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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

The Kremlin Without Yastrzhembsky

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

The Kremlin looks deserted after the other weekend President Boris Yeltsin fired his Press Secretary Sergei Yastrzhembsky. All the time after the presidential election in Russia Yastrzhembsky was not simply the voice of the administration — he was a symbol of the Kremlin’s respectability.

One can say even more: he was President’s interpreter and commentator. Yeltsin often just did not understand what he was asked about, and Yastrzhembsky would explain it to him using clear language. Journalists also did not often understand what the President was talking about, and Yastrzhembsky would explain everything in language clear to the journalists. Quite often to female journalists he would act as a real rescuer: with a charming smile he would ask journalists accredited to the Kremlin or accompanying Yeltsin on his trips to write about some things and to omit others in their stories. The press (at least that of Russia) usually acceded to his wishes. It seemed that Yeltsin would not be able to exist without Yastrzhembsky any longer. But this was only an illusion.

Professional diplomat Yastrzhembsky came to the Kremlin at the same time Anatoly Chubais did. However, he never managed to establish a good relationship with the top administration officers. He stepped away from Chubais and then from his successor Valentyn Yumashev. Yastrzhembsky tried on his own: being Yumashev’s deputy, he competed with him to influence Yeltsin and his daughter Tatiana Diachenko. Yumashev, trying in his turn to compete with the ambitious press-secretary, invited to the Kremlin Igor Shabdurasulov, a former Chernomyrdin speech-writer. However, after Shabdurasulov in an interview with Russky telegraf said that Yeltsin was unable to run for the presidential election 2000, it became clear that he could not compete with Yastrzhembsky: the press-secretary has never ventured such disloyalty to his patron.

Yastrzhembsky made his main and fatal mistake when jointly with Andrei Kokoshyn, the Security Council Secretary advised Yeltsin instead of Chernomyrdin to nominate as Premier Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov – a man who provokes strong allergy from Yumashev and Boris Berezovsky. They could not forgive him such a step. Immediately after Yevgeny Primakov was appointed Russia’s new Premier, Yumashev and Berezovsky, supported by the President’s daughter, pressed Yeltsin to dismiss Kokoshin and Yastrzhembsky. From now on the Kremlin will have a new voice and a new image as well. Meanwhile, it became known that Yeltsin had nominated the same Igor Shabdurasulov as the ORT TV Channel Director General. Ksenia Ponomareva, Shabdurasulov’s predecessor, resigned after Sergei Dorenko was appointed again as anchor of the Vremia news program without her approval. Taking into account the history of the relationship between the newly appointed first TV channel chief and Viktor Chernomyrdin and Boris Berezovsky, one can easily understand that he will not have such problems.

 

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