The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

THE MAN

WITHOUT

A FACE

RIVERHEAD BOOKS

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

New York

2012

THE MAN

WITHOUT

A FACE

The Unlikely Rise of

VLADIMIR PUTIN

Masha Gessen

RIVERHEAD BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA •

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario

M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia),

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Copyright © 2012 by Masha Gessen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gessen, Masha.

The man without a face : the unlikely rise of Vladimir Putin /

Masha Gessen.

p.          cm.

EISBN: 9781101560600

1. Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1952–.   2. Presidents—Russia (Federation).

3. Russia (Federation)—Politics and government—1991–.   I. Title.

DK510.766.P87G47 2012 2011047578

947.0862092—dc23

[B]

Printed in the United States of America

1   3   5   7   9   10   8   6   4   2

BOOK DESIGN BY AMANDA DEWEY

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

CONTENTS

Prologue

One.

THE ACCIDENTAL PRESIDENT

Two.

THE ELECTION WAR

Three.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THUG

Four.

ONCE A SPY

Five.

A COUP AND A CRUSADE

Six.

THE END OF A REFORMER

Seven.

THE DAY THE MEDIA DIED

Eight.

THE DISMANTLING OF DEMOCRACY

Nine.

RULE OF TERROR

Ten.

INSATIABLE GREED

Eleven.

BACK TO THE USSR

Epilogue: A Week in December

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

PROLOGUE

I woke up because someone was shaking me. Kate’s face looked terrified. “They are saying something about Galina on the radio,” she half whispered. “And a gun. I think … I don’t understand.”

I got out of bed and stumbled into the tiny kitchen, where Kate had been making breakfast and listening to Echo Moskvy, the country’s best news and talk radio station. It was a Saturday morning, unusually light and crisp for November in Moscow. And I was not worried: somehow, Kate’s fear did not impress me. Whatever she had heard—or, with her limited Russian, misheard—might be the beginning of yet another great story. As the chief correspondent for Russia’s leading newsmagazine, Itogi, I felt all great stories were my fiefdom. And there were a lot of great stories. In a country that was inventing itself, every city, every family, and every institution was, in some sense, uncharted territory. The year was 1998. Since the early 1990s, virtually every piece I wrote was a tale no one had told before: I spent about half my time outside Moscow, traveling to conflict zones and gold mines, orphanages and universities, abandoned villages and burgeoning oil towns, writing their stories. The magazine, which was owned and financed by the same magnate as Echo Moskvy, rewarded me by never questioning my extravagant travel schedule and by frequently placing my stories on the cover.