The new mayor of Moscow... well, yes, I still want to say about Sergei Sobyanin that he is the new mayor, although he has occupied this position for more than six months, he has expanded his sphere of influence in an extraordinary way. It is not even about the gigantic space that Sergei Sobyanin has received at his disposal - "new Moscow", 2.5 times larger than the previous one; this, of course, means cyclopean amounts of money, and, probably, the glory of a major urban planner. The fact is that in this space he will arrange the lives of the most important people of our, so to speak, democratic society - all sorts of ministries and departments, and also, perhaps, the president, and the chairman of the government with his deputies.

That is, of course, on the one hand, an official is a dependent person: he will go and sit wherever he is told, but on the other hand, even from a dependent position, one can somehow try to influence the future location, and who controls this? - That's right, the mayor Sergei Sobyanin, albeit on instructions. In the army, as is known, quartermasters have always enjoyed respect, but also dislike.

Let us also note that this entire operation coincides with the elections of the federal parliament and the president, after which many new faces will appear in power. And it is always difficult to dictate any conditions to a newcomer, who does not yet have the apparatus' influence - you can only ask. Who to ask? Again, from Sergei Sobyanin.

In general, it may well turn out that in the process of construction and relocation, Sergei Sobyanin, in addition to gigantic financial and PR resources, will also acquire human ones: officials are also people, they know how to be grateful. The mayor of Moscow (and by that time everyone will have gotten used to Sobyanin and will stop calling him new) has always been comparable in political power to federal rulers, and with this addition...

In general, the tandem must have been very confident in Sergei Sobyanin's loyalty when they entrusted him with such a super-winning task as the expansion of Moscow. Or perhaps the supreme rulers are counting on the peculiarities of Russian command democracy, which, in principle, does not take into account independent political actions of even the most influential officials.

Person of the week: Sergei Sobyanin