Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [89]
Three days later, on Sunday, December 19, the Russians went to the polls in the Duma elections. Boris’s brainchild, the four-month-old Unity Party, finished in second place with 72 seats, trailing the Communists’ 113. Primakov’s Fatherland All-Russia Party came in third with 66 seats. Chubais and Nemtsov’s Rightist Union, Yavlinsky’s social democrats, and Zhirinovsky’s nationalists received 29, 21, and 17 seats, respectively. All things considered, it was a triumph for Boris. He became an independent member of the Duma from Karachayevo-Cherkessia. Primus’s presidential prospects were greatly damaged. The vote, combined with the war, sealed Putin’s position as the leading contender for the presidency in March. His popularity now stood at 45 percent, while Primakov’s sank to 11.
On the day the results were announced, Putin invited Boris to the White House. When Boris arrived shortly before midnight, Putin looked solemn. It may well have been the first day that he really believed that he would be Russia’s next president.
“I want to tell you, Boris, that what you have done is phenomenal,” Putin began, in his monotone. “No one believed you, and I know that you’ve been ill and worked out of the hospital. I am not given to melodrama, so what I am going to say is particularly significant. I do not have a brother, and neither do you. You should know that in me you have a brother, Boris. Coming from me, these are not empty words.”
For a moment, Boris was speechless. He had not expected an emotional outburst from Putin, the most controlled man he had ever met. In the past, albeit rarely, the displays of emotion that Boris had seen were restricted to bursts of aggression. Now, as Putin spoke from his heart, he turned pale, and his voice slightly trembled. Their eyes met. For a split second Boris glimpsed a vulnerable soul, unsure of his sudden success.
“Thank you, Volodya. You should know that I did not do it for you, but for all of us, and—forgive me for melodrama, too—for Russia. Now all eyes are on you. You will beat Primus and Luzhkov and continue the work that Boris Nikolaevich has started. Let’s have a drink to that!”
On December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin gave a nationally televised address, resigning the presidency and transferring his powers to Vladimir Putin, pending the March elections. He asked for forgiveness for just one mistake: the war in Chechnya.
Grozny, January 24, 2000: Chechen fighters resist the Russian army in hand-to-hand combat throughout the capital. Akhmed Zakayev, now the commander of a thousand-strong force defending the southwestern district, is severely wounded by shrapnel from an artillery shell. For the next ten days he is carried by stretcher from village to village, evading a massive manhunt by the Russian army. Eventually he is smuggled to Georgia, after his wife bribes her way through the Russian border checkpoint with $5,000.
The story of the September bomb scare in Ryazan began to emerge only after the New Year. Will Englund of the Baltimore Sun and Maura Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times were among the first to write about it. They each interviewed residents of the building at 14÷16 Novoselova Street and published stories on January 14 and 15, respectively. Their editors found both reports worthy of the front page. Each concluded that the bomb was real, contrary to the “exercise” claims of the FSB.
In Russia, however, the story remained unreported for another month, until the February 14 issue of Novaya Gazeta. Pavel Voloshin (no relation to Alexander Voloshin, Kremlin chief of staff), a young disciple of the veteran investigative journalist Yuri Schekochihin, published a detailed explanation of what happened.
On September 22, 1999, at 9:15 p.m., Alexei Kartofelnikov, a tenant of the twelve-story apartment building, called the police to report a white Zhiguli sedan with obscured license plates parked at the front entrance. Two suspicious-looking