by Masha Gessen
Page 57 “not particularly outgoing”: Blotsky, p. 287.
Page 57 “He says, ‘Let’s go’”: Ibid., pp. 287–88.
Page 57 “Once I tried”: Sergei Roldugin, quoted in Gevorkyan et al.
Page 58 “That’s how it happened”: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 58 a tiny minority: Sergei Zakharov, “Brachnost’ v Rossii: Istoriya i sovremennost’,” Demoskop Weekly, Oct. 16–29, 2006, pp. 261–62. http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2006/0261/tema02.php. Accessed Feb. 27, 2011.
Page 58 “One evening”: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 59 such was his cover: Ibid.
Page 59 “I was most amazed”: Ibid.
Page 60 “Only the Central Committee”: Vadim Bakatin, Izbavleniye ot KGB (Moscow: Novosti, 1992), pp. 45–46.
Page 61 Article 190: Bakatin, pp. 32–33.
Page 61 constant surveillance and harassment: Filipp Bobkov, KGB i vlast (Moscow: Veteran MP, 1995).
Page 61 thoroughly familiar with the way it was organized: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 61 A perfectly laudatory memoir: Vladimir Usol’tsev, Sosluzhivets (Moscow: Eksmo, 2004), p. 186.
Page 61 “It was an entirely unremarkable school”: Ibid.
Page 61 Counterintelligence officers in Moscow: Bobkov.
Page 61 assigned to the intelligence unit: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 62 did his job well: Ibid.
Page 63 a little Stasi world: Ludmila Putina, quoted ibid.
Page 63 Putin drank beer: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 64 Putin was assigned: Author interview with Sergei Bezrukov (former KGB agent in Berlin), Düsseldorf, August 17, 2011.
Page 64 Putin and his two colleagues: Usol’tsev, pp. 70–74; author interview with Sergei Bezrukov, Düsseldorf, August 17, 2011.
Page 64 small monthly hard-currency payments: Usol’tsev, p. 36.
Page 65 they made a lot more money: Ibid., p. 30.
Page 65 so unreachable for someone like Putin: Author interview with Sergei Bezrukov, Düsseldorf, August 17, 2011.
Page 65 a former RAF member: Author interview with the man, Bavaria, August 18, 2011; he asked that his name not be printed.
Page 65 every other officer… had his own office: Usol’tsev, p. 62.
Page 66 Former agents estimate: Usol’tsev, p. 105; author interview with Sergei Bezrukov, Düsseldorf, August 17, 2011.
Page 66 Putin’s biggest success: Author interview with Sergei Bezrukov, Düsseldorf, August 17, 2011.
Page 66 The KGB leadership: Bobkov.
Page 66 a public statement condemning secret-police crimes: O. N. Ansberg and A. D. Margolis, eds., Obshchestvennaya zhizn’ Leningrada v gody perestroiki, 1985–1991: Sbornik materialov (St. Petersburg: Serebryany Vek, 2009), p. 192.
Page 68 demonstrations in East Germany continued: Elizabeth A. Ten Dyke, Dresden and the Paradoxes of Memory in History (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Page 69 shoving papers into a wood-burning stove: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 70 “I was scared to go into stores”: Ludmila Putina, quoted ibid.
Page 70 “They cannot do this”: Sergei Roldugin, quoted in Gevorkyan et al.
FOUR. ONCE A SPY
Page 74 “The people of our generation”: Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 502.
Page 75 “stop misinforming people”: Sergei Vasilyev, memoirs published in the Obvodny Times, vol. 4, no. 22 (April 2007), p. 8, quoted in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 447.
Page 75 “It seems, after the dust”: Alexander Vinnikov, Tsena svobody, quoted in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 449.
Page 76 “We all found one another”: Yelena Zelinskaya, “Vremya ne zhdet,” Merkuriy, vol. 3 (1987), quoted in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 41–42.
Page 76 a living page: Vasilyev, quoted in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 447.
Page 76 a group of young Leningrad economists: Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 47, 76.
Page 77 Leningrad saw its first political rally: Ibid., pp. 51, 52, 54, 74.
Page 77 “The rules were, anyone could speak for five minutes”: Ibid., p. 632.
Page 78 start eating their lemons: Ibid., p. 633.
Page 79 a rally in memory of victims of political repression: Ibid., p. 112.
Page 79 the People’s Front: The first meeting of the People’s Front, held in Leningrad in August 1988, was attended by representatives of twenty organizations from different Russian cities and twelve more from other Soviet republics. http://www.agitclub.ru/front/frontdoc/zanarfront1.htm. Accessed Jan. 13, 2011.
Page 79 “An organization that aims”: Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 119.
Page 80 “They would gather”: Andrei Boltyansky, interview, 2008, ibid., p. 434.
Page 81 “With a cigarette dangling from her lips”: Petr Shelish, interview, 2008, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 884 of the online version.
Page 81 conflict erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia: Thomas de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (New York: New York University Press, 2004).
Page 82 solidarity with the Armenian people: Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 115.
Page 82 Armenian children from Sumgait: Alexander Vinnikov, memoir, ibid., p. 450.
Page 82 Karabakh Committee: Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 126.
Page 82 Article 70: Article 70, Penal Code of the RSFSR. http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/links/st70.htm. Accessed Jan. 17, 2011.
Page 82 the last Article 70 case: Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 127.
Page 83 What the censors did not realize: Natalya Serova, interview, ibid., p. 621.
Page 83 a new election law: http://pravo.levonevsky.org/baza/soviet/sssr1440.htm. Accessed Jan. 17, 2011.
Page 83 A committee called Election-89: A flyer put out by the committee Election-89; reproduced in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 139–40.
Page 84 “I have a dream”: Anatoly Sobchak, Zhila-Byla Kommunisticheskaya partiya, pp. 45–48, cited in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 623.
Page 85 “Get that away from me”: Yury Afanasiev, interviewed by Yevgeni Kiselev on Echo Moskvy, 2008. http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/all/548798-echo/. Accessed Jan. 18, 2011.
Page 86 Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands: Alexander Nikishin, “Pokhorony akademika A. D. Sakharova,” Znamya, no. 5 (1990), pp. 178–88.
Page 86 Thousands of people fell into formation: “A. D. Sakharov,” Voskreseniye, vol. 33, no. 65. http://piter.anarhist.org/fevral12.htm. Accessed Jan. 18, 2011.
Page 87 his last time up on the podium: Alexander Vinnikov, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 453.
Page 87 “The following day”: Marina Salye, interview, 2008, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 615–16.
Page 88 she needed immunity from prosecution: Ibid.
Page 89 “That is not your seat”: Igor Kucherenko, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 556.
Page 90 the first meeting of the first democratically elected: Alexander Vinnikov, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, online version only, pp. 568–69.
Page 90 “It was fantastical”: Viktor Voronkov, interview, 2008, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 463.
Page 90 “an acute sense of democracy”: Nikolai Girenko, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 473.
Page 90 “The Mariinsky took on the look”: Viktor Veniaminov, memoir, Avtobiografiya Peterburgskogo gorsoveta, p. 620, cited in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 449.
Page 90 “People had so longed to be heard”: Bella Kurkova, memoir, in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 552.
Page 91 “I wish someone”: Author interview with Marina Salye, March 14, 2010.
Page 91 “could derail a working meeting”: Vladimir Gelman, interview, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 471.
Page 92 he opposed changing the name: Dmitry Gubin, “Interview predsedatelya Lenosveta A. A. Sobchaka,” Ogonyok, no. 28 (1990), cited in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 269.
Page 92 honored their agreement: Alexander Vinnikov, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 453–54.
Page 92 “W
e realized our mistake”: Author interview with Marina Salye, March 14, 2010; Vinnikov, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 453–54.
Page 93 “There were officers”: Bakatin, p. 138.
Page 94 “The KGB, as it existed”: Ibid., pp. 36–37.
Page 95 he planned to start writing a dissertation: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 95 “I remember the scene well”: Ibid.
Page 96 “Putin was most certainly”: Anatoly Sobchak, interview, Literaturnaya Gazeta, February 2000, pp. 23–29, cited in Anatoly Sobchak: Kakim on byl (Moscow: Gamma-Press, 2007), p. 20.
Page 97 A former colleague: Author interview with Sergei Bezrukov, Düsseldorf, August 17, 2011.
Page 98 “I told them, ‘I have received’”: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 98 the Committee for Constitutional Oversight: Komitet Konstitutsionnogo Nadzora SSSR, 1989–91. http://www.panorama.ru/ks/iz8991.shtml. Accessed March 8, 2011.
Page 98 the KGB ignored it: Bakatin, 135.
Page 98 conducted round-the-clock surveillance: Ibid.
Page 98 he claimed not to report to the KGB: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 99 “It was a very difficult decision”: Ibid.
FIVE. A COUP AND A CRUSADE
Page 102 pogroms broke out in the streets: “Playing the Communal Card: Communal Violence and Human Rights,” Human Rights Watch report. http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1995/communal/. Accessed Jan. 26, 2011.
Page 102 ration cards: Leningradskaya pravda, Nov. 28, 1990, cited in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 299.
Page 103 The city came perilously close: Vladimir Monakhov, interview, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 574.
Page 103 Former dissident and political prisoner Yuli Rybakov: Yuli Rybakov, interview, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 610.
Page 104 sugar disappeared: Vladimir Belyakov, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 425–26.
Page 105 “And we get there”: Author interview with Marina Salye, March 14, 2010.
Page 106 Some people even claimed to know the date: Alexander Konanykhin. http://www.snob.ru/go-to-comment/305858. Accessed March 10, 2011.
Page 108 promises to the people: “Obrashcheniye k sovetskomu narodu,” in Y. Kazarin and B. Yakovlev, Smert’ zagovora: Belaya kniga (Moscow: Novosti, 1992), pp. 12–16.
Page 108 “taking into account the needs”: Kazarin and Yakovlev, Smert’ zagovora, p. 7.
Page 109 Igor Artemyev: Igor Artemyev, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 407–8.
Page 109 no state of emergency: Alexander Vinnikov, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 454–55.
Page 109 a “military coup”: Igor Artemyev, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 408.
Page 110 “We told him that we are planning to go”: Author interview with Marina Salye, March 14, 2010.
Page 110 the arrest did not take place: Bakatin, p. 21.
Page 110 Sobchak called Leningrad: A. Golovkin and A. Chernov, interview with Anatoly Sobchak, Moskovskiye novosti, Aug. 26, 1991, quoted in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 627.
Page 111 “Why did I do so?” Sobchak, memoir, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 627.
Page 111 Moscow’s city council: Kazarin and Yakovlev, p. 131.
Page 111 ordered city services: G. Popov, “Zayavleniye mera goroda Moskvy,” in Kazarin and Yakovlev, pp. 68–69.
Page 111 Moscow’s deputy mayor, Yuri Luzhkov: Center Labyrinth, Luzhkov biography. http://www.anticompromat.org/luzhkov/luzhkbio.html. Accessed March 13, 2011.
Page 112 the Mariinsky Palace: Yuli Rybakov, interview, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 612.
Page 112 “We call on the people of Russia”: B. Yeltsin, I. Silayev, and R. Khasbulatov, “K grazhdanam Rossii,” in Kazarin and Yakovlev, p. 42.
Page 112 He was terrified: Vyacheslav Shcherbakov, interview, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 681.
Page 112 “What the hell did he do?” Ibid.; author interview with Marina Salye, March 14, 2010; text of decree as dictated by Rutskoy and as read by Sobchak, provided by Salye.
Page 114 “the flag was on a corner”: Elena Zelinskaya, interview, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 505.
Page 115 the coup was not what it had seemed: Author interview with Marina Salye, March 14, 2010.
Page 116 “I had pushed five chairs”: Shcherbakov, in Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, p. 683.
Page 117 “But I was not a KGB officer”: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 117 ”Kryuchkov simply would not”: Author interview with Arseniy Roginsky, Moscow, June 20, 2008.
Page 118 The meat was delivered: Letter from Marina Salye to Chief Comptroller of the Russian Federation Yuri Boldyrev, dated March 25, 1992, unpublished.
Page 119 Boldyrev had written a letter: Letter from Yuri Boldyrev to Petr Aven, dated March 13, 1992, document #105-177/n.
Page 119 a man with an empty office: Author interview with Irene Commeaut, Paris, June 2010.
Page 119 eager, curious, and intellectually engaged: Ilya Kolmanovsky interview with Alexander Margolis, St. Petersburg, June 2008.
Page 119 “The Putins had a dog”: Marina Yentaltseva, quoted in Gevorkyan et al.
Page 120 “I believed at the time”: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 122 a simple kickback scheme: Otchet rabochey deputatskoy gruppy Komiteta po mezhdunarodnym i vneshnim svyazyam, postoyannykh komissiy po prodovolstviyu, torgovle i sfere bytovykh uslug Sankt-Peterburgskogo gorodskogo Soveta narodnykh deputatov po voprosu kvotirovaniya i litsenzirovaniya eksporta i importa tovarov na territorii Sankt-Peterburga, with a resolution of May 8, 1992, #88; Marina Salye, “Putin—prezident korrumpirovannoy oligarkhii!” obtained from the Glasnost Foundation in Moscow, March 18, 2000.
Page 122 “I think the city”: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 122 “The point of the whole operation”: Salye, “Putin—prezident.”
Page 123 a three-page letter: “Analiz normativnykh dokumentov, izdavayemykh merom i vitse-merom S. Peterburga,” dated Jan. 15, 1992, bears the notation: “Given to B. Yeltsin on 15 January 1992.”
Page 124 Sobchak was handing out apartments: See, for example, “Rasporyazheniye mera Sankt-Peterburga o predostavlenii zhiloy ploshchadi Kurkovoy B. A.,” 08.12.1992, #1107-R; and “Rasporyazheniye mera Sankt-Peterburga o predostavlenii zhiloy ploshchadi Stepashinu S. V.,” 16.12.1992, #1147-R.
Page 125 “And here are the papers”: Author interview with Marina Salye, March 14, 2010.
Page 125 “This was different”: Ibid.
Page 126 the Supreme Soviet had a presidium: http://1993.sovnarkom.ru/TEXT/SPRAVCHN/VSOVET/vsovet1.htm. Accessed April 2, 2011.
Page 127 a decree dissolving the St. Petersburg city council: Besik Pipia, “Lensovetu stuknulo 10 let,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, April 5, 2000. http://www.ng.ru/politics/2000-04-05/3_lensovet.html. Accessed April 2, 2011.
Page 127 in favor of supporting Putin: Author interview with Marina Salye, March 14, 2010.
Page 129 “a bureaucratic police regime”: “Pokhmelkin, Yushenkov, Gologlev i Rybakov vyshli iz SPS,” unsigned news story, newsru.com. http://www.newsru.com/russia/14jan2002/sps.html. Accessed May 8, 2011.
Page 129 Yushenkov was shot: “V Moskve ubit deputat Gosdumy Sergei Yushenkov,” unsigned news story, newsru.com. http://www.newsru.com/russia/17apr2003/killed.html. Accessed May 8, 2011.
Page 129 “Sometimes, when we journalists”: Masha Gessen, “Pamyati Sergeya Yushenkova,” polit.ru, April 18,2003. http://www.polit.ru//world/2003/04/18/615774.html. Accessed May 8, 2011.
SIX. THE END OF A REFORMER
Page 132 “could be removed by those very same”: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 133 a European Union event in Hamburg: Vladimir Churov, quoted ibid.
Page 134 The city’s economy was in shambles: Anatoly Sobchak, Dyuzhina nozhey v spinu (Moscow: Vagrius/Petro-News, 1999), p. 72.
Page 135 relative levels of standard of living: Original reporting for Masha Gessen, “Printsip Pitera,” Itogi, Sept. 5, 2000.
Page 135 “There was a concert”: Alexander Bogdanov,
interview, Obshchestvennaya zhizn’, pp. 431–32.
Page 136 “Not once during this time”: Radio Liberty interview with Yuri Boldyrev, March 9, 2010. http://www.svobodanews.ru/articleprintview/1978453.html. Accessed Dec. 1, 2011.
Page 137 “There was a show”: Ilya Kolmanovsky interview with Anna Sharogradskaya, June 1, 2008.
Page 138 a brutal attempt on his life: Sobchak, Dyuzhina, pp. 73–78.
Page 138 giving out loans and grants: Boris Vishnevsky, “Kto i zachem kanoniziruyet Sobchaka?” Radio Svoboda, Feb. 25, 2010. http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/article/1968322.html. Accessed Oct. 27, 2011.
Page 139 Almost all the building’s residents: “Lyudi oni horoshiye, no kvartirny vopros ih isportil…” Na strazhe Rodiny, August 14, 1996; Brian Whitmore, “Is a Probe of City Graft a Tool of City Hall?” St. Petersburg Times, April 9, 1998.
Page 140 arranged a good post for him: Gevorkyan et al.
Page 141 all but running to the plane: Ibid.; Boris Vishnevsky, K demokratii i obratno. http://www.yabloko.ru/Publ/Book/Freedom/freedom_054.html. Accessed April 10, 2011.
Page 141 taken verbatim from an American textbook: Julie Corwin, “Russia: U.S. Academics Charge Putin with Plagiarizing Thesis,” RFERL website, March 27, 2006. http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1067113.html. Accessed April 10, 2011.
Page 142 the former mayor was aiming: Peter Reddaway, “Some Notes on the Possible Murder of Sobchak, the Political Career and Persecution of Marina Sal’ye, and Some Related Cases,” unpublished paper.
Page 142 “the new Stalin”: Reddaway.
Page 143 The request was urgent: Author interview with Natalia Rozhdestvenskaya, March 2000.
Page 144 he advanced the theory: Arkady Vaksberg, Le Laboratoire des Poisons: De Lénine à Poutine (Paris: Buchet Chastel, 2007).
Page 144 Vaksberg’s car was blown up: Reddaway.
SEVEN. THE DAY THE MEDIA DIED
Page 150 its voter rolls swelled: OSCE Mission report on the March 26, 2000, election, Russian translation. http://hro-uz.narod.ru/vibori.html. Accessed May 17, 2011.
Page 151 over 52 percent of the vote: 2000 election statistics. http://www.electoralgeography.com/ru/countries/r/russia/2000-president-elections-russia.html. Accessed March 17, 2011.
