63 He made this clear in conversations at the time with Boris Nemtsov, who was in charge of the reburial. Nemtsov, second interview with the author (February 6, 2002).
64 This summary does not do justice to the complexity of Russian attitudes toward the last of the Romanovs. They are well analyzed in Wendy Slater, “Relics, Remains, and Revisionism: Narratives of Nicholas II in Contemporary Russia,” Rethinking History 9 (March 2005), 53–70. The Orthodox abroad, who had always been strongly anti-communist, had control of a female’s finger which they claimed was the only true relic of the family. No tissue attributable to Nicholas and Alexandra’s hemophilic son, Aleksei, or their third daughter, Mariya, was found, which fed the suspicion of the clergy abroad. Yekaterinburg archeologists in July 2007 unearthed remains at Koptyaki that seem to be those of Aleksei and Mariya.
65 Wrote one Russian observer, “Yeltsin made a tactical move of genius, making fools out of the rivals who believed his words and refused to participate in the burial.” The observer suspected Yeltsin saw the ceremony as the first step toward another election campaign in 2000, and Luzhkov was openly eyeing a presidential run. Melor Sturua, “Puteshestviye iz Moskvy v Peterburg za tsarskiye pokhorony” (A trip from Moscow to St. Petersburg for the tsar’s funeral), Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 21, 1998. Political calculations aside, it was reported in 1998, and confirmed by Boris Nemtsov in his second interview with me, that Yeltsin resolved his doubts about participating only after a conversation about the merits of the case with Academician Dmitrii Likhachëv, a leading Russian medievalist and Gulag survivor whom he held in high regard.
66 “Vystupleniye Prezidenta RF Borisa Yel’tsina na traurnoi tseremonii v Sankt-Peterburge” (Statement of President Boris Yeltsin at the funeral ceremony in St. Petersburg), Rossiiskaya gazeta, July 18, 1998.
67 Iosif Raikhel’gauz, “Kak ya gotovil prezidentskoye poslaniye” (How I prepared the presidential message), Ogonëk, November 17, 2000.
68 “Poslaniye Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii Federal’nomu Sobraniyu, ‘Poryadok vo vlasti—poryadok v strane’” (Message of the president of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly, “Order in government, order in the country) (Moscow: Rossiiskaya Federatsiya, 1997), 5–6.
69 Ibid., 9, 29.
70 Lebed was more ambitious than Korzhakov and had already had success as an independent politico. But he lacked the resource that was vital to Korzhakov’s influence—a friendship with Yeltsin.
71 Eugene Huskey, Presidential Power in Russia (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 87–96.
72 Baturin et al., Epokha, 719.
73 Yurii Baturin, interview with the author (June 3, 2002). Schooled in rocket science, law, and journalism, Baturin had been rejected by the Soviet program for poor eyesight. He flew to the Mir space station in 1998 and in 2001 to the international space station with Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist.
74 The membership fluctuated. Valentin Yumashev chaired it after Boiko. Other members of the group in 1996–98 included Tatyana Dyachenko, press secretary Sergei Yastrzhembskii, poll taker Aleksandr Oslon, political consultant Gleb Pavlovskii, Georgii Satarov and Mikhail Lesin of Yeltsin’s staff, and Igor Malashenko of NTV.
75 In Marafon, 41, Yeltsin says it was Chubais who asked him to clarify her status. Chubais left the Kremlin for the Council of Ministers in mid-March, so the matter took some time to settle and was left to Yumashev to implement.
76 All these points are from the third Yumasheva interview. Yeltsin in his memoirs (Marafon, 36) discusses their interaction in the context of the 1996 election campaign. “As a rule, she kept her personal opinion to herself. Tatyana practically never violated this tacit rule of ours. But if she suddenly made an effort—‘Papa, I nonetheless think ... ’—I would try to change the subject.”
77 The difference between the sisters, and the similarity of Tatyana to their mother, was pointed out by Naina Yeltsina in my second interview with her (September 18, 2007). On disorganization, see the comments of Naina’s former press secretary: Natal’ya Konstantinova, Zhenskii vzglyad na kremlëvskuyu zhizn’ (A woman’s view of Kremlin life) (Moscow: Geleos, 1999), 188.
78 Newcomers to the Kremlin team soon learned the utility of the Dyachenko channel if all else failed. But veterans like Pikhoya often refused to use it. She implied in her interview with me (September 26, 2001) that it would have been beneath her dignity.
79 Dikun, “Yel’tsin v Gorkakh.”
80 The experience of Anatolii Kulikov, the interior minister from 1995 to 1998, was typical. “The whole time I was minister this weekly report to the president was a ritual that could not be violated under any circumstances.” On only one occasion in the three years, when Yeltsin happened to be occupied at the designated hour, did Kulikov miss a planned telephone call. He substituted by calling Chernomyrdin, which infuriated Yeltsin: “The prime minister, that is fine, but you are subordinated to the supreme commander-in-chief and are obligated to report personally to him!” Kulikov, Tyazhëlyye zvëzdy, 415.
81 Author’s first interview with Mikhail Krasnov (June 5, 2000) and third with Yumashev; and Baturin et al., Epokha, 761–66, which relates some details from Krasnov’s point of view. Yumashev denies Krasnov’s charge that he was indifferent to the reform, saying that the means to implement it were lacking.
82 Yeltsin offered these explanations in my second interview with him. Viktor Ilyushin and Oleg Lobov were the last of the prominent Sverdlovskers to leave high posts, as deputy premier, in March 1997.
83 Kulikov, Tyazhëlyye zvëzdy, 417–18. Kulikov seems to have had no awareness that a State Council had existed early in Yeltsin’s first term and had been abolished.
84 Sergei Kiriyenko, interview with the author (January 25, 2001).
85 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 87.
86 Ibid., 88.
87 Author’s interviews with principals; and, on Vyakhirev, “Boris Nemtsov—Yevgenii Al’bats o Yel’tsine” (Boris Nemtsov to Yevgeniya Al’bats about Yeltsin), Novoye vremya/New Times, April 30, 2007. Vyakhirev and Chernomyrdin defended the shares deal until December 1997, when Yeltsin, standing behind Nemtsov at a diplomatic reception in Stockholm, Sweden, asked him if a final decision had been made. When Nemtsov said it had not, Yeltsin pulled Vyakhirev aside and said the “bandits’ agreement” was to be torn up immediately, which it was.
88 “Boris Nemtsov—Yevgenii Al’bats o Yel’tsine.”
89 Thomas F. Remington, “Laws, Decrees, and Russian Constitutions: The First Hundred Years” (unpublished paper, Emory University, 2006). Decrees averaged twenty-one per month in 1992–95 and fifteen per month in 1997–99.
90 “No Improvement in Russian Economy without Land Reform—Yeltsin,” http://news/bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/42632.stm.
91 In sequential ballots, the code went from 213 votes in favor to 220 and then to 225, one short of the 226 needed for passage. The Duma determined on July 17 to postpone further consideration.
92 David E. Hoffman, The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: PublicAffairs, 2002), 385. The best accounts of the Svyazinvest auction and the surrounding controversy are to be found in that book and in Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: Russia’s Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism (Toronto: Doubleday, 2000), chap. 12.