Andrew E. Kramer The New York Times Media Group
International Herald Tribune
12-12-2007
Putin's young, 'spoil nothing' candidate Medvedev is emblem of post- Communism
Byline: Andrew E. Kramer The New York Times Media Group
Edition: 1
Section: NEWS
MOSCOW --
Dmitri Medvedev's quick ascent owes much to Vladimir Putin, the man who endorsed him as his successor. Critics dismiss Medvedev as a colorless bureaucrat who got lucky, saying he was chosen by Putin as a man easily manipulated so Putin can remain a power behind the throne.
When asked this year what qualities a candidate for president should possess, Medvedev, a bookish 42-year-old former academic from St. Petersburg who served most of his career as an aide to Putin, answered simply.
'Any seeker of this position should indicate that if he is elected, he will spoil nothing' of Putin's work, he said.
On Tuesday, he appealed to Putin to agree 'to head the Russian government' as prime minister 'after the election of the new president of our country,' The Associated Press reported.
Short, boyish with a tuft of brown hair and sometimes described as socially awkward, Medvedev is also praised for a sharp and lawyerly intellect. He has also let drop hints that he indeed belongs to a younger generation: Medvedev is a fan of heavy metal and attended a Scorpions concert in St. Petersburg this year.
If he wins election to the presidency in March, he will become Russia's youngest leader since Czar Nicholas II assumed the throne in 1894, at 26.
Medvedev is the son of St. Petersburg intelligentsia - his father an engineering professor, his mother a language teacher - and his career has fallen almost entirely into the post-Communist period, a first for a prospective Russian leader. He began working for Putin in 1990, at the age of 24.
Olga Kurnosova was a member of the St. Petersburg city council in the early 1990s, when Medvedev was a legal adviser to the Committee on External Relations in the mayor's office, which Putin headed.
'Putin himself was an unremarkable character, and even more so Medvedev,' said Kurnosova, who now works for the opposition candidate and former chess champion Garry Kasparov. 'He could pour a cup of coffee if he had to.'
Dmitri Anatolevich Medvedev was born Sept. 14, 1965, in Leningrad, the city now called St. Petersburg, and grew up in a tenement housing block in an outlying district near the airport. Medvedev followed in his parents' footsteps to become a law professor at St. Petersburg University in 1990, as the Soviet Union was falling apart, though he also took outside work.
Medvedev worked as general counsel for Ilim Pulp, a timber company, from 1993 to 1999. He is married and has a son.
When his hometown became, briefly, an epicenter of liberal politics in Russia, Medvedev remained a man on the sidelines, said Leonid Keselman, a political scientist at the Center for the Study of Social Processes in St. Petersburg.
'His was a modest role; he was a man in the shadows,' Keselman said. 'He was an economist, a technocrat. He was not a public man, and that is what he remains.'
In a collection of interviews published as a book in 2000, called 'In the First Person,' Putin showed his closeness to Medvedev by referring to him with the diminutive form of his first name, Dima.
Putin chose Medvedev to run his 2000 presidential campaign, and the aide rose quickly in the Kremlin thereafter. In 2002, he was appointed chairman of the board of Gazprom, the Russian natural gas monopoly, and halted the stripping of assets by insiders that had hobbled the company's growth. Gazprom's market capitalization is now $345 billion.
Medvedev also presided over Gazprom's politically tinged gas pricing disputes with Ukraine and other Russian neighbors. In government, Medvedev allocated oil windfall profits for social spending in what were called National Projects, controlling billions of dollars of discretionary funds for agriculture, education, health care and housing, a position analysts said was calculated to bolster his popularity.
A favorite of foreign investors, Medvedev represented Russia at the World Economic Forum in January in Davos, Switzerland. That appearance was taken as a sign of his ascendancy.
Still, to many, Putin's endorsement came as a surprise.
'He was one of many aides from early on,' said Nikolai Kovarsky, a business consultant close to the reformist wing in the government. 'He was not at the level to enable any outsider to think he would ever reach that high.'
'It's very beneficial,' he said. 'He's sharp, he's young, and he's from a completely new generation of politicians.'
(Copyright 2007)
International Herald Tribune
12-12-2007
Putin's young, 'spoil nothing' candidate Medvedev is emblem of post- Communism
Byline: Andrew E. Kramer The New York Times Media Group
Edition: 1
Section: NEWS
MOSCOW --
Dmitri Medvedev's quick ascent owes much to Vladimir Putin, the man who endorsed him as his successor. Critics dismiss Medvedev as a colorless bureaucrat who got lucky, saying he was chosen by Putin as a man easily manipulated so Putin can remain a power behind the throne.
When asked this year what qualities a candidate for president should possess, Medvedev, a bookish 42-year-old former academic from St. Petersburg who served most of his career as an aide to Putin, answered simply.
'Any seeker of this position should indicate that if he is elected, he will spoil nothing' of Putin's work, he said.
On Tuesday, he appealed to Putin to agree 'to head the Russian government' as prime minister 'after the election of the new president of our country,' The Associated Press reported.
Short, boyish with a tuft of brown hair and sometimes described as socially awkward, Medvedev is also praised for a sharp and lawyerly intellect. He has also let drop hints that he indeed belongs to a younger generation: Medvedev is a fan of heavy metal and attended a Scorpions concert in St. Petersburg this year.
If he wins election to the presidency in March, he will become Russia's youngest leader since Czar Nicholas II assumed the throne in 1894, at 26.
Medvedev is the son of St. Petersburg intelligentsia - his father an engineering professor, his mother a language teacher - and his career has fallen almost entirely into the post-Communist period, a first for a prospective Russian leader. He began working for Putin in 1990, at the age of 24.
Olga Kurnosova was a member of the St. Petersburg city council in the early 1990s, when Medvedev was a legal adviser to the Committee on External Relations in the mayor's office, which Putin headed.
'Putin himself was an unremarkable character, and even more so Medvedev,' said Kurnosova, who now works for the opposition candidate and former chess champion Garry Kasparov. 'He could pour a cup of coffee if he had to.'
Dmitri Anatolevich Medvedev was born Sept. 14, 1965, in Leningrad, the city now called St. Petersburg, and grew up in a tenement housing block in an outlying district near the airport. Medvedev followed in his parents' footsteps to become a law professor at St. Petersburg University in 1990, as the Soviet Union was falling apart, though he also took outside work.
Medvedev worked as general counsel for Ilim Pulp, a timber company, from 1993 to 1999. He is married and has a son.
When his hometown became, briefly, an epicenter of liberal politics in Russia, Medvedev remained a man on the sidelines, said Leonid Keselman, a political scientist at the Center for the Study of Social Processes in St. Petersburg.
'His was a modest role; he was a man in the shadows,' Keselman said. 'He was an economist, a technocrat. He was not a public man, and that is what he remains.'
In a collection of interviews published as a book in 2000, called 'In the First Person,' Putin showed his closeness to Medvedev by referring to him with the diminutive form of his first name, Dima.
Putin chose Medvedev to run his 2000 presidential campaign, and the aide rose quickly in the Kremlin thereafter. In 2002, he was appointed chairman of the board of Gazprom, the Russian natural gas monopoly, and halted the stripping of assets by insiders that had hobbled the company's growth. Gazprom's market capitalization is now $345 billion.
Medvedev also presided over Gazprom's politically tinged gas pricing disputes with Ukraine and other Russian neighbors. In government, Medvedev allocated oil windfall profits for social spending in what were called National Projects, controlling billions of dollars of discretionary funds for agriculture, education, health care and housing, a position analysts said was calculated to bolster his popularity.
A favorite of foreign investors, Medvedev represented Russia at the World Economic Forum in January in Davos, Switzerland. That appearance was taken as a sign of his ascendancy.
Still, to many, Putin's endorsement came as a surprise.
'He was one of many aides from early on,' said Nikolai Kovarsky, a business consultant close to the reformist wing in the government. 'He was not at the level to enable any outsider to think he would ever reach that high.'
'It's very beneficial,' he said. 'He's sharp, he's young, and he's from a completely new generation of politicians.'
(Copyright 2007)
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