Limonov vs. Putin Read online

  According to the Arguments and Facts newspaper Putin was almost expelled from the institute’s second session. It is not clear for what. If we are to believe the dean N. Korpachev about the good marks, they could not have expelled him for poor progress. Arguments and Facts (issue 3, 2000) makes the supposition that there were maybe “ideological” reasons. Since the student Putin, like many others was fond of Russian variety art and also, supposedly recorded Villy Tokarev and Mikhail Shufutinski who were not officially supported then on tape.

  “In the evenings Putin used to play backgammon with his comrades”, says a source. (I would not be surprised if he played backgammon with himself. This is the kind of man he is, the RF president.) Besides backgammon, Putin’s hobby became cars. His first car became a Zaporozhetz that Putin acquired in 1974. The origin of this Zaporozhetz is unclear. Supposedly it was won in a lottery. Either by VVP himself or by his father Vladimir Spiridonovich.

  According to Elgam Ragimov, his university friend Putin does not like vodka (at least he did not like it then), but he loved milk. He liked to visit bookstores on Nevski Street and liked to drink beer with friends. “Also Putin liked to play jokes on his friends and acquaintances”, informs A. A. Mukhin’s investigation “Vladimir Putin’s special file”, from where I took most part of my information about the president’s biography. However it does not say how the president played jokes. There are mean jokes and there are nice ones. “He loved to argue on political subjects, defending Russians and Russia”, point out the same source. And also: “During this period Putin, who had escaped from his “tight” childhood compensated his reserved character by joyfulness. This joyfulness has accompanied him ever since”. This is one strange reminder about the supposed joyfulness of student Putin. Today he does not give the impression of a joyful person. At the same time A. A. Mukhin tells us: “It is interesting that according to Putin’s neighbors in Saint Petersburg (his communal apartment near Moscow’s station), children were always a bit scared of him”. The joyfulness is hard to believe in but not the fact that children were scared of such a man. Children, like animals have an acute sensitivity towards dangerous people. A cat will never sit in the lap of a dangerous person.

  IN THE “OTSTOYNIK”

  (IN THE STATE SECURITY COMMITTEE)

  So, the university is finished. And mysteries instantly appear. What did the twenty-three years old graduate did next? Official biographies say that after spending a year in KGB’s Moscow School in 1975 he was directed to his native Leningrad as a junior commissioner investigator. Other sources affirm that already in 1975 Putin has worked about five months in the secretariat of KGB’s Leningrad’s department, “working on some files”. Finally, third sources (for instance the Versia newspaper issue 2, 2000) have spread evidence that Putin was working in West Germany, in particularly in Bonn already in 1975. It turns out that it was right after graduating from a civil university, without even studying in a KGB school. The “version’s” author Petr Pryanishnikov wrote: “The official Bonn is still certain that the officer of the First Central Department of USSR KGB’s 4th section Vladimir Putin who was fluent in German coordinated the activities of the soviet secret-service net in Austria and the FRG”. Pryanishnikov writes that Putin returned to Germany (the Eastern part) in the middle of the 1980s. However, other sources indicate that Putin really was in Bonn in 1975, was arrested as a soviet agent and was then quickly extradited to the USSR. And that it is because of this arrest, a failure in fact, Putin has never worked on the FRG or any other capitalist countries’ territory again. He was noticed and thus his value as a KGB officer became low forever. He could be used only in socialist countries. I am inclined to believe the version about the arrest in 1975 in Bonn, otherwise why did Putin never work in capitalist countries after. The journalist Pryanishnikov’s “fluent in German” is of course an exaggeration. After many years we do not hear fluent German from president Putin, we hear a very approximate one.

  In the official version V. V. Putin’s further career after KGB’s Moscow School looks thus: from February to July 1976 he attended preparation courses for operations staff. After these six months, before 1977 he worked in Leningrad’s KGB department, in his own words in a “counterintelligence subdivision… worked with the foreign element…” According to his colleagues Putin worked in the 5th section of Leningrad’s KGB department that was part of the Fifth Central Department system that supervised “the fight with the ideological diversions of the enemy”.

  During his work in the “counterintelligence subdivision” Putin “was noticed by agents of the foreign intelligence”, after which he was proposed to move in the First Central Department (the foreign intelligence) and was sent (again!) to Moscow to one year preparatory courses. After returning to Leningrad, “four years and a half”, from 1979 to 1983 he worked in the first section of Leningrad’s KGB department.

  In 1984, after receiving the rank of a major, Putin was directed to Moscow’s KGB Higher School, where he studied under the pseudonym “Platov”. He specialized in German speaking countries: Austria, Switzerland, FRG, and GDR. It has been nine years that Putin is being prepared to become a spy, but he will not become one. Moreover, as you remember, most probably he was in Bonn in 1975 and failed. So what is he preparing for?

  From 1974 I live in the West. Already in 1977 I become close with the famous American industrialist Peter Sprague, from 1979 I work for him, I live in his house. I get acquainted with the elite of international business. Instead of preparing Putin in Leningrad, the gentlemen from the KGB would have better done by addressing me. During those years and always I was and I stay a Russian patriot and I would have helped my country’s special services. But no… They were preparing Putin and did not finish the job. In 1980 I move to France, to Paris. There I become a writer, I get close with the leaders of the French Communist Party. I write for the Revolution journal, CP’s intellectual body. I visit CP’s famous bunker on Colonel Fabien Street. Among my acquaintances there are National Assembly deputies and senators and even the head of the National Assembly Chaban-Delmas. I would seem to be the ideal influence agent. But nobody has ever contacted me.

  After graduating from school in 1985 Putin is finally (after ten years!) sent to a foreign trip, but only to a group of soviet troops in Germany, in the “otstoynik”, as it was cynically called then. People who were sent there did not have any perspectives in the special services. In the GDR their famous Stasi security service was headed by the talented Markus Wolf. How could the major Putin have helped him? Actually, he could not. The soviet foreign intelligence had nothing to do in GDR, since East Germany de facto was USSR’s internal territory, another national republic, that is all. Most probably, the information about Putin’s early failure in Bonn, which made a successful spy career impossible, is true, or his professional level was so low that his place was in the “otstoynik”. Whatever it was, in 1985 Putin appears in the city of Dresden, in the Waldschlosschen district, on Angelikastrasse, 4. His office was on the first floor. The fact that this was not a dangerous mission is demonstrated also by the fact that in front of the soviet residence building was the building of the district department of GDR’s State Security Ministry. Putin was among a group of eight soviet agents headed by the general Vladimir Shirokov. The Germans called the soviet agents “friends”.

  When he arrived in Dresden Putin received an apartment with two rooms and a half on Radebergestrasse. A few minutes away from his workplace. Like Angelikastrasse, this is a prestigious district. The safety of the James Bonds was total, in addition to the neighboring Stasi building they were close to the soviet military base. Lyudmila Putina went shopping there and the Putin couple often went there to watch movies in Russian in the theater.

  Here we should stop on the personality of V. V. Putin’s spouse. So let us interrupt the fascinating description of the “otstoynik” in order to continue it after the chapter about Lyudmila Putina.

  THE SPOUSE

  Lyudmila Alexand
rovna Shkrebneva (Putina after her marriage) was born on January 6th 1958 in Kaliningrad. She was born the same year as my late wife Natasha Medvedeva, a singer and a writer, who died in February 2003, at that time I was behind bars in Saratov’s central prison. Lyudmila Putina attended Kaliningrad’s 44th School and then School Number 8. She finished her 8th grade with a good work certificate but in her school-leaving certificate she already had three Bs. In school she liked needlework (she knitted), was an active Komsomol member. In the theatrical circle of the Young Pioneers’ House she played in The Cherry Orchard, The Inspector and dreamed of becoming an actress. L. Putina’s mother Ekaterina Tikhonovna Shkrebneva lives in Kaliningrad for almost forty years now. She worked as a cashier in an autocade. Her husband Alexander Abramovich worked in Kaliningrad’s machinery factory. He died. (I do not have information about the time he died or his function in the factory). In 2003 Ekaterina Tikhonovna still lived in Kaliningrad. She had a dacha in the town of Pregolski.

  Lyudmila Putina has a younger sister – Olga. Olga is married to Viktor Tzomaev. She works as a stewardess in Kaliningrad’s squadron.

  In 1975 Lyudmila graduated and did not become an actress, but started to work as a post woman. Later she went to work in Kaliningrad’s Torgmash factory as a capstan lathe operator (she is a second class operator) but did not stay there. Still in 1975 she attended Kaliningrad’s technical institute, but dropped out during the second session.

  Some time after dropping out she worked as a stewardess in Kaliningrad’s squadron. On that job Lyudmila proved to be a shy and a quiet employee.

  So we see a somewhat frivolous soviet girl who switches jobs and does not stay long at any of them. In those years such an ardor was not welcome and caused suspicion. Many stamps in a workbook made the human resources employees frown.

  In 1978 the stewardess Lyudmila Shkrebneva, she is twenty years old, was spending her vacations in the city of Leningrad. With a friend. There she visited the show of the comic Arkady Raykin in the Lensovet Theater. There she met Vladimir Putin, as we know, he was already working in the KGB. The trip to the show with the girls was organized by Putin’s friend, he has invited Lyudmila’s friend. VVP was providing tickets for the whole group. From this time Lyudmila frequently visited Leningrad on her vacations. And in 1980 she moved to Leningrad finally – she entered the preparatory courses for Leningrad’s State University and then for the philological faculty.

  In university Luydmila specialized in “Spanish language and literature” (although she supposedly wanted to study German) and lived on the campus on Mytninskaya Street.

  In June 28th 1983 Vladimir Putin and Lyudmila Shkrebneva registered their marriage in the Wedding Palace on Petr Lavrov Street. Lyudmila was then in her third session. The event was celebrated on a Neva steamship. We do not know if they rented the whole steamship or modestly partied in the bar. After the marriage the newly weds started to live in the house of Putin’s parents. Again we do not know if it was in the communal apartment or the country house in Tosno.

  According to their neighbors in Saint Petersburg, Lyudmila was a shy and a friendly person. She rarely used make-up. We do not know if children were afraid of her.

  IN THE “OTSTOYNIK” (CONTINUED)

  There are many rumors about Putin’s activities in the GDR. Obviously, both Russian and German mass media became interested in these activities only after VVP became president of the Russian federation. I will enumerate here the principal rumors, pointing out that KGB officials of that time do not confirm these rumors. Particularly the KGB chairman under Gorbachev V. Kryuchkov did not confirm one of them.

  So, here are the rumors. Unconfirmed. Supposedly the group Putin was part of, was trying to obtain western technologies. Supposedly, through foreign specialists who were visiting Dresden’s Robotron factory (it was producing computers for all socialist countries) and also through western specialists who were visiting Dresden’s university. Supposedly, the specialists and businessmen were lodged in the Bellevue hotel where they were attended by prostitutes recruited by Stasi. It is unclear what did the soviet agents do in this case? Supervised the prostitutes recruited by Stasi? It is not the most worthy activity for a future president. The Moskovski Komsomoletz newspaper from 18. 08. 1999 has advanced the version that Putin was supervising the behavior of soviet students in the GDR. The German Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper was then affirming that Putin was controlling the secretary of Dresden’s department of GDR’s Socialist United Party Hans Modrov and was also tracking drown anticommunist protest actions in the GDR. Although Rundschau situates Putin’s stay in the GDR in 1980.

  The Versia newspaper on 01.18-21.2000 wrote that from Dresden Putin was sent for some time to the city of Leipzig, where he supposedly directed the House of soviet-German friendship (according to other sources: the Soviet Army Club). However the Germans correctly point out that the House of soviet science and culture was not in Leipzig but Berlin. So this is a hoax. Nevertheless, some Russian mass media were so carried away that they affirmed that supposedly from Leipzig Putin controlled the whole net of soviet special services in West Germany. Well, naturally the media want the future president to have done something heroic in the past. The rumors category exaggerating lieutenant colonel Putin’s service in Germany also contains Putin’s supposed participation in the operation “Beam”. The operation consisted of recruiting leading functionaries of the ruling Socialist United Party of Germany and GDR functionaries in the expectation of GDR’s surrender to the West organized by Gorbachev. Beside this, during the operation it was supposedly planned to guarantee the safety of the soviet secret services and local security staff.

  Putin’s leadership in the “Beam” operation was not confirmed by KGB’s leader at that time Vladimir Kryuchkov.

  According to German newspapers Putin was not sticking out among the other soviet officers. In his free time he studied German literature, he was especially interested in Goethe and Shiller. In Germany he joined the fishermen’s club where he surprised even the Germans with his pedantry. When Putin’s bosses were arriving in Dresden he was taking them for a beer and local sightseeing. German sources deny that Putin was permanently stationed in Leipzig and affirm that his permanent workplace was still Dresden. And the fact that some servile media want to see Putin in Leipzig during that period is easily explained: in 1989 Leipzig was visited by Mikhail Gorbachev after what the GDR started its surrender to the West. Some Putin’s fans would like to see him actively participating in this activity.

  There is a stable opinion in Germany and in Russia among professionals of journalistic investigations that Putin has not done any spying activity as such, meaning illegal work, but has directed the human resources and economic part in general.

  In 1987 in the summer Putin left Dresden for Leningrad because he was going to receive a new apartment, since the house, in which he lived was being resettled.

  In the beginning of 1990 Putin was called back from his foreign service. Yuri Shutov, Sobchak’s former assistant who has been detained for several years now affirms that Putin was returned to Leningrad because “he was noted in an unsanctioned contact with a representative of the enemy’s special services net”. However Shutov does not provide evidence. More convincing is the version of KGB’s former head Vladimir Kryuchkov that “Putin was directed to work in the GDR for a planned five years and after the end of this term he went back because he did not prove his worth in anyway in order to stay for executing additional projects. ” (Moskovskie Novosti 2000 issue 3). Kryuchkov’s version about the mediocrity of Putin’s work in Germany was confirmed by Markus Wolf, Stasi’s former head. Putin leaves the KGB in 1991.

  Putin himself explained his resignation by his disappointment during the collapse of the USSR and the security bodies. In his words “he felt that the country no longer needs him”. Possibly both versions are right: Putin was disappointed with the KGB and the KGB was disappointed with Putin, there was no need to promote an average officer. And if the
rumors about Putin’s early failure in Bonn in 1975 are true, then the unmasked and arrested agent was rejected from the start, he could not be used in capitalist countries, he could work only in socialist countries and therefore was not worth much from the beginning.

  WITH SOBCHAK

  So, in the beginning of 1990 Putin is in Leningrad again. The rector of Leningrad’s State University Stanislav Merkuriev hires him on an insignificant post, as the prorector’s assistant on international matters. Through Merkuriev Putin has resumed his relationship with Anatoly Sobchak, elected in May 1990 as Lensovet’s chairman. Supposedly, Merkuriev recommended Putin as an efficient worker. Sobchak, supposedly, recalled his student and hired him. There exists however a likely version that Putin was appointed to look after Sobchak by the KGB. There is also a version that Sobchak has asked for Putin because he knew him personally and trusted him more. Still, according to the Novy Petersburg Newspaper version (December 24th 1998) Sobchak, supposedly was a KGB informer in the University in the past and as such could have even been Putin’s subordinate. Whatever it was, from May 1990 till May 1991 Putin really executed the functions of Lensovet’s chairman A. Sobchak’s assistant, reviewer, secretary and proxy.

  Although there is information that Sobchak’s democratic circle was in shock when they heard whom Sobchak had made his retainer, in reality Putin was insignificant and hardly known to anyone. In June 12th 1991, after the mayor’s elections on which Sobchak won Putin was appointed chairman of the Committee on the mayor’s external relations. He occupied this post during six years. Many people who have become famous in the country now worked with him in the Committee. Alexey Kudrin was the deputy chairman of the Committee on economic development. Dmitry Medvedev was the Committee’s expert. Alexey Miller was a Committee member. Besides, German Gref was working as the chairman of the Committee on property management. Dmitry Kozak was the chairman of the Law Committee, Viktor Ivanov headed the Department of administrative bodies of the city hall, Igor Sechin was the staff head of the chairman of the Committee on V. V. Putin’s external relations. Anatoly Chubais was around; he was the mayor’s senior adviser on economic matters.