Translated material
Three Bears
Lawyer, businessman, liberal
The nomination of Dmitri Medvedev as President Putin's successor provoked a strong reaction. World media emphasize that, firstly, Medvedev is a lawyer, which means that law is not an empty phrase for him; secondly, he has experience in doing business, he knows firsthand the realities of a market economy; thirdly, he has known Vladimir Putin for 17 years, that is, he is absolutely a man of his team; fourthly, he is considered a liberal. What is a myth and what is true, The New Times understood
The material was prepared by Lyubov Tsukanova.
Data from Ilya Barabanov, Vitaly Kamyshev, Andrey Kolesnikov and Vladimir Pribylovsky (Panorama Center) were used
Lawyer
Dmitry Medvedev received his legal education at the Faculty of Law of the Leningrad State University. A.A. Zhdanov (1982-1987). The Leningrad law school, according to lawyers, has always been considered more conservative than the Moscow one. However, the teachers who taught Vladimir Putin there did not hide the fact that the law schools of the Soviet era did not train lawyers - civil servants. True, Medvedev then completed his postgraduate studies and defended his Ph.D. 1 in parallel with doing business, he taught civil law at the alma mater.
Medvedev is also a co-author of a textbook on civil law, for participation in the creation of which he became the laureate of the Russian government prize in the field of education for 2001 (10 thousand rubles).
The peak of Medvedev's legal career falls on 1991-1996, when he was a legal expert of the Foreign Relations Committee (FAC) of the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office (FAC Chairman - Vladimir Putin).
There is a version that Dmitry Medvedev, together with Dmitry Kozak, was attracted by Putin to resolve the scandalous situation with the issuance of licenses for the export of non-ferrous metals by his committee on foreign economic relations: "...professional lawyers quickly hushed up the scandal, proving that there were no violations" 2 .
And one more curious and important detail: they say that it was Dmitry Medvedev who became the author of the Russian know-how - he came up with a scheme for how a government body, without violating the law, can become a co-founder and co-owner of a joint-stock company. The essence of the scheme is as follows: the company rents premises and land from the state, for which it seems to pay a certain amount, but the money does not go to the budget - they become a contribution from the state body to the authorized capital of the joint-stock company 3 . A beautiful scheme, de jure legal, de facto means what the state seems to be struggling with: the fusion of power and business.
Businessman
The biography of Medvedev as a businessman began in 1990. Then in the Nevsky district of St. Petersburg, the state unitary enterprise "Uranus" was registered with an authorized fund of 100 rubles. And although the form of ownership of the enterprise was designated as state, its founders in equal shares were three simple Leningrad law faculty, one of whom was Dmitry Medvedev. Serious business began later, when in 1993 the future successor became one of the founders of Finzell, which later established Ilim Pulp Enterprise CJSC. Today it is one of the giants of the Russian (and world) timber business.
When Medvedev joined the presidential administration in 1999, he left the timber company, but, according to political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky, until very recently controlled a significant stake in Ilim. According to Belkovsky, Medvedev actually saved the company from collapse when an unprecedented raider attack was launched on it by business structures of Oleg Deripaska. 4 . It was rumored that the deputy head of the Kremlin administration, Igor Sechin, was the playing coach in the Deripaska team. Sources claim that it took the intervention of the president, so that the raider attack was stopped. It is said that the Western shareholders of the company also pushed for this, who at one of the meetings with Putin said that they would not invest a cent in the Russian timber industry while the company's takeover continued. But the diamond in the crown of Ilim - the Bratsk Timber Plant - was still lost.
According to the same Belkovsky, Medvedev is closely connected with the St. Petersburg law firm Egorov, Puginsky and Partners, which specializes in representing the interests of foreign (including a number of American) companies in Russia and Russian abroad. The firm's clients include large oil companies, and, as stated on its corporate website, it has "representation of Russia's largest arms exporter in international commercial arbitration." (Egorov Puginsky & Partners declined to either confirm or deny Medvedev's involvement in their business.)
Among businessmen close to Medvedev, a number of The New Times sources named the well-known businessman Alisher Usmanov, CEO of Gazprominvestholding and co-owner of Metalloinvest. 5 . Rumor has it that there are many people from Usmanov's team in the office of the First Deputy Prime Minister. They also say that it was Medvedev who saved Alisher Usmanov from serious trouble - almost from prison - in 2001.
With Putin for life
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It was perestroika, so disliked by the current president of Russia, that opened the door to politics for Medvedev. In the spring of 1989, he took part in the election campaign of his law school professor Anatoly Sobchak, who became a delegate to the first, famous Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. Then, together with Yury Shutov, who is now sitting in Kresty, and Vladimir Putin, who is now living in the Kremlin, he was a member of the group of assistants to Anatoly Sobchak, chairman of the Leningrad City Council. Exactly then, for the first time, he became close to his current boss. “While working with Sobchak, I needed people there, in the mayor’s office. I came to the law faculty, and they offered Dima, ”said Vladimir Putin in the interview book“ From the First Person. As an expert of the foreign economic relations committee of the St. Petersburg mayor's office, Medvedev became a direct subordinate of Vladimir Putin. According to some evidence, at that time Medvedev was considered by many to be Putin's personal secretary and was not taken seriously. Stanislav Belkovsky explains it this way: “Dmitry Anatolyevich is supple, soft, psychologically dependent, he has always been absolutely psychologically comfortable for Vladimir Vladimirovich. And for him, this side is extremely important.
According to other evidence, Medvedev was involved in serious financial flows controlled by the committee on foreign relations. A source who wished to remain anonymous told The New Times that it was Medvedev who carried out Vladimir Putin's orders to transfer funds to various construction projects. The money went through the mediation of the then famous 20th construction trust - the Twentieth Trust Corporation, headed by the current deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, Sergei Nikeshin. In those days, he allegedly could easily call the future president and inform him of the need to transfer the amount of several million dollars to restore an Orthodox church in Greece. Medvedev, on behalf of Putin, controlled this transfer, after which the trail of money was lost. Money left through the famous bank "Russia" of the Kovalchuk brothers. The bank's office was located on the ground floor of Smolny, and, according to sources for The New Times, investors who turned to Vladimir Putin could get the go-ahead for their project only on one condition: everything had to be carried out through Rossiya. (The New Times wrote in detail about the Twentieth Trust Corporation in No. 18 of June 11, 2007.)
Again, the paths of Medvedev and Putin converged in Moscow: Putin, who became prime minister, in November 1999 appointed Medvedev first to the government as deputy Dmitry Kozak, head of the White House staff, and on December 31, 1999, the day Boris Yeltsin left, as deputy head of the administration President (Alexander Voloshin remained head of the Presidential Administration). Further, it was Medvedev who led Putin's first election campaign, and was his man in the presidential administration (when Alexander Voloshin was its head), and headed the Presidential Administration.
The idea to make Medvedev's successor appeared in the autumn of 2005. In November 2005, Medvedev was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister. It was “under Medvedev” as a successor that “national projects” were launched: this topic received the first place in importance in the Russian media space. And it was a clear signal to both the federal and regional elites. In the spring of 2006, according to the Kremlin's plan, Medvedev was supposed to become chairman of the government, but this did not happen due to opposition from the "siloviki" group and Igor Sechin, who over the past year and a half, by all accounts, noticeably outplayed Medvedev as an apparatus player.
Liberal
But Putin needed a reliable person in the Kremlin, and he made a choice in favor of Medvedev. To all appearances, this is a figure of compromise for the bureaucracy. Medvedev does not irritate the elite of the Yeltsin era either. It is no coincidence that Roman Abramovich is said to have persuaded Putin to opt for Medvedev.
The idea of Medvedev as a liberal is due in part to his mild-mannered and gentle nature. Judging by the stories of people who knew him from St. Petersburg, he is capable of sentimental deeds. Although some of the people who know him say the exact opposite: "vindictive, touchy, ambitious." Medvedev owes the “official” glory of a liberal to Vladimir Putin, who back in 2003, commenting on the appointment of Medvedev as head of the presidential administration, said: “The people who are appointed are well known to me, people of liberal, democratic convictions, oriented towards the development of democracy and a market economy in Russia »
On June 30, 2000, as a state representative, at the annual meeting of Gazprom shareholders, Dmitry Medvedev was elected chairman of the company's board of directors instead of Viktor Chernomyrdin. In April 2001, he became the head of the working group created at the direction of President Vladimir Putin to liberalize the market for Gazprom shares. He was re-elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of OAO Gazprom in 2002, 2004 and 2007. In October 2002, he was appointed presidential representative to the National Banking Council. In January 2007, he was elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Bar Association.
| Presidential campaign calendar November 26 - The Federation Council at an extraordinary meeting decided to schedule presidential elections for March 2, 2008 November 28 - Rossiyskaya Gazeta published the decision of the Federation Council, after which it entered into force December 18 - the deadline for submitting documents to the CEC for registration of self-nominated candidates December 23 - the deadline for submitting documents to the CEC for registration of candidates from parties that have entered the State Duma February 2 - the beginning of campaigning in the media. Candidates from political parties must publish their political programs February 10 - the period for publishing candidate programs ends February 16 - early voting begins February 29 - the campaign period in the media ends March 2 - voting No later than March 4 - preliminary voting results No later than March 13 - announcement of official results of the presidential elections in the Russian Federation March 23 - the second round of the presidential elections, if none of the candidates won 50% of the votes + 1 vote Beginning of May - the newly elected president of the Russian Federation takes office |
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1Up to moving to Moscow
in 1999.
2 "Interlocutor", January 14, 2004.
3 "St. Petersburg Courier", November 6, 2003.
4See The New Times No. 15, May 21, 2007
5A. Usmanov is also the owner of the Kommersant publishing house, co-owner of MUZ-TV and the London football club Arsenal.