The President and (not quite) his own guard.
"Everybody knows that our land begins with the Kremlin". It is almost a year since that line from a popular verset became irrelevant for Russian politics. Over the past months people have got used to the idea that while the President was officially the country's leader real power resided in the Prime Minister's office. How did the Russian state mechanism, geared to a single boss, react to such a "crumbling of foundations"? How is the country being run on a day-to-day basis? One can find an answer by taking a closer look at the bureaucrats who are sitting inside the Kremlin walls.
Oleg Markov: a rubber stamper of personnel
"Not to take a single step without a clear directive from above". This is how the persons who know the President's 55-year-old assistant for personnel, Oleg Markov, described his professional credo.
Mr Markov's biography is in many ways similar to the career of his Putin-era predecessor, Viktor Ivanov. Both had worked at St Petersburg City Hall together with Putin. Mr Ivanov was in charge of liaison with the army, police and security agencies. Mr Markov, a one-time classmate of Vladimir Putin at the Law Faculty of Leningrad State University, was his deputy when Vladimir Putin was the chairman of the city administration's Foreign Relations Committee. After Vladimir Putin became President both came to work at the Kremlin. Mr Ivanov was immediately appointed chief HR officer and Mr Markov a little later became deputy head of the Presidential Protocol Directorate. However, the styles of the two chiefs of the "national personnel department" could not be more different.
Mr Ivanov was brimming with new ideas. Former colleagues say that he personally crossed out "wrong" names from the lists of people seeking Russian citizenship. He is responsible for sacking Prime Minister Kasyanov in early 2004, which came as a bombshell. Mr Ivanov had presented Vladimir Putin with "evidence" that Mr Kasyanov was plotting a "constitutional coup". In 2006, during another conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi, Viktor Ivanov advocated deportation of "illegal Georgian migrants" from Russia.
Mr Markov is a yes-man. On the face of it, the system of appointments and dismissals under President Medvedev does not differ much from the previous eras. The Prime Minister's signature under any important personnel document (with the exception of the army and security agencies) has always been obligatory. But while previously it was just a bureaucratic formality, now it has become crucial.
"Under President Putin the Kremlin was the latter-day equivalent of the Politburo as far as personnel decisions were concerned. Now a more appropriate comparison would be to the German Chancellery of the Bundespresident, an experienced bureaucrat explained the change to me. Some people, remembering the old ways, still try to initiate personnel decisions through the President's Executive Office. But such initiatives either require endless approvals or are swept under the rug. Today it makes much more sense to proceed through the Government House".
Sergei Naryshkin: Mr Popularity
If the Kremlin and the Government apparatchiks today were asked to name their "most popular boss in the last 10 years, the current chief of the President's Executive Office, Sergei Naryshkin, would have won by a huge margin. However, Mr Naryshkin does not have anything like the political weight his predecessors, for example, Chubais and Voloshin carried.
The post of the Chief of the President's Executive Office was already becoming less important towards the end of Putin's presidency: "When Mr Medvedev was the head of the President's Executive Office, it was seen as the decision-making centre, an informed political insider told me. Mr Sobyanin, who replaced Medvedev, was an outsider to the Kremlin. There was a big distance between him and Putin. The Executive Office began falling to pieces.
The situation did not change when Mr Naryshkin, the former Government Chief of Staff, moved to the Kremlin. Insiders say: "Mr Medvedev personally knows all the key figures in his office. He finds it easier to deal with them directly rather than through Mr Naryshkin".
Even so, the appointment of Sergei Naryshkin was very good news for the Kremlin bureaucrats. Sergei Sobyanin had a very harsh manner with his subordinates. Mr Naryshkin's style is the direct opposite.
Sergei Naryshkin, 54, has the biography of a typical Putin courtier: he hails from Leningrad, has served with the special services, and has worked side by side with Putin in the St Petersburg Administration. After moving to Moscow in 2004, Mr Naryshkin was getting new appointments every few months before becoming the Chief of the Government's Staff in September of the same year.
Even his ill-wishers consider Sergei Naryshkin to be a very "positive" person. Some of the rank-and-file members of the Presidential Executive Office were deeply moved when he personally congratulated them on the New Year and then on the 8th March holiday. No one before him had done anything like that at the Kremlin. Higher-ranking officials note that the Chief of Staff is genuinely eager to help everyone and to look into their problems. In spite of his gentle manner and unfailing politeness, he is not a pushover. On several occasions Mr Naryshkin cut down to size even some of his most charismatic subordinates.
And yet even Sergei Naryshkin's most ardent fans stop short of calling him a strategist or claiming that he is very close to the President. "He deliberately does not raise the bar, one of these people told me. All he is required to do is to be a cog in a wheel". Well, the future will tell.
Alexander Beglov: Mr Sechin's successor
The name of Igor Sechin, the head of President Putin's Secretariat, used to strike fear into all members of the Russian elite. The name of the Chief of President Medvedev's Secretariat, Alexander Beglov, rings no bells even to many officials. Mr Beglov himself seems to be quite happy with this state of affairs. His informal motto seems to be: efficiency and a low profile.
A former functionary at the Leningrad Region Committee of the CPSU and ex-head of the office of St Petersburg Governor Yakovlev, Alexander Beglov became a federal-level official in 2003. By that time Mr Yakovlev, whom Vladimir Putin detested, had been exiled with due honours, to the Government. Mrs Matviyenko had not yet been elected as the Mayor of St Petersburg. The reliable Mr Beglov was appointed to keep the seat warm.
As a reward for his impeccable performance as an interim head of St Petersburg he was appointed head of the Presidential Control Directorate. While in that job, Mr Beglov managed to endear himself to regional governors and initiate several high-profile investigations. From the results of one of them, for example, the customs were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of Economic Development Minister, German Gref. It was then that Beglov demonstrated his particular skill: in spite of the inherently conflict-generating nature of his post, he managed not to quarrel with anyone and to build up the reputation of a neutral.
Another salient feature of the Chief of President Medvedev's Secretariat is his polite and easy-going manner. His office in the Kremlin's Building 14 is next door to the office of another Presidential Aide, Alexander Abramov. When the occupant was Mr Sechin he always passed the visitors waiting to be received by Mr Abramov without saying a word. Mr Beglov makes a point of pausing and shaking everyone's hand.
Not that it increases the petitioners' chances of getting their requests granted. Mr Beglov seems to be happy with the role of a technical bureaucrat who does not seek to wield any political influence. This seems to be the safest way to behave in the Kremlin under Medvedev.
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Alexei Gromov: the head of "the Box"
Mr Gromov found himself between two chairs: he has lost access to Mr Putin and has not gained access to Mr Medvedev, ill-wishers were whispering last May when Vladimir Putin's press secretary Alexei Gromov was appointed deputy chief of the President's Executive Office. As often happens, those who gleefully predicted that Alexei Gromov's career was over had to eat their words. Mr Gromov has been put in charge of what is the most precious social and political asset in modern Russia - television.
A career diplomat, Alexei Gromov got into the Kremlin thanks to Sergei Yastrzhembsky. Mr Gromov worked under Mr Yastrzhembsky, a future Yeltsin press spokesman, when the latter was Russia's Ambassador to Slovakia. Four days after Putin became acting President in 2000, Mr Gromov was appointed his press secretary.
In the West, the national leader's press secretary is all over television screens. Alexei Gromov from the start chose to keep a low profile. Considering the character of Putin's Russia that decision hit the bull's eye. In the US and Europe Government and the leading media are centres of influence independent of each other. In this country the "fourth estate", with rare exceptions, is a maidservant of the first three. If so, it does not need to be convinced of anything. It is enough to indicate to it "the vector of development" at the professional level.
Speaking about federal TV channels, initially Mr Gromov could count on seeing eye-to-eye only with RTR. He has been a friend of Oleg Dobrodeyev, the head of RTR, since they studied together at Moscow University's Historical Faculty. However, as the former TV tycoons, Berezovsky and Gusinsky, faded out of the world of our media, the influence of Putin's press secretary grew. There was a period, however, when other Kremlin courtiers, for example, Vladislav Surkov, had access to supervising "the box". But in the final stage of Putin's presidency Mr Gromov's leading role in that sphere was unchallenged.
When Mr Medvedev and Mr Gromov held approximately equal ranks in Putin's administration there was no love lost between them. Last year's change of watch at the Kremlin, however, did not shake Alexei Gromov's position. Attempts by some officials to wrest control of television from him were nipped in the bud. As a result, Mr Gromov still presides over weekly Kremlin briefings for the heads of TV channels.
Alexei Gromov's sphere of responsibility also includes projecting a positive image of Russia abroad and the Sochi Olympiad, the prime "national project" of our authorities in recent years. As the experience of the 1980 Moscow Olympics has shown the most prestigious sporting event in the world may generate a multitude of political and PR problems.
Granted, no event similar to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 capable of provoking an international boycott of the Olympiad is in sight. But there are many "thunder clouds" looming on the Sochi Olympics horizon - charges of ecological, financial and project breaches in the building of sports facilities, scandal-plagued elections of the city's mayor. In short, the man in charge of the country's Olympic image has his job cut out. It will tax every ounce of his talents.
Mr Gromov has the final say in determining what share of news airtime is to be devoted to each of the two members of the ruling tandem. One need hardly mention the fact that Mr Gromov has a cozy relationship with his former deputy and now Mr Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov. Russia may have dual power, but certainly not in the information space.
Arkady Dvorkovich: clearly the leader's advisor
In Yeltsin's and Putin's Russia the president's economic advisor often wielded more influence than key ministers or deputy prime ministers. The same does not apply to 37-year-old Arkady Dvorkovich, the Kremlin's current economic specialist. All the key economic decisions are taken by Russia's "big four": Putin-Kudrin-Sechin-Shuvalov. In this setup Mr Dvorkovich's role is that of an expert and advisor rather than an aide.
The son of a well-known Soviet chess grandmaster, Vladimir Dvorkovich, showed exceptional promise from an early age. He graduated from three universities in a row: Moscow University's Economics Faculty, the Russian School of Economics and the prestigious Duke University in the US. In 1999, while an expert with the Finance Ministry's group of analysts, he caught the eye of German Gref, then Mr Putin's "economics guru". As a lawyer in charge of economic matters, Mr Gref had high regard for truly professional economists. Besides German Gref was very fond of acting as a mentor to talented young people.
Once under Gref's wing, Mr Dvorkovich saw his career soaring: advisor to the Minister of Economic Development, his deputy the following year, chief of the Presidential Administration's Analytical Directorate. During last year's change of watch at the Kremlin, Arkady Dvorkovich made a bid for the post of Minister of Economic Development, but Elvira Nabiullina managed to beat back his attack. Mr Dvorkovich had to content himself with the post of Presidential Aide. Mr Dvorkovich's talents are rated very highly. He is a brilliant analyst and knows almost all the areas of economics except perhaps the real sector and the social sphere. Some people question his ability to manage a large bureaucratic organisation and cope with day-to-day problems. But Mr Dvorkovich's current job does not require these qualities.
Vladislav Surkov: a guide and military expert
"The Administration has only one politically creative member left. He alone plays his own game and has his own ideas. That is why he looks increasingly like a maverick at the Kremlin". That is how knowing people have recently been describing the first deputy head of the President's Executive Office, Vladislav Surkov.
That Mr Surkov plays a unique role in Russian Government should be attributed to the peculiarities of our political system. In the West public politics is an ocean. In Russia it is a small patch of the political field which is tightly isolated from the sphere where real decisions are made. 44-year-old Vladislav Surkov was never privy to Kremlin decision-making. In the eyes of the "Petersburg guard" he has always been what a tsarist Russian military expert was to the Bolsheviks. However, he is a recognized king and guide in the sphere of public politics.
This August will mark ten years since Mr Surkov became Russia's chief spin doctor. For most of this time he has been the victim of his own success. On the face of it, the powerful supporting structures of formal Russian state institutions, such as parliament and political parties, have proved to be almost made of cardboard. Mr Surkov hardly ever needed to exert titanic efforts to restructure them or turn them in the desired direction. That is why the powerful Kremlin political machine has seldom had to be thrown into full gear.
For Mr Surkov Medvedev's presidency meant formal promotion from just deputy to first deputy Chief of the Kremlin Staff and a very real easing of his job. The powerful Igor Sechin for some reason had no particular affection for Vladislav Surkov and missed no chance of wrong-footing him. After Mr Sechin moved to the Government he has felt more comfortable.
The crisis of course brought some changes. The man responsible for political stability in the country is undoubtedly Mr Putin. But Mr Surkov either has a sixth sense of what he is expected to do or enjoys extraordinary license in interpreting the directives he gets. If United Russia's monopoly on power suddenly begins shaking he will be held responsible. So far Vladislav Surkov has no problem coping with his increased load. Except that, as his fellow bureaucrats note, his manner in conferences has become a little more nervous and irascible.
"President Putin was very fond of subjecting his fellow workers to surreptitious loyalty tests. Those who withstood the test were elevated a peg. Those who failed stayed in their job. Mr Medvedev ended up where he is now because he could be relied on to keep his word". That remark by a person on the periphery of the third Russian President's retinue provides the clue to understanding the situation in the top echelon of power in Russia.
People close to the Kremlin say that at the personal level there are already a lot of frictions between Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev. But their differences do not erupt into the open. Mr Medvedev is keeping his word and playing the role of number two in the tandem and not the country's top leader.
Let us face it. Inside the power system, including in his own administration, the President is hemmed in on all sides. But that is an "extra precaution" which will probably never be pressed into service.
"I do not see any forces in society that can dramatically change this political landscape. At present you are either an official or a dissident. My only hope is for a rift between Mr Putin and Medvedev," a former government official who toys with opposition ideas told me.
However, tough political competition is only useful when it follows clear-cut rules of the game. This is impossible in present-day Russia. To recall the events in the autumn of 1993 would be a gross exaggeration. But any clash at the top threatens to throw the whole state mechanism out of gear.
However, the country cannot forever go on as before. Barack Obama has just demonstrated what a new White House team can do. America, which found itself in an impasse under Bush, has shed its skin like a snake and continues to move forward without staggering under the load of the mistakes made by the previous administration. Only several months ago the United States was seen as a pariah in Europe and the Islamic world. Today Europe is sick with Obamamania. This week during President Obama's visit to the most advanced country in the Muslim world, Turkey, he picked up applause both from moderate Islamists and secularists.
Granted, Messrs Putin and Medvedev have not committed such grave errors as Bush. But every organism in any country needs to be renewed periodically. Instead, Mr Medvedev's presidency so far has been a mechanical continuation of Mr Putin's presidency.
Mikhail Rostovsky
