Ilyinka without Kudrin

Ilyinka without Kudrin. President Dmitry Medvedev was enough literally three hours to resign Alexei Kudrin, who directed the Ministry of Finance for 11 years and 4 months. The acting minister was appointed Anton Siluanov, and Kudrin's deputy deputy chairman of the government Igor Shuvalov was transferred to the Deputy Prime Minister of Kudrin. What are waiting for the Ministry of Finance further - the New Times found out

The departure of Alexei Kudrin from the post of Minister of Finance had a loud public outcry. But his physical departure from the building on Ilyinka, 9, was quiet and almost invisible to colleagues.

On the day of his resignation, September 26, Kudrin did not appear in the building of the Ministry of Finance: after the fateful meeting of the Modernization Commission in Dimitrovgrad, he went to a meeting on economic issues to the Government House. From there he had already come out unemployed, he was given 24 hours to free the office.

Two thousand volumes

“Of course, we immediately learned about what happened in Dimitrovgrad,” said the Ministry of Finance, who worked in the department for more than 15 years, told The New Times on the basis of anonymity. -The mood immediately fell, it seemed to me that even in the corridors of people there were fewer people, and those who came across me all went gloomy, exchanged only short remarks, wondered: and suddenly they would carry it and everything would resolve. ” Did not pass and did not resolve ...

“I was at work until late,” says another Ministry of Finance, “when a resignation message appeared on the ribbons (about 20 hours), it was already impossible to do anything. Everyone who remained in the building only talked about this. After all, we have worked under his leadership for 11 years, and many Kudrin remembered since 1997, when Chubais brought him here as his deputy. He was the absolute leader of the team - not only in position, but also essentially. We can say that the current composition of the ministry is selected by him and “under it”. Everyone who did not work with him has long left these walls. ”

“For us, the resignation has become a thunder among the clear sky,” continues our first interlocutor. -Then they began to say and write that this was a long-thought-out decision of Alexei Leonidovich, but we knew nothing, except that some rumors reached. He never discussed his disagreements with the authorities with the members of the team-well, maybe only with someone from the deputies, but he did not take out discontent and irritation on employees. All the differents, which, of course, happened, were not in the mood, but purely on the case. "

Well, the fact that from Tuesday, September 27, the minister had to go on planned vacation was evidenced that the moment for Demarsh Kudrin was chosen by accident. Very much like one of our Ministry of Finance interlocutors said that Kudrin decided in advance from vacation not to return ...

Instead of vacation on September 27, Kudrin came to his office in Ilyinka in the morning - to endure things. Later, the press appeared that by this time they managed to remove the tablet with his last name from the cabinet doors. The sources of The New Times do not confirm this: “Maybe this is in his Deputy Prime Cabinet in the Government House in advance, and we did it on the same day, while his things were taken out-they say he himself ordered.” Things were carried out for several hours in a row in huge cardboard boxes. “He had several paintings and souvenirs there, photographs of his wife and children,” eyewitnesses say, “but the main luggage is books.” Naturally, mainly in economics and finance, there are a lot in English: they occupied several impressive shelving. “Of course, I did not count, but one of the guys had long said that Kudrin had almost two thousand volumes there,” the source continues.

The ex-minister did not suit any mass farewell measures, did not set the tables and did not go along the floors with parting words: he only gathered in the evening in the desired cabinet of his deputies. Some of them (according to The New Times, Sergey Shatalov and Alexei Savatyugin) only by this time returned from planned business trips - the news of the boss’s resignation found them outside Moscow.

Does not hand over his own

“I always respected him as a professional, and how a person was respected after the story with Storchak * * Deputy Minister of Finance Sergey Storchak was arrested in November 2007 on charges of theft of budget funds by fraud when writing off Algerian debt. Kudrin publicly defended his deputy, proposed to release him under his personal guarantee. Storchak was released in October 2008 and returned to the ministry to his former position. The criminal case was closed in February 2011, ”says an employee of the Ministry of Finance. - Then he did not pass his deputy and supported publicly, not afraid to go against the security forces. Remember at least one such example in any other ministry in recent years - they are not! " Sergei Storchak himself, to which The New Times, categorically refused any comments.

It is curious that on September 27 in the afternoon-before all government decisions-our interlocutors from the Ministry of Finance had no doubt that one of his deputies would be appointed to the place of Kudrin, of course, with the prefix of the acting Only the surnames varied: someone called Savatyugin, someone Shatalova. Toward evening, the source said: "It will be Nesterenko, it was she who was called to the meeting of the government of the government." The Deputy Minister of Finance, the head of the Federal Treasury Tatyana Nesterenko was really summoned to a meeting in the White House, confirmed The New Times. However, then an urgent call to the meeting came to another deputy - Anton Siluanov, and it became clear that the “highest” choice was made in his favor.

Budget test

The confidence of the Ministry of Finance is that the chair of the head of the department will take “their man” is easily explained. On October 1, hearings on the federal budget for 2012 and the plan until 2014 began in the Duma. This budget is not an ordinary: it can definitely be called the election and almost certainly-pre-, if not crisis. It is no accident that in his last statement, distributed immediately after leaving, Alexei Kudrin admitted that he was resigned in February 2011, but then he was not released by Vladimir Putin for the reason that "this year the electoral process was superimposed on the budget process."

Not a single person from the side, not from the Ministry of Finance, if he had even seven spans in his forehead, could not in three days that remained before the start of the budget process in the Duma, understand the intricacies of numbers that occupy many volumes, and even so much as to protect them in front of the deputies. “Even we do not have many specialists who can“ read ”the budget through and through, and not by individual chapters or blocks for which they are responsible,” the Ministry of Finance source explained, “and there are units in the Duma in general. Most there easily find only those lines that lie in the sphere of their lobbying interests. ”

Temporary minister

Anton Siluanov, by the will of fate, temporarily occupying the chair of the country's chief financier, is one of those who can read the budget, and is unlikely to be confused in numbers. Of the 48 years of his life, he worked for more than half in the building on Ilyinka (the break was only to serve in the army). Moreover, he can be called a hereditary financier: his father German Siluanov worked in the Ministry of Finance of the USSR as the head of the department.

And although Siluanov is not a protege or person of Kudrin, he and the former minister were like -minded people on all key issues of financial policy. It is no accident that it was Kudrin who made Siluanov with his deputy in 2003. The interlocutors in the Ministry of Finance believe that the choice in favor of Siluanov could be due to the fact that he is well versed not only in the budget (Tatyana Nesterenko could compete with him), but also in macroeconomics. During the previous Ministry of Finance, he had the opportunity to lead the budget and macroeconomic analysis departments, and in the role of deputy minister to oversee inter -budget relations. Well, besides, he also oversees the Ministry of Finance in the Ministry of Finance. As you know, it was around them that the Kudrin conflict with Medvedev flared up. “Perhaps they decided at the top that the acting The minister will not cut the costs of the sphere that he himself had previously been engaged, ”the source suggested.

The Ministry of Finance says that Siluanov has good personal contact with the first persons of the state: as a deputy minister responsible for inter -budget relations, he repeatedly had to accompany both Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev on trips around the country. They do not expect sudden movements from him: “He clearly will not arrange personnel purges and demolish how to subordinates in vain. I don’t remember that he even raised his voice to someone, ”says the interlocutor of The New Times.

At the same time, everyone is outside the Ministry of Finance, and inside it - it is absolutely clear that Siluanov is a temporary figure. In the worst case, a month and a half is allotted - while the budget in the Duma lasts. In the best - until May next year, when a new government is formed under the leadership of Dmitry Medvedev.

Alexey Kudrin repeatedly entered the hot budget contractions with deputies, sometimes with a transition to personality: many deputies have a tooth on him. There is no personal negativity to Siluanov. What confirmed in a conversation with The New Times and deputy Oksana Dmitrieva - a long -standing and irreconcilable opponent of Kudrin: “Anton Siluanov has long been working in the Ministry of Finance, a decent, honest man was not seen in commercial lobbying. As an acting, he seems to me the best option, although for successful work in the post of permanent minister Siluanov may not be enough determination and will. ”

Siluanov himself in the first after the appointment of the interview promised not to change the policy of the Ministry of Finance: "To increase expenses, budget deficit without appropriate sources of revenue." Answering the question of journalists whether the Ministry of Finance will raise the issue of adjusting the army re -equipment program at a price of 20 trillion rubles, Siluanov clearly replied that the budget policy is determined by the decisions of the government and the president.

“Siluanov does not have the political weight that allowed Kudrin to fight for the budget,” said Julia Trucheaeva, the chief economist of BNP Paribas, “therefore it will be difficult for him to maintain a tough budget policy.”

Oil picture

But these are all things of the future. And now in the Ministry of Finance they order a new portrait: the walls of the college hall are decorated with artistic images of all Russian and Soviet ministers, who headed the Ministry of Finance for almost 210 years of its existence. And it doesn’t matter whether the minister left his chair in a good way or in a while: the tradition equalizes everyone. Here you can find images of Kankrin with Witte, and Pavlova with Panskov, and Gaidar with Chubais, and Livshits with Kasyanov. Kudrin will also be added soon: after all, and in the Ministry of Finance he lasted longer than most of his predecessors.

He graduated from the Moscow Financial Institute in 1985 with a degree in Finance and Credit. In 1994, he defended his thesis on the topic “The budget policy of the state in the context of the transition to market relations”, a candidate of economic sciences. Immediately after the institute, he went to work in the Ministry of Finance of the RSFSR, over 7 years (with a break in the army) he went from an economist to a consultant of the ministry. After the collapse of the USSR, he continued to work as deputy head of the Department of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Russian Federation, he soon moved to work in the budgetary department of the Ministry of Finance, in 1997 he headed the Department of Macroeconomic Policy and Banking Activities of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. In 2003, the Deputy Minister of Finance was first appointed, six months later he headed the Department of inter-budget relations of the Ministry of Finance, in December 2005 he returned to the post of deputy Minister of Finance.

Short list of candidates for the position of Minister of Finance in the Government, which will be formed in May 2012:

Tatyana Golikova, Minister of Health and Social Development (1999–2007 - Deputy Minister of Finance)

Arkady Dvorkovich, Assistant President for Economic Affairs (2001–2004 - Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade)

Alexander Zhukov, Deputy Chairman of the Government (1997–2004 - head of the budget committee of the State Duma)

Mikhail Zadornov, president-chairman of the Board of VTB-24 (1997–1999-Minister of Finance)

Anatoly Serdyukov, Minister of Defense (2004–2007 - head of the Federal Tax Service)

Political statements by Alexei Kudrin

2000. Interview "Arguments and Facts"

“The Minister of Finance of one of the Western countries somehow joked in a general conversation:“ The Minister of Finance must leave his post on time. Otherwise, he will be forced to leave poorly. ”

2009. The first quarrel with the president

April. Alexey Kudrin: “Such favorable external conditions as in the last 10 years, Russia will not have in the next 10-50 years. The external situation and demand in the world market, including for Russia, will not be so successful as after the 1998 crisis, when the low prices and the unpreparedness of the budget system were still accompanied by favorable external economic conditions. ”

May. Dmitry Medvedev: “When my individual comrades, including the government, say that Russia will not get out of the crisis for 50 years, this is unacceptable at all. If you think so, then go work elsewhere. If you lead one or another ministry or some other department and think that we are in this state-it shows that you have no prospects, you think that it makes no sense to do this. ”

June. Alexey Kudrin: “My opinion is that we have not yet reached the bottom. In the speeches of key speakers, I did not hear the idea that the bottom was achieved. The president said that we are at the peak point, but it is not known how much it will last. / .../ The second wave of crisis - apparently, we cannot avoid it.

2011. Krasnoyarsk Forum

“Exactly three years ago at the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, Dmitry Medvedev outlined the main directions of reforms - the so -called four and: institutions, infrastructure, innovation and investment. These slogans have not lost their relevance today. We did not fully go the way to implement them, since issues related to post -crisis economic policy will be resolved at the time when we will have parliamentary elections. And next year we will have a presidential election. It is very important that society realizes that these elections will be held as a test, as a review of those things that the authorities exercise, that the elections are fair and honest, so that all leading political forces of society are presented in these elections. Only this will give the mandate that is necessary for reform. If distrust develops, then our tasks will not be fully completed. ”