First
Person
Part 1
Part 1
An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's
President Vladimir Putin
with Nataliya Gevorkyan, Natalya Timakova, and Andrei
Kolesnikov Translated by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Copyright © 2000 by Nataliya Gevorkyan, Natalya
Timakova, and Andrei Kolesnikov Published in the United States
by PublicAffairsTM, a Member of the Perseus Books
Group. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. No part of
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Design by Jenny Dossin All photographs courtesy of
Vladimir Putin. Library of Congress Card Number: 00 132549 ISBN: 1-58648-018-9
Vladimir Putin. Library of Congress Card Number: 00 132549 ISBN: 1-58648-018-9
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Principal Figures in
First Person ix
Part One: The Son 1
Part Two: The Schoolboy
13
Part Three: The
University Student 27
Part Four: The Young
Specialist 45
Part Five: The Spy 65
Part Six: The
Democrat 83
Part Seven: The
Bureaucrat 103
Part Eight: The Family
Man 147
Part Nine: The Politician 163
Appendix: Russia at the
Turn of the Millennium 209
PREFACE
We talked with Vladimir
Putin on six separate occasions, for about four hours at a time. Both he and we
were patient and tolerant; he, when we asked uncomfortable questions or were
too invasive; we, when he was late or asked us to turn the tape recorder off.
"That's very personal," he would say.
These were meetings
"with our jackets off," although we all still wore ties. Usually they
happened late at night. And we only went to his office in the Kremlin once.
Why did we do this?
Essentially, we wanted to answer the same question that Trudy Rubin of the
Philadelphia Inquirer asked in Davos in January: "Who is Putin?"
Rubin's question had been addressed to a gathering of prominent Russian
politicians and businessmen. And instead of an answer, there was a pause.
We felt that the pause
dragged on too long. And it was a legitimate question. Who was this Mr. Putin?
We talked to Putin about
his life. We talked as people often do in Russia around the dinner table.
Sometimes he arrived exhausted, with drooping eyelids, but he never broke off the conversation. Only
once, when it was well past midnight, did he ask politely, "Well then,
have you run out of questions, or shall we chat some more?" Sometimes
Putin would pause a while to think about a question, but he would always answer
it eventually. For example, when we asked whether he had ever been betrayed, he
was silent a long time. Finally, he decided to say "no," but then
added by way of clarification, "My friends didn't betray me."
We sought out Putin's
friends, people who know him well or who have played an important role in his
destiny. We went out to his dacha, where we found a bevy of women: his wife,
Lyudmila, two daughters-Masha and Katya-and a poodle with a hint of the toy dog
in her, named Toska.
We have not added a
single editorial line in the book. It holds only our questions. And if those
questions led Putin or his relatives to reminisce or ponder, we tried not to
interrupt. That's why the book's format is a bit unusual-it consists entirely
of interviews and monologues.
All of our conversations
are recorded in these pages. They might not answer the complex question of
"Who is this Mr. Putin?," but at least they will bring us a little
bit closer to understanding Russia's newest president.
NATALIYA GEVORKYAN
NATALYA TIMAKOVA ANDREI KOLESNIKOV
PRINCIPAL FIGURES IN
FIRST PERSON
People
Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin: USSR interior minister (1988-90); chairman of KGB
(1991); presidential candidate.
Boris Abramovich Berezovsky: Prominent businessman influential in political
affairs; part-owner of ORT, pro-government public television station; former
deputy secretary of Security Council, October 1996-November 1997; involved in
the Chechen conflict; appointed executive secretary of the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS); dismissed by Yeltsin in March 1999, elected member of
parliament from Karachaevo-Cherkessia in December 1999.
Pavel Pavlovich Borodin: Chief of staff in the presidential administration
from 1993 to 2000; In January 2000, appointed state secretary of the Union of
Belarus and Russia.
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev: General secretary of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union from 1964-1982.
Anatoly Borisovich Chubais: Vice premier in the Chernomyrdin government (1992)
and government (1994); appointed member of the government commission handling
privatization and structural adjustment in 1993; appointed first deputy chair
of the government in 1994 and dismissed by Yeltsin in January 1996; appointed
by Yeltsin to post of chief of presidential administration in July 1996;
Minister of Finance, March-November 1997.
Vladimir Churov: Deputy chair of the Committee for Foreign Liason of
the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office in Sobchak administration.
Michael Frolov: Retired colonel, Putin's instructor at the Andropov
Red Banner Institute.
Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich: Putin's schoolteacher from grades 4 to 8 in School
No. 193 in St. Petersburg.
Sergei Borisovich Ivanov: Foreign intelligence career officer with rank of
lieutenant general; appointed deputy director of FSB in August 1998; appointed
secretary of the Security Council in November 1999.
Katya:
Putin's younger daughter.
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov: Chairman of the Soviet KGB (1988-91) until arrested
for the August 1991 coup; amnestied in February 1994.
Yuri Luzhkov: Mayor of Moscow.
Masha:
Putin's older daughter.
Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov: Pravda columnist and former director of the USSR
Institute of Oriental Studies and the Institute of World Economy and
International Relations, first deputy chairman of the KGB (1991), director of
the Soviet Central Intelligence Service (1991), and then director of the
Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (1991-1996); appointed Foreign Minister
January 1996 and again in 1998; appointed by Yeltsin's decree to the position
of chair of the government (prime minister) in September 1998 and dismissed by
Yeltsin from this position in May 1999; elected to the State Duma (parliament)
from the party list of Fatherland-All Russia in December 1999.
Lyudmila Putina: Vladimir Putin's wife (nicknames found in text: Luda,
Ludik).
Sergei Roldugin: Lead cellist in the Mariinsky Theater Symphony
Orchestra, a friend of the Putins, and godfather of Putin's older daughter,
Masha.
Eduard Amvrosievich Shevardnadze: Soviet foreign minister (1985-91) who resigned in
protest of the impending coup; co-chairman of Democratic Reform Movement
(1991-92); head of state and chairman of parliament of Georgia.
Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak: Mayor and chair of the government of St. Petersburg
(Leningrad) from 1991 to 1996; co-chairman of Democratic Reform Movement
(1991-92); member of the Russian Presidential Council since 1992; died in
February 2000. His wife is Lyudmila Borisnova.
Oleg Nikolayevich Soskovets: Appointed first deputy chair of the government in
1993 (deputy prime minister) responsible for 14 ministries, including energy
and transportation; assigned to deal with the Chechen conflict in 1994; joined
Yeltsin presidential campaign team in 1996 but dismissed in March from the
campaign, and, in June, was relieved of his post as first vice premier. Yuri
Skuratov: Former Prosecutor General, suspended after a newspaper published a
photograph of him in a steam bath with two prostitutes.
Vladimir Anatolyevich Yakovlev: First deputy mayor of St. Petersburg from 1993-1996;
elected governor of St. Petersburg in 1996.
Marina Yentaltseva: Putin's secretary at the St. Petersburg City Council
(1991-96).
Valentin Yumashev: Chief of staff in the Yeltsin administration
Terms
FRG Federal Republic of Germany
FSB Federal Security Service
FSK Federal Counterintelligence Service
FSO Federal Guard Service
GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
KGB Committee for State Security (Soviet era)
Komsomol Young Communist
League
Kukly Puppets, a
satirical TV show
MVD
Ministry of Internal Affairs or Interior Ministry
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NKVD People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or
the Stalin-era secret police
OSCE
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 54-member security and human rights body founded in
1975.
Pioneers Soviet-era children's organization
SED East German Communist Party
''In fact, I have had a
very simple life. Everything is an open book. I finished school and went to
university. I graduated from university and went to the KGB. I finished the KGB
and went back to university. After university, I went to work for Sobchak.
From Sobchak, to Moscow
and to the General Department. Then to the Presidential Administration. From
there, to the FSB. Then I was appointed Prime Minister. Now I'm Acting
President. That's it!"
"But surely there
are more details?"
"Yes, there are. . .
."
PART 1
THE SON
Putin talks about his
parents, touching on his father's World War II sabotage missions, the Siege of
Leningrad, and life in a communal flat after the war. It isn't easy. no hot
water, no bathroom, a stinking toilet, and constant bickering. Putin spends
much of his time chasing rats with a stick in the stairwell.
I know more about my
father's family than about my mother's. My father's father was born in St.
Petersburg and worked as a cook. They were a very ordinary family. A cook,
after all, is a cook. But apparently my grandfather cooked rather well, because
after World War I he was offered a job in The Hills district on the outskirts
of Moscow, where Lenin and the whole Ulyanov family lived. When Lenin died, my
grandfather was transferred to one of Stalin's dachas. He worked there a long
time.
He wasn't a victim of the purges?
No, for some reason they
let him be. Few people who spent much time around Stalin came through
unscathed, but my grandfather was one of them. He outlived Stalin, by the way,
and in his later, retirement years he was a cook at the Moscow City Party
Committee sanitorium in Ilinskoye.
Did your parents talk much about your grandfather?
I have a clear
recollection of Ilinskoye myself, because I used to come for visits. My
grandfather kept pretty quiet about his past life. My parents didn't talk much
about the past, either. People generally didn't, back then. But when relatives
would come to visit, there would be long chats around the table, and I would
catch some snatches, some fragments of the conversation. But my parents never
told me anything about themselves. Especially my father. He was a silent man.
I know my father was born
in St. Petersburg in 1911. After World War I broke out, life was hard in the
city. People were starving. The whole family moved to my grandmother's home in
the village of Pominovo, in the Tver region. Her house is still standing today,
by the way; members of the family still spend their vacations there. It was in
Pominovo that my father met my mother. They were both 17 years old when they
got married.
Why? Did they have a reason to?
No, apparently not. Do
you need a reason to get married? The main reason was love. And my father was
headed for the army soon. Maybe they each wanted some sort of guarantee. . . .
I don't know.
Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich (Vladimir Putin's schoolteacher from grades 4 through
8 in School No. 193):
Volodya's parents had a
very difficult life. Can you imagine how courageous his mother must have been to give birth at age
41? *Volodya's father once said to me, "One of our sons would have been
your age." I assumed they must have lost another child during the war, but
I didn't feel comfortable asking about it.
In 1932, Putin's parents
came to Peter [St. Petersburg]. They lived in the suburbs, in Peterhof. His
mother went to work in a factory and his father was almost immediately drafted
into the army, where he served on a submarine fleet. Within a year after he
returned, they had two sons. One died a few months after birth.
* Russians use various
diminutives for names, depending on degrees of familiarity and affection.
Vladimir Putin is often called Vovka and Volodya by his friends and family.
Apparently, when the war
broke out, your father went immediately to the front. He was a submariner who
had just completed his term of service . . . Yes, he went to the front as a
volunteer.
And your mama?
Mama categorically
refused to go anywhere. She stayed at home in Peterhof. When it became
extremely hard to go on there, her brother in Peter took her
in. He was a naval
officer serving at the fleet's headquarters in Smolny.*
*
Smolny was a private girls' school before the Revolution, when Lenin took it
over and made it the headquarters of his revolutionary government. Since then
it has been the seat of local government in St. Petersburg.
He came for her and the baby and got them out
under gunfire and bombs.
And what about your grandfather, the cook? Didn't he
do anything to help them?
No. Back then, people
generally didn't ask for favors. I think that under the circumstances it would
have been impossible, anyway. My grandfather had a lot of children, and all of
his sons were at the front.
So your mother and brother were taken from Peterhof,
which was under blockade, to Leningrad, which was also blockaded?
Where else could they go?
Mama said that some sort of shelters were being set up in Leningrad, in an
effort to save the children's lives. It was in one of those children's homes
that my second brother came down with diphtheria and died.
How did she survive?
My uncle helped her. He
would feed her out of his own rations. There was a time when he was transferred
somewhere for a while, and she was on the verge of starvation. This is no
exaggeration. Once my mother fainted from hunger. People thought she had died, and they laid
her out with the corpses. Luckily Mama woke up in time and started moaning. By
some miracle, she lived. She made it through the entire blockade of Leningrad.
They didn't get her out until the danger was past.
And where was your father?
My father was in the
battlefield the whole time. He had been assigned to a demolitions battalion of
the NKVD. These battalions were engaged in sabotage behind German lines. My
father took part in one such operation. There were 28 people in his group.
They were dropped into
Kingisepp. They took a good look around, set up a position in the forest, and
even managed to blow up a munitions depot before they ran out of food. They
came across some local residents, Estonians, who brought them food but later
gave them up to the Germans.
They had almost no chance
of surviving. The Germans had them surrounded on all sides, and only a few
people, including my father, managed to break out. Then the chase was on. The
remnants of the unit headed off toward the front line. They lost a few more people along the road and decided to
split up. My father jumped into a swamp over his head and breathed through a
hollow reed until the dogs had passed by. That's how he survived. Only 4 of the
28 men in his unit made it back home.
Then he found your mother? They were reunited?
No, he didn't get a
chance to look for her. They sent him right back into combat. He wound up in
another tight spot, he so-called Neva Nickel. This was a small, circular area.
If you stand with your back to Lake Ladoga, it's on the left bank of the Neva
River. The German troops had seized everything except for this small plot of
land. And our guys held that spot through the entire blockade, calculating that
it would play a role in the final
breakthrough. The Germans kept trying to capture it. A fantastic number of
bombs were dropped on every square meter of that bit of turf even by the
standards of that war. It was a monstrous massacre. But to be sure, the Neva
Nickel played an important role in the end.
Don't you think that we paid too high a price for that
little piece of land?
I think that there are
always a lot of mistakes made in war. That's inevitable. But when you are
fighting, if you keep thinking that everybody around you is always making
mistakes, you'll never win. You have to take a pragmatic attitude. And you have
to keep thinking of victory. And they were thinking of victory then.
My father was severely
wounded in the "Nickel." Once he and another soldier were ordered to
capture a prisoner who might talk during interrogation. They crawled up to a
foxhole and were just settling in to wait, when suddenly a German came out. The
German was surprised, and so were they. The German recovered first, took a
grenade out of his pocket, threw it at my father and the other soldier, and
calmly went on his way. Life is such a simple little thing, really.
How do you know all this? You said your parents didn't
like to talk about themselves.
This is a story that my
father told me. The German was probably convinced that he
had killed the Russians.
But my father survived, although his legs were shot through with shrapnel. Our
soldiers dragged him out of there several hours later.
Across the front line?
You guessed it. The
nearest hospital was in the city, and in order to get there, they had to drag
him all the way across the Neva. Everyone knew that this would be suicide,
because every centimeter of that territory was being shot up. No commander
would have issued such an order, of course. And nobody was volunteering. My
father had already lost so much blood that it was clear he was going to die
soon if they left him there.
Coincidentally, a soldier
who happened to be an old neighbor from back home came across him. Without a
word, he sized up the situation, hauled my father up onto his back, and carried
him across the frozen Neva to the other side. They made an ideal target, and
yet they survived. This neighbor dragged my father to the hospital, said
goodbye, and went back to the front line. The fellow told my father that they
wouldn't see each other again. Evidently he didn't believe he would survive in
the "Nickel" and thought that my father didn't have much of a chance
either.
Was he wrong?
Thank God, he was. My
father managed to survive. He spent several months in the hospital. My mother
found him there. She came to see him every day. Mama herself was half dead. My
father saw the shape she was in and began to give her his own food, hiding it
from the nurses. To be sure, they caught on pretty quickly and put top to it.
The doctors noticed that he was fainting from hunger. When they figured out
why, they gave him a stern lecture and wouldn't let Mama in to see him for
a while. The upshot was
that they both survived.
Only my father's injuries left him with a lifelong limp.
And the neighbor?
The neighbor survived,
too! After the blockade, he moved to another city. He and my father once met by
chance in Leningrad twenty years later. Can you imagine?
Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich:
Volodya's mother was a
very nice person kind, selfless, the soul of goodness. She was not a very
educated woman. I don't know if she finished even five grades of school.
She worked hard her whole
life. She was a janitor, took deliveries in a bakery at night, and washed test
tubes in a laboratory. I think she even worked as a guard at a store at one
time.
Volodya's papa worked as
a toolmaker in a factory. He was much liked and appreciated as a ready and
willing worker. For a long time, incidentally, he didn't collect disability,
although one of his legs was really crippled. He was the one who usually cooked
at home. He used to make a wonderful aspic. We remember that Putin aspic to
this day. Nobody could make aspic like he did.
After the war my father
was demobilized and went to work as a skilled laborer at the Yegorov Train Car
Factory. There is a little plaque in each metro car that says, "This is
car number such-and-such, manufactured at the Yegorov Train Car Factory."
The factory gave Papa a
room in a communal apartment in a typical St. Petersburg building on Baskov
Lane, in the center of town. It had an inner airshaft for a courtyard, and my
parents lived on the fifth floor. There was no elevator.
Before the war, my
parents had half of a house in Peterhof. They were very proud of their standard
of living then. So this was a step down.
Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich:
They had a horrid
apartment. It was communal, without any conveniences. There was no hot water,
no bathtub. The toilet was horrendous. It ran smack up against a stair landing.
And it was so cold just awful and the stairway had a freezing metal handrail.
The stairs weren't safe either there were gaps everywhere.
There, on that stair
landing, I got a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the word cornered.
There were hordes of rats in the front entryway. My friends and I used to chase
them around with sticks. Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall
until I drove it into a corner. It had nowhere to run. Suddenly it lashed
around and threw itself at me. I was surprised and frightened. Now the rat was
chasing me. It jumped across the landing and down the stairs. Luck-ily, I was a
little faster and I managed to slam the door shut in its nose.
Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich:
There was practically no
kitchen. It was just a square, dark hallway without windows. A gas burner stood
on one side and a sink on the other. There was no room to move around.
Behind this so-called
kitchen lived the neighbors, a family of three. And other neighbors, a
middle-aged couple, were next door. The apartment was communal. And the Putins
were squeezed into one room. By the standards of those days it was decent,
though, because it measured about 20 meters square.
A Jewish family, an
elderly couple and their daughter, Hava lived in our communal apartment. Hava
was a grown woman, but as the adults used to say, her life hadn't turned out
well. She had never married, and she still lived with her parents.
Her father was a tailor,
and although he seemed quite elderly, he would stitch on his sewing machine for
whole days at a time. They were religious Jews. They did not work on the
Sabbath, and the old man would recite the Talmud, droning away. Once, I
couldn't hold back any longer and asked what he was chanting. He explained
about the Talmud, and I immediately lost interest.
As is usually the case in
a communal apartment, people clashed now and then. I always wanted to defend my
parents, and speak up on their behalf. I should explain here that I got along
very well with the elderly couple, and often played on their side of the
apartment. Well, one day, when they were having words with my parents, I jumped
in. My parents were furious. Their reaction came as a complete shock to me; it
was incomprehensible. I was sticking up for them, and they shot back with,
''Mind your own business!" Why? I just couldn't understand it. Later, I
realized that my parents considered my good rapport with the old couple, and
the couple's affection for me, much more important than those petty kitchen
spats.
After that incident, I
never got involved in the kitchen quarrels again. As soon as they started
fighting, I simply went back into our room, or over to the old folks' room. It
didn't matter to me which.
There were other
pensioners living in our apartment as well, although they weren't there long.
They played a role in my baptism. Baba Anya was a religious person, and she
used to go to church. When I was born, she and my mother had me baptized. They
kept it a secret from my father, who was a party member and secretary of the
party organization in his factory shop.
Many years later, in
1993, when I worked on the Leningrad City Council, I went to Israel as part of
an official delegation. Mama gave me my baptismal cross to get it blessed at
the Lord's Tomb. I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I
have never taken it off since.
PART 2
THE SCHOOLBOY
Interviews with Putin's
schoolteacher reveal a bad student with a bright mind. Putin is always late for
school and doesn't make it into the Pioneers. But then, at age 10, he discovers
the martial arts and, after reading novels and watching spy movies, develops a
single- minded ambition to join the KGB. At 16 he troops over to the KGB
headquarters where he's told that he has to go to law school and keep his mouth
shut if he really wants to be a spy. Despite the pleas and threats of his
parents and judo coaches, he decides to do just that.
Do you remember first grade?
I was born in October, so
I did not start school until I was almost eight years old. We still have the
photo in our family archive: I am in an old-fashioned, gray school uniform. It
looks like a military uniform, and for some reason I'm standing with a
flowerpot in my hand. Not a bouquet, but a pot.
Did you want to go to school?
No, not especially. I
liked playing outside, in our courtyard. There were two courtyards joined
together, like an air-shaft, and my whole life took place there. Mama sometimes
stuck her head out the window and shouted "Are you in the courtyard?"
I always was. As long as I didn't run away, I was allowed to go play in the
courtyard without asking for permission.
And you never once disobeyed?
When I was five or six, I
walked out to the corner of the big street without permission. It was on the
First of May. I looked around me. People were rushing around and making a lot
of noise. The street was very busy. I was even a little afraid.
Then one winter, when I
was a little bit older, my friends and I decided to leave the city without
telling our parents. We wanted to go on a trip.
We got off the train
somewhere and were completely lost. It was cold. We had brought some matches
and somehow managed to start a fire. We had nothing to eat. We froze completely.
Then we got back on the train and headed home. We got the belt for that stunt.
And we never wanted to go on another trip again.
So you stopped looking for adventures?
For a time. Especially
when I went to school. From first through eighth grade, I went to School No.
193, which was in the same lane as my house, about a seven-minute walk. I was
always late for my first class, so even in the winter, I didn't dress very
warmly. It took up a lot of time to get dressed, run to school, and then take
off my coat. So in order to save time, I never put on a coat, and just shot out
to school like a bullet and got right behind my desk.
Did you like school?
For a time. As long as I
managed to be what would you call it? the unspoken leader. The school was right
next door to my house. Our courtyard was a reliable refuge, and that helped.
Did people listen to you?
I didn't try to command
people. It was more important to preserve my independence. If I had to compare
it with my adult life, I would say that the role I played as a kid was like the
role of the judicial branch, and not the executive. And as long as I managed to
do that, I liked school. But it didn't last. It soon became clear that my
courtyard skills were not enough, and I began to play sports. And in order to
maintain my social status I had to start doing well in school. Up until the
sixth grade, to be honest, I had been a pretty haphazard student.
Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich:
I met Volodya when he was
still in the fourth grade. His teacher, Tamara Pavlovna Chizhova, once said to
me, "Vera Dmitrievna, take my class. The kids aren't bad."
I went to visit the class
and organized a German language club. It was interesting to see who showed up.
About 10-12 students came. Tamara Pavlovna asked me who was there. I told her:
Natasha Soldatova, Volodya Putin . . . She was surprised. "Volodya, too?
That doesn't seem like him." But he showed great interest in the lessons.
She said, "Well,
just you wait. He'll show you." "What do you mean?" I asked. She
replied that he was too sneaky and disorganized. He wasn't even in the
Pioneers.
Usually you are accepted
into the Pioneers in the third grade. But Volodya wasn't because he was such a
cutup. Some classes studied English, and others German. English was more in
fashion than German, and there were more English classes. Volodya ended up in
my class. In fifth grade, he hadn't really proven himself, but I sensed that he
had potential, energy, and character. I saw his great interest in the language.
He picked it up easily. He had a very good memory, a quick mind.
I thought: This kid will
make something of himself. I decided to devote more attention to him and
discourage him from hanging out with the boys on the street. He had friends
from the neighborhood, two brothers by the name of Kovshov, and he used to
prowl around with them, jumping from the roofs of the garages and sheds.
Volodya's father didn't like that very much. His papa had very strict morals.
But we couldn't get Volodya away from those Kovshov brothers.
His father was very
serious and imposing. He often had an angry look. The first time I came to see
him, I was even frightened. I thought, "What a strict man." And then
it turned out that he was very kindhearted. But there were no kisses. There was
none of that lovey-dovey stuff in their house.
Once when I came to
visit, I said to Volodya's father,"Your son is not working to his full
potential." And he said, "Well, what can I do? Kill him, or
what?" And I said, "You have to have a talk with him. Let's work on
him together, you at home, and I at school. He could be getting better than
C's. He catches everything on the fly." At any rate, we agreed to work on
him; but in the end, we had no particular influence.
Volodya himself changed
very abruptly in the sixth grade. It was obvious; he had set himself a goal.
Most likely he had understood that he had to achieve something in life. He
began to get better grades, and did it easily. Finally, he was accepted into
the Pioneers. There was a ceremony and we went on a trip to Lenin's home, where
he was inducted into the Pioneers. Right after that he became chair of his
unit's council.
Why weren't you taken into the Pioneers until the
sixth grade? Was everything really so bad up until then?
Of course. I was a
hooligan, not a Pioneer.
Are you being coy?
You insult me. I really
was a bad boy.
Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich:
Most of the kids liked to
go to dances. We had evening events at the school. We called it the Crystal
Club. And we put on plays. But Volodya didn't take part in any of this.
His father really wanted
him to play the accordion and forced him to take lessons in the early grades.
Volodya resisted it. Although he did love to pluck away on the guitar. He sang
mainly Vysotsky,* all of the songs from the album Vertical, about the stars, and
about Seryozha from Malaya Bronnaya Street.
*Vladimir Vysotsky was a popular Russian folksinger.
But he didn't like
socializing much. He preferred sports. He started doing martial arts in order
to learn how to defend himself. Four times a week he took classes somewhere near the Finland Station, and he
got pretty good. He loved his sambo. And then he started taking part in
competitions, which often required him to travel to other cities.
I got into sports when I
was about 10 or 11. As soon as it became clear that my pugnacious nature was
not going to keep me king of the courtyard or school grounds, I decided to go
into boxing. But I didn't last long there. I quickly got my nose broken. The
pain was terrible. I couldn't even touch the tip of my nose. But even though everyone
was telling me I needed an operation, I didn't go to the doctor.
Why?
I knew it would heal by
itself. And it did. But I lost my boxing bug after that. Then I decided to go
in for sambo, a Soviet combination of judo and wrestling. Martial arts were
popular at the time. I went to a class near my house and began to work out. It was
a very plain gym that belonged to the Trud athletic club. I had a very good
trainer there, Anatoly Semyonovich Rakhlin. He devoted his whole life to his
art, and is still training girls and boys to this day.
Anatoly Semyonovich
played a decisive role in my life. If I hadn't gotten involved in sports, I'm
not sure how my life would have turned out. It was sports that dragged me off
the streets. To be honest, the courtyard wasn't a very good environment for a
kid.
At first I studied sambo.
Then judo. The coach decided that we would all switch to judo, and we did.
Judo is not just a sport,
you know. It's a philosophy. It's respect for your elders and for your
opponent. It's not for weaklings. Everything in judo has an instructive aspect.
You come out onto the mat, you bow to one another, you follow ritual. It could
be done differently, you know. Instead of bowing to your opponent, you could
jab him in the forehead.
Did you ever smoke?
No. I tried it a couple
of times, but I never smoked regularly. And when I began to do sports, I simply
ruled it out. I used to work out every other day, and then every day.Soon I had
no time left for anything else. I had other priorities; I had to prove myself in
sports, achieve something. I set goals. Sports really had a strong influence on
me.
And you didn't try karate?
That was popular in those
days, even thought it was banned. We thought karate and all other noncontact sports
were like ballet. Sports was only sports if you had to shed sweat and blood and
work hard.
Even when karate became
popular and karate schools of all sorts began springing up, we viewed them
purely as moneymaking enterprises. We, on the other hand, never paid any money
for our lessons. We all came from poor families. And since karate lessons cost
money from the start, the kids taking karate thought they were first class.
Once we went to the gym
with Leonid Ionovich, the senior coach from Trud. The karate students were
working out on the mat, although it was our turn. Leonid went up to their
trainer and told him it was time for our class. The karate trainer didn't even look
his wayas if to say, get lost. Then Leonid, without saying a word, flipped him,
squeezed him lightly, and dragged him off the mat. He had lost consciousness.
Then Leonid turned to us and said, "Go on in and take your places."
That was our attitude toward karate.
Did your parents encourage you to take these lessons?
No, just the opposite. At
first, they were very suspicious. They thought I was acquiring some sort of
ugly skill to use on the street. Later, when they met the trainer and he began
to visit our home, their attitude changed. And when I achieved my first
successes, my parents understood that judo was a serious and useful art.
You started winning?
Yes, within about a year
or two.
Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich:
I taught Volodya from
fifth through eighth grade. And then we had to decide what school to send him
to. Most of the class went to School No. 197 on Petra Lavrova had starting
coming over to the Putin house as early as sixth grade. Volodya was not
especially interested in girls; but they were certainly interested in him. So
all of a sudden, he announced to everyone: ''I'm going to university." And
I said "How?" And he said "I"ll solve that problem
myself."
Even before I graduated
from school, I wanted to work in intelligence. It was a dream of mine, although
it seemed about as likely as a flight to
Mars. And sure, my ambitions sometimes changed. I also wanted to be a sailor.
And at one point I really wanted to be a pilot. The Academy of Civil Aviation
is in Leningrad, and I was hell-bent on getting in. I read the literature and
even subscribed to an aviation journal. But then books and spy movies like The Sword and the Shield took hold of my
imagination. What amazed me most of all was how one man's effort could achieve
what whole armies could not. One spy could decide the fate of thousands of
people. At least, that's the way I understood it.
The Academy of Civil
Aviation quickly lost its thrill. I had made my choice. I wanted to be a spy. My
parents didn't understand this right away. My coach had gone to see them and
told them that as an athlete, I could get into an institute practically without
passing exams. So they tried to talk me into going to an institute. My coach
took their side. He couldn't understand why I was resisting. "He has a 100
percent chance of getting into that Academy of Civil Aviation," he told my
parents. "And if he doesn't get into university, then he'll have to go
into the army."
It was a difficult
situation. My father had a very commanding personality. But I dug my heels in
and said I had made up my mind.
Then another coach of
mine from the Trud Club, Leonid Ionovich, came to visit. He was a clever guy.
"Well," he said to me. "Where are you going?" Of course he
already knew. He was just acting sly. I said, ''To university." "Oh,
that's great, good for you," he said, "in what department?"
"The law school," I answered. Then he roared: "What?! To catch
people? What are you doing? You'll be a cop. Do you understand?!" I was insulted.
"I'm not going to be a cop!" I yelled back.
For a year, they put
pressure on me every day. That only increased my desire to go to law school.
But why law school? Let me explain.
In order to find out how
to become a spy, sometime back around the beginning of the ninth grade, I had
gone to the office of the KGB Directorate. A guy came out and listened to me.
"I want to get a job with you," I said. "That's terrific, but
there are several issues," he said. "First, we don't take people who
come to us on their own initiative. Second, you can come to us only after the
army or after some type of civilian higher education."
I was intrigued.
"What kind of higher education?" I asked. "Any!" he said.
He probably just wanted to get rid of me. "But what kind is
preferred?" I asked. "Law school." And that was that. From that
moment on, I began to prepare for the law faculty of Leningrad University. And
nobody could stop me.
But my parents and my
coaches tried. They threatened me with the prospect of the army for a long
time. What they didn't understand was that the army suited me just fine. Of
course it would have slowed my progress a little, but it wouldn't deter me from
my decision.
The coaches, however, had
more tricks up their sleeves. When I went to enroll in preparatory classes at
the university, I learned that they had made up lists of athletes who were to
be given priority in university admissions. I knew for a fact that I wasn't on
any list. But when I was enrolling in classes, my gym teacher tried to force me
to join the Burevestnik Club. I asked him, "How come I have to switch over
to this?" And he said, "We helped get you into the university, so
please be so kind . . ." I knew something was up.
I went to the dean. I
walked in and and told him outright, "I'm being forced to transfer into Burevestnik.
I don't think I should do that." And the dean, Prof. Alekseyev, a kind-hearted,
good man, said, "Why are they forcing you?" And I said, "Because
they supposedly helped me, as an athlete, to get into the university, and now I
must pay them back by joining Burevestnik."
He said, "Really?
That can't be! Everyone gets into this university on equal terms, judged
according to their knowledge, not by some list of athletes. Wait a minute, and I'll
find out." Then he reached into his desk, got a list out, glanced at it,
and asked me my last name. "You're not on the list," he said,
"So you can safely tell everybody to get lost." Which I did.
Nevertheless, in
intervarsity championships I played on behalf of the university team, as I
could do this without transferring from one sports club to the other. Still,
the coaches didn't let up their efforts to recruit me. I told them a hundred
times that I would not leave Trudall my friends were there, and my first coach.
I said I would never join another club. I would play for the one I wanted.
PART 3
THE UNIVERSITY STUDENT
Putin studies hard at the
university, but still finds time to cruise Leningrad in his Zaporozhets car and
compete in judo tournaments. Over the summer he works in construction with his
buddies. He has romances and breakups, but his primary passion remains intact:
finding a way into the KGB.
Was it hard to get into university?
Yes, it was, because
there were 100 slots and only 10 of them were reserved for high school
graduates. The rest were for army guys. So for us high-schoolers, the competition
was fierce; something like 40 kids per slot. I had gotten a B in composition
but A's in all my other subjects, and I was accepted. By the way, at that time,
they didn't take into account the total grade point average of the applicant.
So in tenth grade I could completely devote myself to the subjects that I would
have to pass to get into university. If I hadn't dropped the other subjects, I
wouldn't have gotten in.
Thank God, we had very
smart teachers with sharp tactics in our school. Their main goal was to prepare
students to get into college. And as soon as they realized that I wasn't going
to become a chemist and wanted to major in the humanities, they didn't interfere.
In fact, quite the opposite they approved.
You evidently studied hard in university, with your
future in mind?
Yes, I studied hard. I
didn't become involved in any extracurricular activities. I wasn't a Komsomol
functionary.
Was your stipend enough to cover your living expenses?
No, it wasn't enough. At
first, my parents had to support me. I was a student, and didn't have any
money. I could have earned extra money working construction like a lot of people. But what would have been the
point? I was on a construction crew once.
I went to Komi, where I
chopped trees for the lumber industry and repaired houses. I finished the job
and they handed me a packet of money, probably about 1,000 rubles. In those
days, a car cost 3,500 or 4,000 rubles. But for a month and a half of work, we
got 1,000! So it was good money. Actually, fantastic money.
We earned our pay. And
then we had to spend it on something. My two friends and I went to Gagry on
vacation without even stopping back in Leningrad. We got there, and on the
first day we got drunk chasing shish kebabs down with port wine. Then we tried
to think of what to do next. Where could we go to spend the night? There were
probably some hotels around, but we didn't have much hope of getting into them.
Late at night, we finally found an old lady who agreed to take us in and give
us a room.
We spent several days
swimming, tanning, and getting good rest. But soon we had to get out of there
and somehow get back home. We were running out of money. We came up with a
plan; we would finagle places on the deck of a steamship on its way to Odessa.
Then we would take a train to Peter, buying tickets for the top bunks in the
sleepers, which were cheaper.
We pooled our pocket
change and realized we had nothing but a few kopecks left for provisions. We
decided to buy some tushonka, some canned stew, for the trip. One of the
fellows was rather careful he had more money left over than the other, who was
a spendthrift. When we told the more economical friend that he should share his
dough, he thought for a minute and then said, "That canned meat is pretty
hard on the stomach. That's not really the right thing to get." And we
said, "Whatever you say. Let's get going."
When we got down to the
docks, a huge crowd had gathered. The ship was giant as well a beautiful white
ocean-liner. We were told that only passengers with tickets to the cabins were
being allowed on, and those with deck seats were not yet being admitted. All
the deck passengers had little tickets made out of hard cardboard, but we had
larger-sized, mixed-passage tickets that looked like the ones first-class
passengers would have had. My friend who had refused to chip in for the canned
meat said, "You know, I don't like the look of this. I don't think it's
going to work out. Let's try to get on right now." I said, "It's
awkward, let's just stand here and wait our turn." He said, "Well,
you can stand around if you want. We're going to get on." So they went to
board the ship, and of course I ran after them.
The ticket-taker asked us
what kind of tickets we had. "We have the big ones," we answered. He
waved us on.
So we were let on board
the ship with the first-class passengers. And then the foreman or somebody else
yelled, "Are there any others for first class?" The crowd on the dock
was silent. He asked once again, "Are there only deck passengers
left?" The crowd, hoping they would now be allowed on, cried out
excitedly, "Yes, just deck passengers!" To which he shouted,
"Raise the plank!"
They lifted the walkway,
and suddenly panic broke out on the dock. People were furious. They had been
deceived. They had paid money, and now they weren't being let on the ship.
Later they were told that there was a freight
overage and that the ship was full.
If we hadn't gotten on
board when we did, we would have been left standing on the dock. And we didn't
have a single kopeck left. I don't know what we would have done.
So we settled into some
lifeboats, which hung out over the water. And that was how we got home, as if
we were lying in hammocks. For two nights I looked up at the sky, and I
couldn't take my eyes away. The ship sailed on, and the stars seemed to just
hang there. Do you know what I mean? Sailors may be used to that, but for me it
was a wondrous discovery.
That first evening we
ogled the cabin passengers. It made us a little wistful to see how wonderful
their lives were. All we had were the lifeboats, the stars, and the tins of
tushonka.
Our thrifty friend didn't
have any canned meat. He couldn't hold out any longer, and went to the
restaurant. But the prices there were so high that he quickly came back and
said indifferently, "Well, I suppose I wouldn't mind scarfing down a
little tushonka." But my other friend, who kept strictly to the rules,
said, "You know, you should worry about your stomach. It's not good for
you." So the thrifty guy starved for a day after that. It was cruel, of
course, but it was also fair.
When I went to
university, I started concentrating on my studies. Athletics took second place.
But I did work out regularly and took part in all the All-Union competitions,
although it was just by habit, really.
In 1976, I became the
city-wide champion. The people in our section included not only amateurs, like
me, but also professionals and European and Olympic champions in both sambo and
judo.
I became a sambo master
black belt after entering university, and then a judo master two years later. I
don't know how it is nowadays, but back then you had to collect a certain
number of victories over opponents of a certain level, and to place in serious
competitions. For example, you had to be among the top three in the city or get
first place in the All-Union competition for Trud.
I remember a couple
matches vividly. After one of them I couldn't even breathe, only croak. My
opponent was a strong guy, and I had used up so much energy that I just wheezed
instead of inhaling and exhaling. I won, but only by a slim margin.
And then there was the
time I lost to the world champion, Volodya Kullenin. Later he began to drink
heavily and was murdered on the street. But in university he was a fine
athlete, really brilliant and talented. He hadn't started drinking when I
fought him. We were competing for the city championship. He was already world
champion. Right away, during the first minutes, I threw him across my back and
did it gracefully, with ease. In principle, the match should have ended right
then, but since Kullenin was world champion, it wouldn't have been right to
stop the fight. So they gave me some points and we continued. Of course
Kullenin was stronger than me, but I fought hard. Under the rules of this
martial art, any sort of crying out is considered a signal of defeat. When
Kullenin twisted my elbow backward, the judge seemed to hear me make some
grunts. So Kullenin was declared the victor. I remember that match to this day.
And I was not ashamed to lose to a world champion.
There was another match
I'll remember for the rest of my life, although it wasn't one I took part in. I
had a friend in university whom I had talked into joining the gym. First he
took judo, and he did quite well. Once there was a competition and he was
fighting. He took a jump forward and landed headfirst on the mat. His vertebrae
were dislocated and he was paralyzed. He died 10 days later in the hospital. He
was a good guy. And to this day I regret talking him into taking judo. . . .
Traumas like this were
quite frequent during the competitions and matches. People would break their
arms or legs. Matches were a form of torture. And training was hard, too. We
used to go to an athletic center outside of Leningrad on Khippiyarvi Lake. It's
a fairly large lake, about 17 kilometers wide. Every morning when we got up, we
ran around the lake first thing. After our run, there would be exercise, then
training, breakfast, more workouts, lunch, rest after lunch, and then workouts
again.
We used to travel around
the country a lot. Once we went to a match in Moldavia, in preparation for the
Spartakiad competition of the peoples of the USSR. It was horribly hot. I was
coming out of our workout with my friend Vasya, and wine was for sale
everywhere. He said to me, "Let's toss back a bottle of wine each."
"It's too hot out," I replied. "Then let's just relax," he
said. "Alright, alright. Let's get some wine," I said
We each took a bottle,
went back to our room, and flopped down on our beds. He opened his bottle.
"It's too hot," I said. "I'm not going to."
"Really?" he said. "Okay, have it your way." He gulped the
bottle straight down. Then he looked at me. ''Are you sure you aren't going to
have any?" "I'm sure," I said. So he took the second bottle and
knocked it back. He put the empty bottles on the table, and instantly he was
out like a light. There he was, suddenly snoring. I really regretted not
drinking along with him! I squirmed and squirmed. I couldn't hold out any
longer, and poked him. "Hey, you. You're snoring, stop it! You're snoring
like an elephant."
That was pretty much the
exception. We didn't party much, because drinking made the workouts that much
harder. There was this one huge guy that worked out with us. His name was
Kolya. Not only was he gigantic, but he had this incredible face. He had a
massive jaw that jutted forward and a huge overhanging brow. One night some
hooligans started picking on him in a dark alley, and he said, "Guys, calm
down. Pipe down for just a second." Then he took out a match, struck it,
and held it up to his face. "Just look at me," he said. And that was
the end of that incident.
Sergei Roldugin (soloist in the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra,
a family friend of the Putins, and godfather of Putin's older daughter, Masha):
Volodya went to school
with my brother. When I moved to Leningrad, my brother told me about Vovka. He
brought him over to our house, and we hit it off. I think it was in 1977. After
that, he became like a brother to me. When I had nowhere to go, I would go over
to his house. I would eat and sleep there.
I was drafted into the
army and served in Leningrad. Once, Vovka came over to see me in his
Zaporozhets. I jumped over the fence and went AWOL. We went cruising around
Leningrad all night. The muffler was broken, and we raced around, singing
songs. I can even remember the song we sang:
"We had just one
night,
Someone's train left this
morning,
And then someone's plane
a little later . . . "
We sang and sang, very loudly,
without any inhibitions. After all, the muffler was broken. Once my mother was given a state lottery
ticket instead of change at a cafeteria, and she won a Zaporozhets car. I was
in the third year of university and we couldn't decide what to do with that car
for a long time, since we were living very modestly. I had just bought my first
coat when I came back from working construction, a year after the vacation with
my friends in Gagry. This was my first decent coat. Money was tight in our
family, and to give the car to me was absolute madness. We could have sold it,
after all, and gotten at least 3,500 rubles for it. That would have settled our
family budget well in advance. But my parents decided to spoil me. They gave me
the Zaporozhets. I lived the good life in that car. I used to drive it
everywhere, even to my matches.
I was a pretty wild
driver, but I was terrified of crashing the car. How would I ever repair it?
Once you did get into an accident, though. You ran
over a man.
It wasn't my fault. He
jumped in front of me or something. . . . Decided to put an end to his life. .
. . I don't know what on earth he was doing. He was an idiot. He ran off after
I hit him.
They say you chased him.
What? You think I hit a
guy with my car and then tried to chase him down? I'm not a beast. I just got
out of the car.
Are you able to remain calm in critical situations?
Yes, I remain calm. Even
too calm. Later, when I went to intelligence school, I once got an evaluation,
where they wrote the following as a negative character assessment: "A
lowered sense of danger." That was considered a very serious flaw. You
have to be pumped up in critical situations in order to react well. Fear is
like pain. It's an indicator. If something hurts, that means something's wrong
with your body. It's a sign. I had to work on my sense of danger for a long
time.
Evidently you aren't a gambler?
No, I'm not a gambler.
Toward the end of
university we went to military training camp. Two of my friends were there, one
of whom had gone to Gagry with me. We spent two months there. It was much
easier than the athletic camps, and we got really bored. The main source of
entertainment was cards. Whoever won went to the village and bought milk from
an old lady. I refused to play, but my friends didn't. And they lost everything
quickly.
When they had nothing
left, they would come and plead for money. They were real gamblers. And I would
ask myself, "Should I give them anything? They'll just lose it."
And they would say,
"Listen, your few kopecks won't save you anyway. Why not just give them to
us." And I would say to them "Alright. After all, I have a lowered
sense of danger," and hand over the cash.
Boy, did they make out
like bandits! They couldn't lose for winning. And we went to buy milk from the
lady every night.
University is a time for romances. Did you have any?
Who didn't? But nothing
serious . . . if you don't count that one time.
First love?
Yes. She and I even
planned to tie the knot.
When did that happen?
About four years before I
actually got married.
So it didn't work out?
That's right.
What got in the way? Something. Some intrigue or other.
She married someone else?
Someone else? Yes, later.
Who decided that you wouldn't get married? I did. I made the decision. We had already applied
for a marriage license. Everything was ready.
Our parents on both sides
had bought everything the ring, the suit, the wedding dress. . . . The
cancellation was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. It was really
hard. I felt like a real creep. But I decided that it was better to suffer then
than to have both of us suffer later.
That is, you literally ran away and left her at the
altar?
Almost. Except that I
didn't run away. I told her the truth as much of it as I considered necessary.
Do you not want to talk about it?
No, I don't. It's a
complicated story. It's the way it was. It was really
hard.
Do you have any regrets?
No.
Sergei Roldugin:
I liked his girlfriend,
she was a pretty girl; a medical student with a strong character. She was a
friend to him, a woman who would take care of him. But did she love him? I
don't know. Lyuda, his wife or Lyudik, as we call her now, she really loves
him.
I got along very well
with that girl. I think her name was also Lyuda. She used to worry about his
health. It wasn't just, "Oh, honey, how do you feel?" She would say,
"Now, I can tell your stomach is hurting." I don't know what happened
between them. He didn't tell me anything. He just said that it was all over. I
think the falling-out was just between them, because their parents had agreed
to the match.
Vovka suffered, of
course. The thing is, we are both Libras and we take things like that very much
to heart. And at that time I saw that he . . . that his . . . that he was a
very emotional person but he simply could not express his emotions. I often
used to tell him that he was terrible at making conversation. Why did he have
such trouble talking?
Of course, he is Cicero
now, compared to the way he talked back then. I used to explain to him,
"You talk very quickly, and you should never talk so quickly." As a
stage performer, I thought I could help him out. He had very strong emotions,
but he could not put them into any form. I think his profession left its imprint
on his speech. Now he speaks beautifully. Expansively, intelligibly, and with
feeling. Where did he learn to do that?
So you didn't collaborate with the KGB while you were
an undergraduate?
They didn't even try to
recruit me as an agent, although it was a widespread practice at the time.
There were many people who collaborated with the security agencies. The
cooperation of normal citizens was an important tool for the state's viable
activity. But the main point was the kind of basis this cooperation was
established upon. Do you know what a "seksot" is?
It means secret colleague
or collaborator.
Right. But do you know why it has acquired such a
negative connotation?
Ideological.
Yes, ideological. They
did political sleuthing. Everyone thinks that intelligence is interesting. Do
you know that ninety percent of all the intelligence information is obtained
from an agent's network made up of ordinary Soviet citizens? These agents
decide to work for the interests of the state. It doesn't matter what this work
is called. The important thing is upon which basis this cooperation takes
place. If it is based on betrayal and material gain, that's one thing. But if
it is based on some idealistic principles, then it's something else. What about
the struggle against banditry? You can't do anything without secret agents.
So when did you join the KGB?
All those years in
university I waited for the man at the KGB office to remember me. It seemed
that he had forgotten about me. After all, I had gone to see him as a school
kid. Who would've thought that I could have such spunk? But I recalled that
they didn't like people to show their own initiative, so I didn't make myself
known. I kept quiet.
Four years passed.
Nothing happened. I decided that the case was closed, and I began to work out
different options for finding employment either in the special prosecutor's
office or as an attorney. Both are prestigious fields.
* This segment of questions and answers was published
in newspapers, but was not included in the Russian edition of Vladimir Putin's
book, First Person. Several other passages from the interviews that were
published only in newspapers are included in this English edition.
But then, when I was in
my fourth year of university, a man came and asked me to meet with him. He
didn't say who he was, but I immediately figured it out, because he said,
"I need to talk to you about your career assignment. I wouldn't like to
specify exactly what it is yet." I picked up on it immediately. If they
didn't want to say where, that meant it was there.
We agreed to meet right
in the faculty vestibule. He was late. I waited for about 20 minutes. Well, I
thought, what a swine! Or was someone playing a prank on me? And I decided to
leave. Then suddenly he ran up, all out of breath.
"I'm sorry," he
said.
I liked that.
"It's all
arranged," he said. "Volodya, there's still a lot of time, but how
would you feel if you were invited to work in the agencies?" I didn't tell
him that I had dreamed of this moment since I was a schoolboy. I didn't tell
him, because I remembered my conversation in the KGB office long ago: "We
don't take people who come to us on their own initiative."
And when you agreed to work in the agencies, did you
think about 1937?
To be honest, I didn't
think about it at all. Not one bit. I recently met up with some old colleagues
from the KGB Directorate guys who I worked with at the very beginning and we
talked about the same thing. And I can tell you what I said to them: When I
accepted the proposition from the Directorate's personnel department (actually,
my recruiter turned out to be an official in the subdivision that served the
universities), I didn't think about the [Stalin-era] purges. My notion of the
KGB came from romantic spy stories. I was a pure and utterly successful product
of Soviet patriotic education.
You knew nothing about the purges?
I didn't know much. Yes,
of course, I knew about Stalin's cult of personality. I knew that people had
suffered and that the cult of personality had been dismantled. . . . I wasn't
completely naïve. Keep in mind that I was 18 when I went to university and that
I graduated at age 23.
But those who cared to know, knew all about it.
We lived under the
conditions of a totalitarian state. Everything was concealed.
How deep was that cult of personality? How serious was
it?
My friends and I didn't
think about that. So I went to work for the agencies with a romantic image of
what they did. But after that conversation in the vestibule, I heard nothing
more. The man disappeared. And then there was a phone call; an invitation to
the university's personnel department. Dmitry GantserovI can still remember his
name was the one to speak to me.
But there was almost a
slipup at the employment commission. When they got to my name, a representative
from the department of law said, "Yes, we're taking him into the
bar." Then the agent who was monitoring the students' assignments suddenly
woke up, he had been asleep somewhere in the corner. "Oh, no," he
said. "That question has already been decided. We're hiring Putin to work
in the agencies of the KGB." He said it right out loud like that, in front
of the job-assignment commission.
And then several days
later I was filling out all sorts of application forms and papers.
They told you they were hiring you to work in
intelligence?
Of course not. It was all very systematic. They put it sort
of like this: "We are proposing that you work in the field where we'll
send you. Are you ready?" If the applicant was wishy-washy and said that
he had to think about it, they would simply say, "Okay. Next!" And that
person wouldn't have another chance. You can't pick your nose and say, "I
want this and I don't want that." They can't use people like that.
You evidently said you were ready to work where they
sent you?
Yes. Of course. And they
themselves didn't even know where I would be working. They were just hiring new
people. It's actually a routine matter, recruiting personnel and determining
who should be sent where. I was made a routine offer.
Sergei Roldugin:
Vovka told me right away
that he was working in the KGB. Practically right away. Maybe he was not
supposed to do that. He told some people that he was working in the police. On
the one hand, I treated these guys with caution, because I had had some run-ins
with them. I had traveled abroad and knew that there were always people posing
as inspectors or officials from the Ministry of Culture. You had to keep your mouth
shut when you were around them.
I once told a colleague
of mine, "Come on, they're normal, they're nice guys." And he said,
"The more you talk to them, the more dirt they will have in your file at 4
Liteiny Street."
* 4 Liteiny Street was the address of the KGB headquarters in Leningrad
and currently houses the KGB's successor, the FSB (Federal Security Service).
I never asked Volodya
about his work. Of course I was curious. But I remember once I decided to
corner him and find out something about some special operation. I got nowhere.
Later I said to him, ''I
am a cellist. I play the cello. I could never be a surgeon. Still, I'm a good
cellist. But what is your profession? I know, you're a spy. I don't know what
that means. Who are you? What do you do?"
And he said to me,
"I'm a specialist in human relations." And that was the end of our conversation.
And he really did think that he was able to judge personalities. When I divorced
my first wife, Irina, he said, "I predicted that that's exactly how it
would turn out." I disagreed you couldn't know what would happen between
me and Irina from the start. But his comment made a big impression on me. I
believed what he said: that he was a specialist in human relations.
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