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By Mike Eckel
Political leaders and observers in Primorye are offering tentative support to the country’s new prime minister Yevgeny Primakov. But they’re making uncertain predictions about what Primorye might get out of it all. “He’s a centrist and diplomat,” commented Grigory Ovrakh, political science professor and chairman of the Department of Political Science and Social Administration at the Vladivostok Institute for Intersnational Relations. “But it’s still much too early to make any concrete predictions about what this will mean for Primorye.” In a statement Sept. 14, Gov. Yevgeny Nazdratenko said he supported the federal Duma’s Sept. 11th vote to name the former spy master, academic, and Foreign Minister to the post of prime minister, given the semi-paralysis that has afflicted the country. “In the current conditions, Russian regions should give universal cooperation to the new government in finding a way out of the current crisis,” Nazdratenko said. “Above all, this needs to be rigorous observance of federal laws and the fulfillment of tax obligations.” For Primorye, the greatest concern is the pending federal transfers to the krai budget, whose status remains in limbo, said Nazdratenko. Interfax-Eurasia reported that Nazdratenko met with the new premier Sept. 11 to discuss pending federal budget transfers to Primorye. Contrary to rumor, no discussion took place of Nazdratenko’s joining the government, the news agency stated. Primorye Duma Chairman Sergei Dudnik sounded a note of support for the new prime minister during a press conference Sept. 14. Dudnik observed that Primakov’s economic background and his awareness of the region’s geographic significance to the Asian Pacific Rim, might signal a shift in policy in Moscow vis-a-vis Primorye’s east and southeastern attentions. It was Primakov who spearheaded efforts to open the formerly closed city of Vladivostok to the outside in 1992. “That we’ve already begun to move politically towards Asia, this is evident,” Dudnik said. “With [Primakov’s] election, I think we’ll see a distinct change from an economic perspective.” He also hailed Primakov’s controversial appointment of Viktor Gerashchenko to head the Central Bank, saying Gerashchenko represented “a second generation of bankers who are respected in Russia and abroad.” “Primakov will find talented, professional personnel who will find an exit from this crisis,” he predicted. To Primorye’s benefit, says Vitaly Polyakov, assistant professor of history at the Vladivostok Institute for International Relations, is the fact that Primakov is no stranger to the region and its academic community. In the 1970s and 1980s, he regularly visited as director of the Moscow-based Institute of World Economics and International Relations, to participate in symposia and conferences on the role of the Far East in economics of the Asian Pacific Rim. “Primakov is an intellectual well acquainted with Asia, a true vostochnik [easterner],” said Polyakov. Furthermore, Polyakov noted, Primakov is facing growing centrifugal forces on the periphery, as regional leaders and regional elites distance themselves from the “Separate Country of Moscow.” Sakhalin Gov. Igor Farkhutdinov warned Sept. 9 of the “beginning of Russia’s dissolution” should the question of federal subsidies to the regions and regional payments to the federal budget remain unresolved. Polyakov said that Primakov will be forced to turn his attention towards questions of nationalism and the development of the non-Moscow periphery, and Primorye and its laundry list of economic and political problems, should top the list of pressing regional concerns, he said.
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