Anna Politkovskai︠a︡ - Putin’s Russia: life in a failing democracy

Table of Contents

A Dirty War:

A Russian Reporter in Chechnya

A Small Corner of Hell:

Dispatches from Chechnya

J uly 10, 2004, is just another day in the calendar of Russia. It happens to be the cutoff date for making changes to this book.

Late yesterday evening, Paul Khlebnikov, editor in chief of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was murdered in Moscow. He was mowed down as he left the magazines office. Khlebnikov was famous for writing about our oligarchs, the structure of Russian gangster capitalism, and the huge sums of easy money certain of our citizens have managed to get their hands on. Also last evening, Victor Cherepkov was blown up by a grenade in Vladivostok. He was a member of our parliament, the Duma, and a prominent champion of the weakest and poorest of this land. Cherepkov was running for mayor of his native city, the most important municipality in the Far East of Russia. He had successfully gotten through to the second round and looked to have a real chance of being elected. As he left his campaign headquarters he was blown up by an antipersonnel mine activated by a trip wire.

Yes, stability has come to Russia. It is a monstrous stability under which nobody seeks justice in courts that flaunt their subservience andpartisanship. Nobody in his or her right mind seeks protection from the institutions entrusted with maintaining law and order, because they are totally corrupt. Lynch law is the order of the day, both in peoples minds and in their actions. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The president himself has set an example by wrecking our major oil company, Yukos, after having jailed its chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Putin considered Khodorkovsky to have slighted him personally, so he retaliated. Not only did he retaliate against Khodorkovsky himself, he went on to seek the destruction of the goose that laid golden eggs for the coffers of the Russian state. Khodorkovsky and his partners have offered to surrender their shares in Yukos to the government, begging it not to annihilate the company. The government has said, No. We want our pound of flesh. On July 9, Putin strong-armed his loyal supporter Muhammed Tsikanov into the post of vice president of Yukos-Moscow, the parent company. Nobody has any doubts that the former deputy minister for economic development has been parachuted in for one reason only: to coordinate the delivery of Yukos into the hands of those whom Putin favors. The market is in turmoil, investors are running for cover, and all the remotely successful business executives I know spent May and June looking for ways to move their capital to the West.

They were wise to do so. On July 8, 9, and 10, lines a mile long formed at ATMs. The authorities had only to hint that a crackdown might close some of the banks; the result was the withdrawal from Alpha Bank, one of the most stable, of funds to the tune of two hundred million dollars in seventy-two hours. Other banks also saw a run on deposits.

It took just a hint. Because everyone expects the state to play dirty, the withdrawal of those two hundred million dollars in three days tells us all we need to know about Russias current stability.

If we go by the official surveys of public opinion, conducted by polling firms that have no wish to lose their contracts with the presidents office, Putins popularity rating couldnt be better. He has thesupport of an overwhelming majority of the Russian public. Everybody trusts him. Everybody approves of what he is doing.