degree or another, and 39 percent were ambivalent. Yu, A. Levada et al., Obshchestvennoye mneniye—1999 (Public opinion—1999 edition) (Moscow: Vserossiiskii tsentr izucheniya obshchestvennogo mneniya, 2000), 100–101.
24 Korzhakov has said (interview with the author, January 28, 2002) that he was offered $5 million to cancel publication of the book. He thinks the source of the money was a businessman out to protect Yeltsin’s interests. I have no corroboration of this claim.
25 Yurii Mukhin, Kod Yel’tsina (The Yeltsin code) (Moscow: Yauza, 2005). Like Salii in 1997, Mukhin, a Stalinist and anti-Semite, placed great stock in photographs of hands and other body parts. He has not commented on whether the death and state funeral of the real Yeltsin in 2007 led him to revise his interpretation. One of his other contributions as an analyst is work disclaiming Soviet responsibility for the 1940 massacre of Polish officers at Katyn. A competing version of the trashy tale holds that Yeltsin was an invalid from 1996 until August 6 or 7, 1999, when he died, and that three ringers, controlled by the Yeltsin family and not the CIA, filled in for him before and after his death. “Kozly i molodil’nyye yabloki” (Goats and green apples), http://www.duel.ru/200231/?31_1_3.
26 See Vladimir Shevchenko, Povsednevnaya zhizn’ Kremlya pri prezidentakh (The everyday life of the Kremlin under the presidents) (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 2004), 106, 138.
27 Yeltsin’s office told reporters he played tennis for about ten minutes on July 11, 1997, at Shuiskaya Chupa. That seems to have been the last time.
28 Yelena Tregubova, Baiki kremlëvskogo diggera (Tales of a Kremlin digger) (Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2003), 53. Yeltsin in Stockholm was tired after a trip to Beijing. He advised the Swedes to wean themselves from coal and sign a contract with Russia for natural gas deliveries, apparently thinking back to background notes for the China visit. Sweden burns almost no coal; half of its power needs are met by atomic reactors and one-third by hydroelectric stations.
29 For a full early report, see Nikolai Andreyev, “Prezident Rossii postoyanen v svoyei nepredskazuyemosti” (The president of Russia is constant in his unpredictability), Izvestiya, May 6, 1992. Compare with Jacob Weisberg, “The Complete Bushisms,” www.slate.com/id/76886.
30 See Tregubova, Baiki kremlëvskogo diggera, 117.
31 Yelena Dikun, “Yel’tsin v Gorkakh” (Yeltsin in Gorki), Obshchaya gazeta, April 2, 1998. Kukly, the satire program on the NTV television network, had broadcast a cruel skit comparing Yeltsin to the immobilized Lenin in January 1997.
32 Of recent presidents, Jimmy Carter took the fewest vacation days, seventynine over four years. Bill Clinton took 152 over eight years.
33 Anatolii Kulikov, who replaced Viktor Yerin as interior minister in 1995, says that after his operation Yeltsin misaddressed some hand-written notes. “My accurate and delicate attempts to correct the president were not well taken,” writes Kulikov. “He would look at me and continue to write.” Anatolii Kulikov, Tyazhëlyye zvëzdy (Heavy stars) (Moscow: Voina i mir, 2002), 416–17. But most former high officials whom I interviewed, including four second-term prime ministers (Chernomyrdin, Kiriyenko, Primakov, and Stepashin), emphasized his mental acuity and exceptional memory. Primakov and Stepashin, whose tenure was in the second half of term two, also emphasized the limits on his energy. Both felt he was at his full powers for two to three hours per workday. But neither, of course, knew this from direct experience, and family members insist that days this short were the exception rather than the rule.