Peter Principle

The majority of St. Petersburg residents support the current governor, without any personal motives and without any rosy illusions about him. Residents of the “second capital” evaluate Yakovlev in much the same way as their own life: bad, but acceptable. (Photo: Ruslan Yamalov )

At the end of spring, miracles happen in St. Petersburg. The clouds are parting, the sun is revealing shades of red, yellow, and brown on the seemingly hopelessly gray walls of the houses. Stunned with happiness, St. Petersburg residents pour out to drink Baltika beer on the Fontanka embankment or walk late in the bright evening with a baby stroller along the crowded Nevsky. Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's rating is going up - and this is as natural and inevitable a miracle as white nights.

Barring some catastrophe or natural disaster, on May 14 Vladimir Yakovlev will win the elections in the first round. This gray, tongue-tied supply manager of a poor city will leave all his competitors far behind, although some of them are known in St. Petersburg no worse than him, and speak Russian and look much better on the TV screen. He will easily bypass them, without resorting to the “dirty” technologies for which the previous St. Petersburg elections became famous. The ease of his victory will only be partly due to the confusion in the Kremlin, where at first they looked favorably on the maneuvers of Sergei Stepashin, who was soon pushed aside in order to promote Valentina Matvienko, dear to Putin’s heart, but she was also suddenly “recalled from vacation.”

Yakovlev would still have won in the presence of any Moscow protege, well, perhaps not in the first round. You see, he is supported by the city. The roots of this support - not to be confused with love - lie in the short history of the St. Petersburg governorship, in the traditional allergy to everything Moscow and in the specific ideas of St. Petersburg residents about themselves and their lives.

Ghost of Sobchak
Four years ago, it was not Vladimir Yakovlev who could have won the elections in St. Petersburg. In a sense, he had nothing to do with it. The city voted not for him, but against his predecessor. Anatoly Sobchak, according to analysts, including those who worked on his headquarters, was in the hands of the townspeople by 1996. I got tired of him with his secularism, his snobbery, his, as one St. Petersburg journalist puts it, “incredible social tactlessness.” The population of St. Petersburg, like the whole country, was catastrophically poor, and Sobchak walked in boots made of crocodile skin (I don’t know for certain whether Sobchak walked in precious shoes, but St. Petersburg residents are as firmly convinced of this as they are of the inappropriate luxury of the mink coat of a failed candidate for governors Valentina Matvienko). Therefore, the campaign to expose Sobchak’s “real estate fraud” turned out to be deadly effective. For five years, the investigative team has failed to prove that Sobchak committed a crime - and even if he did, it would be the most harmless and widespread abuse of power. But for St. Petersburg residents, one in four of whom lives in a communal apartment, it was enough to know that Sobchak built himself a 300-meter mansion.

The late mayor’s offenses, imaginary or real, would not be worth remembering if not for one surprising circumstance: “They are still choosing between Yakovlev and Sobchak,” says gallery owner and political strategist Marat Gelman, who has been actively working in St. Petersburg for a month and a half. “And any a person who speaks the right language is Sobchak’s shadow.” Sobchak's shadow is perhaps a more real participant in the current elections than the living opponents of the current governor: Yabloko member Igor Artemyev, SSP member Yuli Rybakov, eternal oppositionist Yuri Boldyrev, businessman Artem Tarasov and others. According to the most optimistic forecasts of sociologists, Artemyev will not be able to get more than 10% of the votes, and Rybakov - more than 3. The rest - even less. At the same time, Rybakov and Artemyev continue to stubbornly share the place of a single democratic candidate and conduct endless polls and “primaries.” All of them, together with Gelman and other Moscow “technologists”, are from the field of virtual politics.

Real politics is made by real residents of St. Petersburg, who are not at all similar to the stereotype that has taken root in the rest of Russia of a highly educated, ambitious sixth-generation city dweller discussing the fate of the Northern capital in a kitchen with a five-meter ceiling somewhere on the Griboyedov Canal. According to the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, almost a quarter of the city’s population are pensioners, another 22% are workers, and almost 2% are military personnel. All three groups, plus a good portion of engineering and technical workers, are Yakovlev’s electorate.

“In fact, the city is a working city,” says Roman Mogilevsky, director of the St. Petersburg branch of the Gallup Institute. “Some factories have begun to breathe a little, like everywhere else in the country, and this adds to Yakovlev’s popularity.” In addition, Mogilevsky is sure that pensioners and military-industrial complex workers are close to Yakovlev’s style: “This is a figure of a completely Soviet type. He is always from construction site to construction site. He comes and orders the stones to be removed from the construction site. In market relations, by the way, the builders themselves come first are interested in removing the stone, and voters like this gesture."

“Yakovlev was elected not by St. Petersburg residents, but by Leningraders,” says Tatyana Protasenko, a recognized authority among sociologists studying pre-election moods in the city. “These are the people who, when you ask them to say what St. Petersburg is, answer: “a working city.” , "hero city Leningrad".

Liberals
Whatever sociologists say, in federal elections St. Petersburg votes more like Moscow: in December, for example, the Union of Right Forces received 17% of the votes here. Communists play almost no role in the political life of St. Petersburg. At the same time, Yabloko was the party in power here until recently: the St. Petersburg Yabloko members helped Yakovlev win the first elections and took leading positions in his administration. Now Yakovlev’s former deputy, Yabloko member Artemyev, is trying to do the same thing that Yakovlev himself did four years ago: overthrow his former boss. And nothing is working out for him - partly because the city, like the governor, categorically refuses to consider the current elections as political. In elections to the State Duma and even to their own Legislative Assembly, townspeople vote for liberal politicians - but they want to see a business executive as governor.

“This is a strong idea that the governor is a servant of the people,” says the famous St. Petersburg historian and publicist Lev Lurie, who is now collaborating with Igor Artemyev’s headquarters. “The city chooses not a master, but a servant. And Yakovlev came up with an image for himself - a supply manager, a person who there are fundamentally not enough stars in the sky." Yakovlev is often compared to Luzhkov because both play the role of a zealous owner. Yakovlev, unlike Luzhkov, speaks poorly, but not much. And only within the limits of competence. About construction and roads, about hockey and basketball.

While we are talking, the light in Lurie's office - a wonderful old office with high ceilings and massive antique furniture - blinks annoyingly. My interlocutor doesn't pay attention. The center of St. Petersburg has long lacked existing substations, so power surges are a chronic disaster. In any case, the St. Petersburg lights began to blink long before Anatoly Chubais began to sort things out with Rem Vyakhirev. This is a common phenomenon, as is the periodic shutdown of all water: there is not enough water itself or the capacity of treatment facilities.

A visitor is struck by the terrible condition of houses and roads: many streets in wet weather, that is, almost always, are impossible to walk through. Surface public transport is on the verge of extinction: you can wait half an hour for a trolleybus somewhere on the outskirts (the city needs to buy 100 new buses every year, but only 10 are being purchased). Working elevators in an apartment building are rather an exception.

Marat Gelman’s team thought to play on this and, having landed in St. Petersburg at the end of March, began a campaign under the slogan “The City is Tired.” With portraits of emaciated old people against the backdrop of a collapsing city. The Yakovlev team immediately responded with the “Peter Lives” campaign: happy young people against the backdrop of the governor’s new buildings, such as the pedestrian shopping area on Malaya Sadovaya. “And then - who would have known! - the weather changes,” laughs journalist Fyodor Gavrilov. “Girls put on short skirts. Portraits of old women in Orenburg scarves stop looking good, and “Peter Lives” begins to play.”

But, of course, it’s not about the weather. There was a significant mistake in Gelman's campaign. “These old women are images of the blockade,” says sociologist Tatyana Protasenko. “Therefore, the posters are perceived as tactless, Moscow. The fact that St. Petersburg is told that it is the criminal capital is also perceived. This is an insult. Faced with such “attacks,” the city actually rallied around Yakovlev." And he constantly insists that St. Petersburg is not at all the leader in Russia in the number of contract killings, and finds grateful listeners among voters. The fact that St. Petersburg occupies one of the first places (according to some sources - first, according to some - second, after Moscow) in violent crimes: street robberies, rapes, and so on, which affect just ordinary people, is unknown in the city.

St. Petersburg has moved from the top ten Russian cities to third in terms of living standards. But few people in the city know about this either. “Where do St. Petersburg residents go?” asks Lev Lurie rhetorically. “If they go anywhere at all, it’s in Moscow or Helsinki. It’s clear that life is obviously better there and there. But they haven’t been to Samara or Perm.” The only political force trying to tell St. Petersburg residents that life is better in both Samara and Perm than in St. Petersburg is Gelman’s team, and their speeches are perceived as attacks by Muscovites.

But if we ignore comparisons with other cities, the life of St. Petersburg residents is gradually improving. According to data from the Institute of Sociology, the level of real per capita income has been growing throughout last year, despite the fact that the income of 62% of St. Petersburg residents is below the subsistence level (in July last year this was 73%). Along the way, the “index of social optimism”, as sociologists put it, has grown (St. Petersburg sociologists have another term in use - the “Chubais index”: the rating of this politician falls and rises in strict accordance with the level of well-being of the respondents). Research by Tatyana Protasenko shows that today 19% of city residents believe that “everything is not so bad, and by and large, life is getting better,” 52.2% say that “life is difficult, but it’s quite possible to endure,” and 21.1 % are ready to subscribe to the words “it is no longer possible to tolerate this plight.” For comparison: in the spring of 1996, during the previous gubernatorial campaign, 29.4% believed that “it is no longer possible to endure,” and only 12.5% ​​thought that life was getting better.

Not good, not bad - diligent
St. Petersburg residents evaluate the governor in much the same way as their own life: bad, but acceptable. Despite the fact that, according to Tatyana Protasenko, of the 71% of voters who intend to take part in the elections, only 45% are firm supporters of the governor. But he has very few opponents, those who will not vote for him under any circumstances: only 17% (for comparison: four years ago Sobchak had 35% of supporters and exactly the same number of irreconcilable opponents). Over four years, Yakovlev’s rating fell several times - a year after the elections, when the communal reform planned by the previous government began (it has since happily stalled), after the murder of Galina Starovoitova, when the governor was clearly confused, disappeared somewhere and did not even come to the funeral, after the attacks of Sergei Dorenko - but never fell below 35% and each time quickly rose again to the previous level.

Partially, the stability of Yakovlev’s indicators is the merit of his PR team, which never stopped running the election campaign for a minute, and partially, it’s his uncharismatic, inexpressive political persona, to whom nothing simply sticks. “We conducted focus groups when accidents happened in the city - for example, when a metro canopy fell (on June 10, 1999, seven people died at the Sennaya Ploshchad station - “Results”),” says Tatyana Protasenko. “Participants say: “ No, Yakovlev is not to blame, it’s the federal government that’s to blame, it doesn’t give money.” Nothing infuriates him. Even his wife doesn’t irritate, even though she appears in public in a mink coat. Somehow it’s not noticeable that she’s a mink. What about Valentina Ivanovna? ​​We ask: “Are there many bandits in the administration?” They answer: “There are a lot of them. But power in general is like that, and Yakovlev is trying.”

"Tries" is the key word. “Yakovlev’s activities are all described by imperfective verbs,” says Tatyana Protasenko. “He does, he repairs, he tries. But if there are no results, it’s a matter of time. He needs to be re-elected, let him finish.”

Employees of the St. Petersburg branch of the Gallup Institute conducted separate focus groups of supporters of the Union of Right Forces and Unity. The vast majority is going to vote for the current governor. “Even in this group, the emphasis is on the fact that attempts are being made to solve some economic problems,” says Roman Mogilevsky. “In all focus groups, road construction is mentioned. Despite the fact that Yakovlev most often makes not real steps, but gestures. There are no economic achievements, there are political actions packaged in an economic form." This is the construction of an ice palace, the creation of pedestrian and shopping areas in the city center. But these gestures are seen as an expression of Yakovlev’s eternal zeal. “At focus groups, they name a bunch of problems,” says Roman Mogilevsky. “But this is separate from the conversation about Yakovlev. All responsibility for failures is removed from him. And the achievements are his. Although, perhaps, the previous leaders of the city economy should be thanked for the achievements who started their careers under Sobchak - Kudrin, Gref, Manevich - but the laurels go to the first person." For example, Shutov (an associate of the governor, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly, accused of preparing contract killings - “Results”) may have abused his trust, but Yakovlev is not to blame for this.

The gossip about the governor's connections with the criminal world somehow stopped on its own. For four years, no one was able to bring more or less substantiated charges against him. Meanwhile, during the years of Yakovlev’s rule in St. Petersburg, a press in opposition to the government appeared and strengthened, which his predecessor crushed mercilessly. But nothing appeared in this press either. At one time, the former head of the St. Petersburg police, Anatoly Ponidelko, stated that he had at his disposal documentary evidence of the governor’s connection with the mafia, but he never made anything public. So far, the only thing that opponents can accuse Yakovlev of is the distribution of the “gubernatorial list” of candidates for the Legislative Assembly in 1998. Such influence on the voter is contrary to the law, but that is not the point. The list included Yuri Shutov, now accused of murder, Viktor Novoselov, a crime boss who died at the hands of a killer, and businessman Sergei Shevchenko, also now behind bars.

“The fact that they were on the list does not mean that they are his friends, that they are all in the same boat,” says Andrei Konstantinov, director of the Agency for Investigative Journalism. This unique organization has taken the matter on a grand scale: they “dig” for everyone here. According to Konstantinov, it is absolutely impossible to find anything on Yakovlev. Yakovlev, according to AJR information, kept candidates from the “gubernatorial list” at a distance, and after the elections he openly feuded with Shevchenko’s businessmen brothers. AJR also looked into the governor’s connections with the cemetery mafia, which were much talked about. No connections found.

In March, even before Vladimir Putin refused to support Valentina Matvienko, it was announced that an investigative group of the Ministry of Internal Affairs would be created to investigate corruption in the governor’s administration. The case revolved around the VIC company, through which money was passed for the founding congress of the All Russia movement. The founder of the company itself turned out to be a homeless man who has been in Kresty for a long time on charges of murder. The investigation ended before it began. “It’s quiet there,” says Konstantinov. “No connections with Smolny can be traced. The company is a ghost, the money came in cash from private individuals. It is impossible to prove that these were budget funds. There is no doubt that corruption took place. There is also reason to believe that that this has nothing to do with the administration."

Andrei Konstantinov has special reasons to respect the governor: Yakovlev helped him in the preparation of the film “Gangster Petersburg” (in the credits the film’s authors express gratitude to the governor). “Some kind of masculine act,” Konstantinov admits with some bewilderment, believing that the film, which was released two weeks before the elections, will deal a strong blow to the popularity of the current governor. But perhaps Yakovlev simply more accurately calculated the reaction of voters concerned with the topic of crime - since Vladimir Anatolyevich encourages film revelations, it means that he himself is clean.

The majority of St. Petersburg residents support the current governor, without any personal motives and without any rosy illusions about him. Director of the St. Petersburg branch of the National Press Institute Anna Sharogradskaya states: “Many people will vote for him simply because the city does NOT like him. This is even better than love. Such a calm, balanced attitude.”


(Photo: Vasily Maksimov )
Gelman's posters with besieged old women were perceived in St. Petersburg as tactless Moscow attacks. According to supporters of the mayor, Yakovlev is still trying to transform the city - be it building a new ice palace or patching up holes in the pavements.


(Photo: Ruslan Yamalov )