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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

Sad Return

20 July, 1999 - 00:00

By Vitaly PORTNYKOV, The Day
The return to Russia's northern capital from Paris of former St. Petersburg
Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, the legendary orator of the USSR's First Congress
of People's Deputies, was portrayed by the Russian media as a true sensation.
Perhaps not because his coming back has anything to do with the former
Mayor's Office corruption case, which could claim center stage in the criminal
columns, but because Mr. Sobchak, regardless of his personal merits or
otherwise, remains a symbolic figure embodying early perestroika euphoria
when the People launched what was believed a final onslaught on the system
at the Kremlin, that Communist holy of holies.

I do not know whether I should mention what has changed since then.
Perhaps we have in the first place. Politicians? They have either adapted
themselves to the political situation or turned into marginalia, people
who should be mentioned in history textbooks rather than current political
science.

Almost the first thing Mr. Sobchak did after returning home was to visit
the St. Alexandr Nevsky Lavra Monastery, placing flowers on the graves
of Galina Starovoitova and Mikhail Manevich. When I heard of this I recalled
meeting Mrs. Starovoitova at the Duma's buffet and her story about KGB
veterans' sojourn at the apartment of one of the Soviet secret police functionaries.
"They decided to discredit all of the first wave democrats. Sobchak and
Stankevich could be accused of making bad decisions, criminal cases could
be rigged against them, for they remained in power long enough," the woman
had mused. "Now take me. I can assure you, Vitaly, they have no incriminating
evidence on me whatever, so I can work normally and have no fear."

I remember her collecting things and placing them in her famous bag,
big enough yet looking elegant. And then she was off hurrying to attend
yet another parliamentary session. It was several months before Anatoly
Sobchak's trip to Paris, over a year before Galina's assassination, and
several years before Sobchak's return.

 

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