communist emblem over the Kremlin on December 25 was the signal for Soviet flags to be pulled down from public buildings across the vast country and replaced with the white, blue, and red flag of independent Russia.
In St. Petersburg, as elsewhere, the Russian flag is hoisted over public buildings. But a red flag continues to fly from a metal pole on the House of Political Enlightenment, where the communists have been allowed to retain an office since it was turned into an international business center. It is visible from the Smolny Institute, where Vladimir Putin, future president of Russia, works as the head of the committee for external relations in the office of the mayor, Anatoly Sobchak.
The ex-KGB officer gives the order to workmen to remove the flag. The next day the communists put up another one. Putin gives the order once more, and once again his men remove the flag. Vladimir Churov, an aide to Mayor Sobchak, watches as back and forth it goes. “The communists began to run out of flags and started using all sorts of things. One of their last versions wasn’t even red but more of a dark brown. That put Putin over the edge. He found a crane and under his personal supervision had the flagpole cut down with a blowtorch.”[295]
Chapter 28
DECEMBER 27: TRIUMPH OF THE PLUNDERERS
Just before 8 a.m. on Friday, December 27, a little over a day and a half after Mikhail Gorbachev announced he was ceasing his activities as president of the USSR, Russian president Boris Yeltsin leaves his apartment at 54 Second Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, as usual groomed and spruced up by the women of his family. He climbs into the back of the presidential Zil, taken from Gorbachev’s dacha two nights ago, and directs the driver to take him straight to the Kremlin.
The limousine cuts across the ring road, cruises along Tverskaya Street, and turns right past the Intourist Hotel, then left in through the Borovitsky Gate of the Kremlin, finally stopping at the Senate Building. He is joined there by his deputy prime minister, Gennady Burbulis, parliament chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov, and his minister for press and information, Mikhail Poltoranin.
The four men crowd into the lift and take it to the third floor. Guards snap to attention as they stride purposefully along the red runner in the corridor and burst into the anteroom of the presidential office to confront the receptionist on duty.
Mikhail Gorbachev has not yet arrived. He has an appointment at 11 a.m. in the presidential office with a group of journalists from the Japanese newspaper
“Well, show us around!” Yeltsin commands the receptionist.[296] Without waiting for a response, he barges into the room. “Here on the table there was a marble pen set,” he thunders. “Where is it?” He clearly is implying that the property of the Kremlin is being pilfered by the outgoing officials. The secretary protests, “There was no set…. Mikhail Sergeyevich did not use such pens. We bought for him felt pens.”
“OK and what’s here?” demands Yeltsin, peering into the resting room where Gorbachev takes his afternoon naps and seeing only the couch and toilet facilities. The Russian president goes behind the office desk and starts pulling out drawers. He comes upon one that will not open.
“Why is it locked?” he booms. “Call the commanding officer.” An aide arrives with a key and opens the drawer. It is empty.
After nosing around some more, Yeltsin summons Kremlin staff and orders them to dump Gorbachev’s remaining private belongings in the corridor. The group then gathers around the oval table in the office. “OK! Give us glasses,” calls out Yeltsin. A bottle is produced and whiskey splashed into the tumblers, which are raised in a triumphal toast.
The secretary in the reception room nervously telephones Gorbachev and tells him what is happening: Yeltsin, Poltoranin, and Burbulis have occupied the office and are holding a party there, emptying a bottle of whiskey, the assistant says. And his name is no longer on the door.
After an hour and a half of revelry, Yeltsin announces benevolently to the trembling receptionist that he has no need to inspect the Walnut Room or the State Council office. He has seen them before. He and his companions leave, laughing among themselves. “Behave yourself!” he calls over his shoulder. “I’m going to come back today!”
Georgy Shakhnazarov arrives minutes later to check that the office is ready for Gorbachev’s interview with the Japanese correspondents. “I found that all the president’s things were taken out of the office and there was an order that by ten o’clock in the morning the office was to be ready for the arrival of the new master.”
Anatoly Chernyaev is horrified. “What a nightmare! And Yeltsin gets more and more uncouth. He is trampling on everything…. He must be paying us back for yesterday’s reception with the press!” He once again feels utterly dismayed that his boss would still want to come to the presidential office at all. “Why should he humiliate himself? Why does he have to go to the Kremlin? The flag has already been brought down over the cupola… and he is already not a president.”[297]
Gorbachev is in a fury when he arrives shortly after Yeltsin has left. On December 18 Yeltsin had publicly announced that Gorbachev could wait until the end of December or, at a maximum, until the middle of January to make a decision on his resignation. When he did decide to resign on December 25, Yeltsin had clearly and categorically agreed that he could remain in his office until December 29 to wind up his affairs.
“Yeltsin put off his presidential duties to supervise personally my ‘expulsion’ from the Kremlin,” complained Gorbachev in his memoirs. “I was informed that Yeltsin, Khasbulatov and Burbulis had occupied my office at 8:30 a.m. and held a party there, emptying a bottle of whiskey… for their ‘victory.’ This was the triumph of plunderers, I can find no other word for it.”[298]
The Russian president has had for some time the use of an office in the adjacent Kremlin building. But Gorbachev’s continued presence in the historic seat of power, two days after he stepped down, is a manifestation that a single all-union state still exists. It is an affront to the new ruler. Yeltsin is the sole president of Russia, but it is Gorbachev who is being feted by the foreign media and who still claims the right to occupy the presidential office in the Kremlin, with the red flag of the Soviet Union behind his desk.
Grachev reckons that the door plaque and the red flag are not merely symbols for Yeltsin but the very goals of the struggle, the chief trophies of his crusade against Gorbachev.
Yeltsin does not like the “rumors” that appear later in the press that they literally threw Gorbachev’s things out of the Kremlin office. He makes some backhand charges of his own. “The old tenants did not unscrew the handles from the doors, of course. But they did remove some furniture and even took some official state gold fountain pens from their inkwells. Well, that kind of thing’s a habit in our country.” He denies acting imperiously and blames “friction among the clerks.” He claims that they warned Gorbachev and his staff a week before the move of their intentions. “It was a period of time quite sufficient to pack up one’s papers. From the outset I did not want Gorbachev and his team, or rather its remnants, either to be thrown out of the Kremlin or allowed to linger an extra month packing. Long farewells make for too many tears.”[299]
The idea of moving into Gorbachev’s office crystallized in Yeltsin’s mind only in the previous few weeks, when it became evident that the Soviet Union had no future. Before that, when there was a chance that some form of union would be salvaged, there was no discussion of Gorbachev leaving the Kremlin, as he would have continued to command the center from there, however weakened.
Up to then Yeltsin also gave the impression to his family that he would rule Russia from the White House. Since being elected Russian president in June, he has made minimal use of his Kremlin office, going there mainly for formal purposes. His daughter, Tanya, said a few weeks ago, “The White House is his real office; the Kremlin office is just for show—to receive foreign guests and hold other official ceremonies.” [300]
