The members of Boris Yeltsin's entourage have fared differently after "Grandfather's" demise: some withdrew into the shadows, some became integrated into the Putin-Medvedev team. "Some are gone and some are far away".
There are no members of the Russian elite who had joined it or have remained in it contrary to Mr Putin's will. In that sense all the Yeltsin people had to go through a "reset" procedure in the 2000s by proving that they are indispensable and politically competent to the new President and gaining new political allies. Those who failed to do it and those who chose not to do it had to go.
THE FAMILY
That applies above all to the famous "Family" of Russia's first President. The decline of the clan headed by Boris Yeltsin's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, her husband Valentin Yumashev, and the power broker of the late Yeltsin era, Boris Berezovsky, began immediately after Boris Yeltsin resigned. The first major crisis for the Family was the fall of Mr Berezovsky himself, the President of the Panorama Information and Analytical Centre, Vladimir Pribylovsky, thinks. In fact, Mr Putin used the oligarch to demonstrate how not to build a relationship with the authorities in the new conditions while inviting the other members of the Family to think about how best to build these relations. Everybody got the message and accepted the rules of the game. That is why the conflict between Berezovsky and the authorities had not affected most members of the clan: with rare exceptions they either unconditionally took the side of the President or assumed a position of friendly neutrality.
During Vladimir Putin's first term as President the myth that the family clan was alive and kicking survived. And no wonder because two prominent members of the Yeltsin entourage had kept the key posts: Alexander Voloshin until the autumn of 2003 was the chief of the President's Staff and Mikhail Kasyanov was the Prime Minister until the spring of 2004.
The other members of the Family tried to keep a low public profile not to stir among the new elite that was digging in unwelcome memories about their miserable and gloomy youth. This applies above all to the Dyachenko-Yumashev couple who lost all their influence in the early 2000s and spent most of their time abroad. At present Tatyana Dyachenko is the head of the Yeltsin Fund Council, an educational institution, which, however, is financed from the government budget.
As for other members of the Family, to continue their careers they could count only on their own efforts, their personal ties with the new President and alliances with the new Petersburg groups he had brought to power.
Jumping the rails
The tacit agreement between Mr Putin and Mr Yeltsin on a moratorium on major reshuffles in the top echelons of Russian power was observed for one year after the first Russian President resigned, says Alexei Mukhin, director-general of the Political Information Centre. Thereafter the old Yeltsin elite began to be squeezed out of top positions in the Government and in the Presidential Executive Office. It had something to do with the resentment the more influential associates of Mr Putin (especially those with a security service background) felt for the Yeltsin entourage. On the other hand, Mr Putin had to get rid of the image of being a creature of Boris Berezovsky and the Family, so he was consistently dissociating himself from the representatives of that clan. As a result, by the start of Vladimir Putin's second term, practically all the members of the Family and their protégés had lost their Government posts. Most of them were sent into "honourable exile" , as in the case of Viktor Kalyuzhny (before Mr Putin's election he was Minister of Fuel and Energy, until August 2004 he was Deputy Foreign Minister, then Russia's Ambassador to Latvia and now he is chairman of the Board of the National Oil Institute Fund), Mikhail Lesin (Minister for Television and Broadcasting and the Media until April 2004, the Russian President's Adviser today) and Anvar Shamuzafarov (the head of Gosstroi until October 2002 and currently Director of the Construction Department at the Ministry of Regional Development).
However, in some cases scandals could not be avoided. One of the more high-profile representatives of the former Yeltsin entourage, the late Railways Minister Mikhail Aksyonenko, had to resign in 2002 after criminal charges were brought against him, and Mikhail Kasyanov's protégé, Vladimir Marin, the head of Rosimushchestvo, "was caught in the drag net" during the Yukos investigation and was given a four-year suspended jail sentence. Another prominent representative of the Family clan, former Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov, left his post quietly in 2001. His troubles began four years later when he was arrested in Switzerland on charges of fraud brought against him by the US. Intriguingly, the American justice system demanded the extradition for the purpose of trial of someone who knew Russian atomic secrets. To rescue Mr Adamov from Switzerland, the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office had to hastily open a criminal case against him and demand his extradition to his own country. After prolonged bargaining with the Swiss judicial authorities the former Atomic Energy Minister was handed over to Russia to be given a suspended sentence here. Apparently this was punishment for all the inconvenience he had caused to the Government. Another victim of Swiss justice, former chief of the President's Executive Office and State Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus since 2000, Pavel Borodin, got off rather lightly after finding himself in a similar situation. In 2001 he was detained in the US and extradited to Switzerland where he was charged with money laundering and corruption. Four months later he was released on bail, but the charges of corruption were not withdrawn. The scandal had no impact on Mr Borodin's career in Russia, and no wonder: in 1996 Vladimir Putin could only continue his career, interrupted by Anatoly Sobchak's defeat, in the department of the then all-powerful Mr Borodin. Such things are not supposed to be forgotten.
Among the bureaucrats close to the Family, Mikhail Zurabov, the former head of the Pension Fund of the RF and later Minister of Healthcare and Social Development, held out the longest (he is currently advisor to the Russian President). The same is true of Yeltsin's son-in-law, until recently President of Aeroflot, Valery Okulov (he was sacked from this post a couple of weeks ago and appointed Deputy Minister of Transport).
Recipe for longevity
"Behind me stood a large, strong and well-knit team. If some people prefer the term Family one might say so", Boris Yeltsin wrote in his book The Presidential Marathon.
Eight persons out of the 22 members of his entourage mentioned in Yeltsin's memoirs are still active political figures. They are Anatoly Chubais, Alexander Voloshin, Dzhokhan Pollyyeva, Vladislav Surkov, Konstantin Ernst, Oleg Dobrodeyev, Alexei Gromov and Sergei Prikhodko. One should also add the people not mentioned by Yeltsin but who have Family roots and considerable weight in the present-day political elite: First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and businessmen Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska.
What has enabled them to survive and even strengthen their position in Mr Putin's vertical power structure?
First, their loyalty. "The contract includes loyalty," said one of the most prominent representatives of the Yeltsin team who managed to become a key figure in Mr Putin's team. The example of Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Kasyanov has shown that the only alternative was being sidelined and falling into political limbo. Most representatives of the old Yeltsin elite who managed to gain a foothold in Mr Putin's establishment had made up their minds during the conflict between Boris Berezovsky and the President.
The second recipe is competence. A number of Yeltsin's people came in handy under Putin as experienced administrators and technocrats. That factor was particularly important at the beginning of Putin's term when his team, many of whose members had never held important Government posts, had not yet learned the ropes of administration and bureaucracy. For example, Alexander Voloshin as the Chief of the Presidential Executive Office became one of the main architects of the vertical power structure Mr Putin was building up in his early years and was indispensable in that role for a long time. The reputation of an indispensable bureaucrat was behind the political longevity of Vladislav Surkov, First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Executive Office. The same is true of Anatoly Chubais. "There are grounds for thinking that Mr Putin dislikes Mr Chubais, but he certainly respects him as an administrator and a politician," Vladimir Pribylovsky says.
Putting the stake on a new leader
For a number of members of the Yeltsin entourage putting the stake on Dmitry Medvedev has, oddly enough, been crucial. Close links with the third President had been decisive in the careers of at least two politicians who have their roots in the Family: Alexander Voloshin and Igor Shuvalov.
After the restructuring of RAO UES, where Mr Voloshin was head of the board of directors, he did not get lost but was given a similar post with Norilsk Nickel. This is not surprising. Back in 2000 he became Mr Medvedev's boss in the Kremlin administration and they are thought to have formed a cosy relationship back then. Suffice it to recall the passage from Putin's book In the First Person: "We discussed with him together whom to put in his place, we spoke about Dima Medvedev. Voloshin said himself: ‘Let him work as my deputy and then perhaps he will grow as a possible replacement to me'". That is exactly what happened, and Dima turned out to be a ‘possible replacement' not only to Mr Voloshin...
"Alexander Voloshin taught Dmitry Medvedev the apparatchik's skills, thinks Alexei Mukhin. The relations between teacher and pupil, and not his former links with the Family, were decisive in promoting Alexander Voloshin recently. As a result rumour increasingly ascribes to him the role of shadow coordinator of the coalition forming around Mr Medvedev. Mr Voloshin himself denies that he is playing any such role...
Another politician with Family roots (he was introduced to the Family by businessman Alexander Mamut who was close to Yumashev and Berezovsky) who is now in the top echelon of the elite, is Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, and he too owes his meteoric career to Dmitry Medvedev. In Mr Mukhin's opinion, Mr Shuvalov shifted his focus from Voloshin to Medvedev in the early 2000s. Thanks to his good relations with these officials he painlessly survived the forced resignation from the post of the Chief of the Kasyanov Government's Staff (some say it was over Shuvalov's quarrel with the Prime Minister) and soon afterward was appointed Presidential Aide thanks to them.
Becoming First Deputy Prime Minister after Medvedev's election, Mr Shuvalov became more than the key figure in Vladimir Putin's Cabinet. From time to time Mr Shuvalov is named among those who have a real chance to replace the current head of Government. Provided of course, the latter opts for promotion....
By Vasily Toropov