The Putin Mystique: Inside Russia’s Power Cult

by Anna Arutunyan

  182 As cited by Kommersant. Nagornaya, Irina. “Nado umet sebya prodavat!” Kommersant. No. 30. February 2, 2002. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/311788/print

  183 From an interview given by Vladislav Surkov to Vedomosti. February 15, 2010. No. 26.

  184 Arutunyan, A. “Skolkovo’s trickle-down effect.” The Moscow News, July 16, 2012. http://www.themoscownews.com/business/20120716/189966349.html

  185 According to an official transcript. See official site of Russia’s chairmanship of the G8. http://g8russia.ru/news/20060704/1166957.html

  186 See Tirmaste, Maria-Luisa. “Biznesmeny zanyalis ”Pravym delom.” Kommersant. No. 208. November 17, 2008. http://kommersant.ru/doc/1068728. Gozman, who had once led Union of Right Forces, admitted that the merger was organized by the Kremlin, but also said it was “shameful and disgraceful.”

  187 Igumenov, Valery. “Vozvrashcheniye Potanina.” Forbes (Russian edition). March 16, 2010. http://www.forbes.ru/ekonomika/lyudi/46337-vozvrashchenie-potanina

  188 Harding, Luke. “Russian billionaire arrested in Alpine prostitution inquiry.” The Guardian. January 12, 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/12/russia.france

  189 “Prokhorov to sell 16.6% stake in Norilsk Nickel for $10 bln.” RIA Novosti. August 5, 2008. http://en.rian.ru/business/20080805/115754795.html

  190 Raghavan, Anita. “Last Man Standing.” Forbes, March 30, 2009. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0330/109-last-man-standing.html

  191 “Prokhorov’s $200 Million Purchase of Nets Gains Approval from NBA Owners.” Bloomberg. May 12, 2010. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-11/prokhorov-s-200-million-purchase-of-nets-gains-approval-from-nba-owners.html

  192 “M. Prokhorova khotyat lishyt. vlozhennykh v Pravoe delo. millionov.” RBC. September 19, 2011. http://top.rbc.ru/politics/19/09/2011/616077.shtml

  193 From an official transcript on the prime minister’s site. http://premier.gov.ru/events/news/9480/index.html

  194 Klyuchkin, Anton. “Slovo Putina boitsya.” Lenta.ru, citing Interfax news agency. March 4, 2010. http://lenta.ru/articles/2010/03/04/say/

  195 Ibid.

  196 See Vinogradova, Yelena; Nepomnyashchy, Alexei; Tovkailo, Maxim. “Putin’s Ride Boosts Ripe-Lemon Kalina Sales.” Vedomosti, September 30, 2010. Reprinted in English in The Moscow Times. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/putins-ride-boosts-ripe-lemon-kalinasales/417680.html

  Prokhorov himself would later acknowledge this effect. “We only have one brand – Putin. But that is clearly not enough,” he said in a speech at Moscow’s International University on October 11, 2011. Zhuravlev, Alexander. “V Rossii odin brend – Putin.” Kommersant-Online. October 11, 2011. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1792739

  197 From an interview given by Dmitry Medvedev to Moskovskie Novosti, June 24, 2011. http://www.mn.ru/newspaper_firstpage/20110624/302769706.html

  198 If a meeting is not officially publicized, witnesses will rarely go on the record to confirm it. Stanislav Belkovsky and a source in Right Cause speaking on conditions of anonymity told the author that they knew this meeting had taken place.

  199 See Belkovsky, Stanislav. “Pravoye Delo. Chto eto bylo?” Openspace.ru. September 17, 2011. http://www.openspace.ru/society/russia/details/30255/?expand=yes#expand

  200 In an interview to the Rosbalt news agency, August 18, 2011. http://www.rosbalt.ru/main/2011/08/18/880855.html

  201 According to statistics gathered by the foundation itself. http://nobf.ru/about/about/

  202 Motorina, Anna; Farizova, Syuzana.

  “Prokoratura trebuyet vydat deputata Roizmana.” Kommersant-Yekaterinburg. No. 83. May 17, 2007. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/766259

  203 Arutunyan, Anna; Khrustalyeva, Olga. “Prokhorov quits party.” The Moscow News. September 15, 2011. http://www.themoscownews.com/politics/20110915/189047189.html

  204 Vinokurova, Yekaterina. “Chto proizoshlo v Pravom Dele.” Gazeta.ru. September 15, 2011. http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/elections2011/blogs/3769065.shtml

  205 Smirnov, Sergei. Dmitriyenko, Dmitry. “Prohorov_ne_pojdet_na_dumskie_vybory_v_dekabre.” Vedomosti. September 15,

  206 From an interview given to Dozhd TV on September 15, 2011.

  207 Beshlei, Olga. “Oligarkh na vydanye. The New Times. No. 43. December 19, 2011. http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/47892/

  208 In an interview given to Forbes magazine, January 26, 2012. http://www.forbes.ru/sobytiya/lyudi/78770-mihail-prohorov-vazhnyi-psihologicheskii-moment-ne-mogu-byt-chim-zamom

  209 Arutunyan, A. “Cash, Signatures and Moderation.” The Moscow News. January 16, 2012. http://www.themoscownews.com/politics/20120116/189373436.html

  210 Baker, Peter; Glasser, Susan. Kremlin Rising. Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution. A Lisa Drew Book/Scribner. New York, 2005. (Kindle Edition), loc. 5859.

  211 Browne, John. Beyond Business. Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2010. From an excerpt published in The Times, February 5, 2010.

  212 Translated from an official transcript from the presidential site, www.kremlin.ru

  213 Skrynnikov, R. G. Ivan the Terrible. Moscow: AST, 2001.

  214 From an interview with the author on September 24, 2011. See also: Arutunyan, Anna. “All the Prime Minister’s Men.” The Moscow News. September 26, 2011. http://www.themoscownews.com/politics/20110926/189071296.html

  215 Ibid.

  216 See Arutunyan, Anna. “US leans towards Medvedev.” The Moscow News. March 14, 2011. http://themoscownews.com/politics/20110314/188493495.html

  217 From an official transcript posted on the Prime Minister’s site, www.government.ru

  218 Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, initially denied that Putin knew anything about the calendar. But when asked by Naomi Campbell, Putin said: “I like the girls a lot, they’re beautiful. The girls in the erotic calendar were courageous and they were not scared. As student journalists, they couldn’t fail to understand what might have been said to them after doing this. Nonetheless, they were not deterred and did the calendar anyway. So, frankly, that’s what I liked the most.” Campbell, Naomi. “When Naomi met Vladimir.” GQ. January 31, 2011. http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2011-01/31/gq-comment-naomi-campbell-interview-vladimir-putin-fitness-tigers/fitness-regime

  219 “‘Twelve Moods of Putin’” hits Russia.” BBC Europe, December 6, 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1694236.stm

  220 As cited by Bolshoi Gorod, June 8, 2007. http://www.bg.ru/article/6756/

  221 Brezhitskaya, Yelena. “PuTin vidim, chitayem Puin. Chto pokupaem?” Stavropolskaya Pravda, November 7, 2008.

  222 Sivun, Oleg. Brend. Pop-art Roman. Novy Mir, 2008, No. 10.

  223 From an interview given to Svetlana Romanova, Slon.ru. October 7, 2010. http://slon.ru/russia/da_gde_vy_vse_vidite_v_nashem_kalendare_politiku-475994.xhtml

  224 Pravda, February 1, 1935. 28 August 1936, T.H. Rigby, Stalin. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1966), pp 111-12. As cited in, McCauley, Martin. Stalin. Third Edition. Pearson Education Limited, UK, 2003.

  225 See Ennker, Benno. “Struggling for Stalin’s Soul.” Personality Cults in Stalinism. Eds. Klaus Keller, Jan Palmer. Gottingen, 2004.

  226 See Tucker, Robert C. “The Rise of Stalin’s Personality Cult.” The American Historical Review. Vol. 84, No. 2. April 1979.

  227 According to studies published in March, 2013 by the Carnegie Centre. http://www.carnegie.ru/2013/03/01/%D1%87%D1%82%D0 %BE- %D0%B4%D1%83%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82-%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B5-%D0%B2- %D1%80%D0 %BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0 %B8-%D0%B8- %D0%B7%D0%B0%D0 %BA%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0% B0%D0%B7%D1%8C% D0%B5/fo27#

  228 Ibid.

  229 Garbuznyak, Anna. “Zapad dolzhen uvidet pravilnuyu kartynku.” Moskovskie Novosti. November 25, 2011. http://mn.ru/politics/20111125/307770840.html

  230 Karatsuba, I.; Kurukin, I., Sokolov, N.;, Vybiraya svoyu istoriyu. Kolibri: Moscow, 2005.

  231 According to the philologist Mikhail Vaiskopf, the allegory of a “marriage”
between the Russian ruler and the land or the people was appropriated from ancient, pre-Christian cults and superimposed on a theocratic worldview imported from Byzantium. Citing poetry from over a span of some 300 years, Vaiskopf noted the clearly erotic connotations of how Romanov rulers were described. Vaiskopf, Mikhail. “Brak s vlastelinom: eroticheskie aspekty derzhavnoi ritoriki.” Novoye Literaturnoye Obozreniye. No. 100. 2009. http://magazines.russ.ru/nlo/2009/100/va8.html

  232 Mayetnaya, Yelizaveta. “Sudba barabanschitsy.” Izvestia December 20, 2011. http://www.izvestia.ru/news/510240

  233 Shleinov, Roman. “Dengi Nashikh.” Vedomosti. No. 225. November 29, 2010. http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/250636/dengi_nashih

  234 “Paren iz nashego ozera.” Kommersant-Vlast, No. 29. July 30, 2007. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/790656

  235 Shleinov, Roman. “Dengi Nashikh.” Vedomosti. No. 225. November 29, 2010. http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/250636/dengi_nashih

  236 The Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Science published these findings in Rossiiskoye obshchestvo kak ono yest.. Moscow: Novy Khronograf, 2011.

  237 The remark was made to oppositionist Duma deputy Ilya Ponomaryov shortly after the protests during a chance meeting in the hallways of state Parliament. Ponomaryov reported the exchange on his Livejournal blog and on Twitter. http://ilya-ponomarev.livejournal.com/482999.html Peskov later confirmed that he had said something of the sort in a private conversation, but downplayed its importance in an interview to Oleg Kashin. “U vsekh lagerei konets odin.”

  238 The incident was captured on camera and shown by news channels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeL1xv21oro

  239 Blyth, Kristen. “Religious Radicalism in Russia: Hell, Heaven and the State.” The Moscow News. February 4, 2013. http://themoscownews.com/russia/20130204/191202860.html

  240 Ibid.

  241 Shargunov, Sergei. “Tost, kotory ustarel.” Svobodnaya Pressa. July 15, 2012. http://svpressa.ru/society/article/57016/

  242 As cited in: Svoboda, M. “Obraz tsarya vo ‘Vremennike’ Ivana Timofeyeva,” Trudy otdela drevnerusskoi literatury. Vol. 52. RAN, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinsky Dom), St. Petersburg: 2001, p. 389.

  243 Ibid.

  244 Ibid.

  245 Uspensky, B. A., Zhivov, V. M. “Tsar i Bog: Semioticheskiye aspekty sarkalizatsii monarkha v Rossii.” Uskepsny B. A., Izbrannye Trudy. Moscow, 1994, p. 193.

  246 Valdenberg, Vladimir. Drevnerusskiye ucheniya o predelakh tsarskoi vlasti. Territoriya budushchego: Moscow, 2006. First published in 1916, pp. 12-13.

  247 Evans, J. A. S. The Age of Justinian. The Circumstances of Imperial Power. London, Routledge 1996, p. 62.

  248 Wiles, Maurice. Documents in Early Christian Thought, p. 224.

  249 Russel, Norman. The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. Oxford University Press: New York, 2004, p. 23.

  250 Dobbins, J. “The Imperial Cult Building in the forum at Pompeii.” Subject and Ruler: the cult of the ruling power in Classical Antiquity. Ed.: Small, Allistair. JRA Suppl. Ser. 17. Ann Arbor 1996, 99–114.

  251 Bibikov, M.V. “Velikiye vasilevsy Vizantiiskoi imperii: k izucheniyu ideologii I emblematiki sakralizatsii vlasti.” Slovo. http://www.portal-slovo.ru/theology/37836.php?ELEMENT_ID=37836&SHOW-ALL_1=0

  252 Bibikov, M.V. “Blesk i nishcheta vaslevsov.” Obrazy vlasti, eds. Mikhail Boitsov, Otto Gerhard Oexle. Nauka: Moscow, 2008, p. 14.

  253 Meyendorff, John. The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001, p. 45.

  254 Rowland, Daniel B. “The Third Rome or the New Israel?” Russian Review. Vol. 55, No. 4 (October 1996), pp. 591-614.

  255 Ibid., p. 255.

  256 Image published in Ibid, p. 267.

  257 Ibid., p. 269.

  258 De Madariaga, Isabel. Ivan the Terrible. Yale University Press, 2006, p. 53.

  259 Ivanov, Sergei. Blazhenniye pokhaby. Kulturnaya istoriya yurodstva. Yazyki slavyanskikh kultur: Moscow, 2005, pp. 265-287.

  260 Ibid.

  261 Ibid.

  262 According to a poll by the Levada Centre released in November 2012. http://www.levada.ru/02-11-2012/doverie-institutam-vlasti

  263 Belkovsky, Stanislav. “Papa ukazal put. patriarkhu.” Moskovsky Komsomolets. February 15, 2013. Belkovsky would be called in for questioning after several parliamentarians complained that the article was extremist. In the article, Belkovsky calls for fundamental church reforms, citing, for instance, its subordination to Stalin. At the end, Belkovsky suggests that Patriarch Kirill join a women’s monastery.

  264 Garrard, John; Garrard, Carol. Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent. Faith and Power in the New Russia. Princeton University Press, 2008, pp. 25-37.

  265 Latynina, Yulia. “Patriarch Kirill’s Apartment Buried in Sand.” The Moscow Times. March 29, 2012. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/patriarch-kirills-apartment-buried-insand/455684.html

  266 Shuster, Simon. “The Priest Who Beat Pussy Riot: The Orthodox Point Man with the Kremlin.” Time Magazine. August 20, 2012. http://world.time.com/2012/08/20/the-priest-who-beat-pussy-riot-the-orthodox-point-man-with-the-kremlin/#ixzz24BRjcWT9

  267 Gamov, Alexander. “Preemnik Yeltsina stradayet dalnozorkostyu.” Komsomolskaya Pravda. August 10, 1999. Like most aspects of Putin’s personal life, this cannot be verified. However, when Putin first visited Komsomolskaya Pravda as the director of the FSB in 1998, the journalist Alexander Gamov noticed that he was wearing a pair of glasses on a string, and, while not seeing things right in front of his face, was able to see things across the room.

  268 From an official transcript posted on the presidential site, Kremlin.ru

  269 Ibid.

  270 According to official police figures, as cited by RIA Novosti. http://ria.ru/politics/20120223/572376143.html Moscow police have been known to exaggerate figures for pro-Putin rallies, while downplaying figures for protests.

  271 This remark was overheard by my colleague, Natalia Antonova, who was standing a few metres away from me next to the stage.

  272 The translation used here is that of Eugene M. Hayden; in the original Russian, the second line reads literally, “as our brothers die.”

  273 From an official transcript, as cited by RIA Novosti, http://ria.ru/vybor2012_putin/20120223/572995366.html

  274 Barabanov, Ilya; Beshlei, Olga. “Antidot ot Nablyudatelya.” The New Times. No. 9, March 12, 2012. http://newtimes.ru/articles/print/50844/

  275 From a series of interviews Putin gave in 2000 to Andrei Kolesnikov, Natalia Timakova, and Natalia Gevorkyan. Ot pervogo litsa. Razgovory s Vladimirom Putinym. http://archive.kremlin.ru/articles/book-chapter1.shtml

  276 Ibid.

  277 Felshtynsky, Yuri; Pribylovsky, Vladimir; The Corporation. Russia and the KGB in the Age of President Putin. Encounter Books, New York: 2008, p. 41.

  278 In 2010, Marina Salye began giving interviews again, and the details of her report re-emerged, coinciding with a growing campaign of corruption allegations against Putin. Ivanidze, Vladimir. “Spasaya podpolkovnika Putina: vtoraya popytka.” RFE/RL. March 3, 2010. http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/article/1983851.html

  279 Felshtynsky, Yuri; Pribylovsky, Vladimir; The Corporation. Russia and the KGB in the Age of President Putin. Encounter Books, New York: 2008, pp. 85-90.

  280 From a series of interviews Putin gave in 2000 to Andrei Kolesnikov, Natalia Timakova, and Natalia Gevorkyan. Ot pervogo litsa. Razgovory s Vladimirom Putinym. http://archive.kremlin.ru/articles/book-chapter6.shtml

  281 Baker, Peter; Glasser, Susan. Kremlin Rising. Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution. A Lisa Drew Book/Scribner. New York, 2005. (Kindle Edition). Loc. 1256-68

  282 See Olson, Mancur. “Dictatorship, Democracy and Development.” American Political Science Review. Vol. 87., No. 3. September 1993.

  283 Hedlund, Stefan, Russian Path Dependence: A People with a Troubled History, Routledge, 2005.

  284 As cited in: Kol
lman, Nancy. Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia. Cambridge University Press. 2012, p. 48.

  285 See Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Old Regime. Penguin Books, 2004, pp. 50-52.

  286 See: Lotman, Iurii Mikhailovich. “Agreement and self-giving as archetypal models of culture.” The Semiotics of Russian Culture. Ed. Ann Shukman. Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1984.

  287 Burns, J. H. (ed). The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350-c. 1450. Cambridge University Press, 1988, p.64.

  288 Bershidsky, Leonid. “What Alexei Navalny Learned from Obama.” Bloomberg. August 26, 2013. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/what-alexei-naval-ny-learned-from-obama.html

  289 Kashin, Oleg. “Kogda Navalny stanet prezidentom Rossii.” Slon. September 10, 2013. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/what-alexei-navalny-learned-from-obama.html

  290 Ignatova, Olga; Protsenko, Lyubov. “Kazhdomy svoi kandidat.” Rossiiskaya Gazeta. July 4, 2013. http://www.rg.ru/2013/07/04/kandidati.html

  291 Navalny said he was “forced” to answer journalist Aider Muzhdabayev’s open letter, and posed his response on his Facebook page on July 22: https://www.facebook.com/navalny/posts/627702410582179. His brusque response was attributed by some supporters to his recent brush with jail.

  292 Zlobin, Nikolai. “Vsem uteretsya.” Ekho Moskvy. July 25, 2013. http://echo.msk.ru/blog/nzlobin/1122290-echo/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

  293 See Livejournal post from September 26: http://navalny.livejournal.com/863598.html

  294 Tselikov, Andrey. “To Some Opposition Bloggers Alexei Navalny is ‘Fuhrer.’” Global Voices. September 14, 2013. http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/09/14/to-some-opposition-bloggers-alexey-navalny-is-fuhrer/

  295 Nechepurenko, Ivan. “Big Changes Afoot – But Only After Sochi.” The Moscow Times. April 11, 2013. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/sochi2014/Big-Changes-Afoot-But-Only-After-Sochi.html

  296 Arutunyan, Anna. “Russia shrugged: Searching for a national identity.” The Moscow News. September 18, 2013. http://www.themoscownews.com/russia/20130918/191929261/Russia-shrugged.html