Two things burst upon the eye when looking at the reshuffling in the government and President’s Administration. First, no one disappeared anywhere, and the outgoing people left for business at least. The new bureaucratic establishment has formed within the ruling class, as it was pointed neatly by Alexei Makarkin. Like it was in soviet times, when a person does not cope with his position, he gets another appointment. It’s no good firing such people as they know too much and can begin to talk. If they had appointed Kasyanov to be the mayor of Moscow or the head of the Federation Council (as he wished) instead of dismissing him, no mess would have been made up because of him. 

Second thing is that all those celebrtaed – who found themselves to be in the center of some scandal or who shouted too much – were demoted.   

The biggest loser is Sergei Ivanov. They say Putin promised him presidential office. That was just a test, and Mr. Ivanov took it for real promise. We all watched Sergei Borisovich telling us nothing to have happened to the private Sychev (a celebrated incident in the Russian army) as it was not reported to him. We watched him and made conjectures what kind of president would come out of that man. And Putin reflected about it too. Well, too high self-opinion by Sergei Ivanov about his own impeccability resulted in degraded position of the deputy prime minister, even without the comforting adjective “first”. 

Another loser is Igor Sechin, the head of the most influential Kremlin’s group of the enforcers. The position of Mr. Sechin was called “The President Has Commissioned Me This Morning”. It was clear that Mr. Sechin was to be taken away that post with the new president. Actually, Putin had three options: to leave Sechin at his position where Medvedev wouldn’t commission him anything (the sadist option); to appoint Sechin to be the head of FSB (the strong option); to take Igor Sechin with himself which is the least problematic option, and it was characteristic of all the previous steps in Sechin’s coming up the ladder.     

Anyway, the position titled “The President Has Commissioned Me This Morning” is over. And finished are the careers of all other members of the group: Patrushev went to an honorable pension as the head of the Security Council after being the director of the omnipotent FSB; Sechin’s relative and former Prosecutor General Ustinov left the ministry of justice; Viktor Ivanov also left for unknown yet activity.  

What happened to the Sechin’s group was equal to what happened to Sergei Ivanov. We all watched them arrest General Bulbov in a celebrated manner, and Putin watched that too. And he didn’t like either what he saw.

Along with the decline of Sechin-Patrushev-Ustinov-Ivanov very logically was giving the sack to Viktor Cherkesov, the head of the State Drug Control Agency, the famous hunter after veterinaries and sellers of ethyl ether. I would dare to assume that the matter was not only getting rid of counterbalance. Probably, it was done because Cherkesov was too loud again. He made amused everyone with his lawsuits against veterinaries, except the vets themselves. However, Mr. Cherkesov was granted a great pension – the position of the head of Rosoboronpostavka (a state defense enterprise). The only cooler thing could have been giving him the machine for printing money!    

Not bad pension benefit of $4,000,000,000 came to the former head of ministry of communication network Leonid Reimann, who jumped to the Forbes list right out of his ministerial office. Mr. Reimann again has suffered because of too much attention attracted to him. And that was not his fault. Generally, there is a good tradition of associations in Russia: the minister of communications is associated to “Megaphone” Company; the minister of finance is connected to “KIT-Finans”; the minister of transport is related to “Severstaltrans” and so forth.   

Reimann was unlucky because 25% of the Megaphone stock got laundered and further lawsuits, especially those carried out in the West, got exposed many details about telecommunications deals of “St Petersburg-period” Putin’s times and about real owners of St Petersburg “Telekominvest”. So if the West was really against Vladimir Vladimirovich, everyone could have had real problems.  

In short, when it came to digging up “St Petersburg bones” in the western courts, a strict order was given and the entire Megaphone – with all its scandals, bones and skeletons in the cupboard – was bought by Alisher Usmanov just one day before the resignation of the minister who turned into a “cashed down” businessman and a Zurabov’s fellow in terms of honorable position of the advisor to the President. Now it’s clear which way the Kudrin’s enemies should have acted. Instead of arresting Storchak they should have stolen half of “KIT-Finans” Company.