Yeltsin: A Life

Acknowledgments

The spark for this book was struck in a multi-sided conversation I had with several Russian friends and acquaintances toward the end of 1999. The idea was that a group of scholars and public-policy analysts would meet with Boris Yeltsin, who was still president of the country, and, after his expected retirement, possibly organize a collective study of his presidency. The participants in that discussion were Sergei Grigoriev, Mikhail Shvydkoi, Dmitrii Yakushkin, and Valentin Yumashev. No sooner had we had our chat than Yeltsin had quit office, and, for a variety of reasons, the original impulse to begin the study was lost. My conversation mates, however, proved willing to cooperate with my launching a one-man project, which came to encompass the full course of Yeltsin’s life. In researching and writing the book, I amassed all manner of debts to informants and information brokers. I trust they will not need to be reminded, however, that all responsibility for its line of argument and its flaws lies with me.

Interviews with players in, and close observers of, the story were key sources from the beginning. Individuals who provided specific bits of evidence used in the text are cited in the endnotes. I also had benefit of the knowledge and insights of Yevgeniya Al’bats, Anders Åslund, Pilar Bonet, Maksim Boiko, Vladimir Bykodorov, Dmitrii Donskoi, Mikhail Fedotov, Chrystia Freeland, Leonid Gozman, Kirill Ignat’ev, Irina Il’ina, Andrei Illarionov, Sergei Karaganov, Sergei Khrushchev, Yurii Kir’yakov, Paul Klebnikov, Al’fred Kokh, Pavel Kuznetsov, Yurii Levada, Viktor Manyukhin, Vladimir Mau, Garri Minkh, Vyacheslav Nikonov, Pavel Palazchenko, Nikolai Petrov, Oleg Rumyantsev, Vladimir Semënov, Lilia Shevtsova, Andrei Shleifer, Aleksandr Shokhin, Andrei Shtorkh, Vladimir Shumeiko, Nadezhda Smirnova, Boris Smolenitskii, Dmitrii Trenin, Dmitrii Vasil’ev, Aleksei Venediktov, Vladimir Vlasov, and Grace Kennan Warnecke.

I am particularly grateful to those individuals, mostly Russians, who opened other people’s doors to me—this in a climate in which imparting sensitive information to foreign specialists is not always welcomed by the authorities. Valentin Yumashev and Tatyana Yumasheva arranged for me to see Boris Yeltsin and Naina Yeltsina. They also made themselves available for interviews and follow-up exchanges on numerous points of fact and interpretation, and Tatyana located and shared revealing photographs from the family’s private collection. Sergei Grigoriev in particular put himself out to facilitate meetings in Moscow, especially in the first two years. Yevgeniya Al’bats, plying her very different network, also spared no effort. Thanks in this regard go also to Dmitrii Bakatin, Vladimir Bokser, Valerii Bortsov, James Collins, Leonid Dobrokhotov, Mikhail Fedotov, Leonid Gozman, Sergei Kolesnikov, Mikhail Margelov, Michael McFaul, Vitalii Nasedkin, Aleksandr Popov, Vladimir Shevchenko, Olga Sidorovich, and Vladimir Voronkov. When midway through the project I ran into certain travel difficulties, crucial interventions were made by several Russians and Americans whose names will go unmentioned for now.

A number of colleagues were good enough to go over draft text. Elise Giuliano, Marshall Goldman, Thane Gustafson, Mark Kramer, Alena Ledeneva, Thomas Simons, and Gwendolyn Stewart were beady-eyed readers of an early version of the entire book. I was especially influenced by the close comments of Jonathan Sanders, for whom many years ago I wrote my first (quite awful) paper on Yeltsin, and who gave me dozens of valuable leads, and by William Taubman, who convinced me to take the time needed to bring the two halves of the volume into harmony. Nanci Adler, Elena Campbell, John Dunn, Yoshiko Herrera, Edward Keenan, Gijs Kessler, Eva Maeder, Terry Martin, Olga Nikonova, Sarah Oates, Thomas Remington, Roman Szporluk, and Lynne Viola guided me to published and unpublished sources. Stephen White let me use the interview with Yakov Ryabov that is part of his oral history project at the University of Glasgow. Leon Aron shared important printed material that I was unable to locate on my own. Mark Kramer has my gratitude for identifying and retrieving key documents from the Communist Party archives and related troves. Yevgenii Kiselëv and Irena Lesnevskaya made available unique videotapes from the 1990s, and Aleksandr Oslon did the same with previously confidential polling data from the 1996 presidential election campaign. In Yekaterinburg, Anatolii Kirillov and Galina Stepanova were generous with their time, contacts, and expertise. In Berezniki, Aleksandr Abramov, Aleksandr Kerimov, Oleg Kotelnikov, and Natalya Kuznetsova were hospitable and informative. Aleksei Litvin, Dane Ponte, and Artur Yusupov helped me obtain information about Yeltsin’s childhood years in Kazan.

Masha Hedberg was my research assistant at Harvard for the two make-or-break years of the project and could not have done a better job. She accompanied me to the Urals in 2005 for a journey made productive by her tenacity. At the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Maria Altamore, Sarah Failla, Melissa Griggs, Helen Grigoriev, Ann Sjostedt, Penelope Skalnik, Lisbeth Tarlow, and Patricia Vio gave me unflagging administrative support. Masha Tarasova in Moscow patched through dozens of communications and shored up logistics. The Davis Center, the Government Department, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies underwrote travel and other expenses.

My wife, Pat, kept the home fires burning and was the first to see and apply pencil to rough drafts.

Wesley Neff placed the project with Basic Books. At Basic, Lara Heimert was wise and patient in equal measure, and Norman MacAfee expertly edited the manuscript into shape on a tight schedule.