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THE MAYOR OF MOSCOW AND THE MAYOR OF WASHINGTON, D. C. Moscow is a city like no other. This ancient city of has seen the rise and fall of empires. It has been the home of rulers and despots, a token of war and an envisioned destiny for many. Yet never has it seen the likes of the last decade.
The center of power for the world's largest country, Moscow is something of a powerful symbol, a center of power, and in its most simple form, a municipal city. Yet this is the great intangible mystique of Moscow. The physical city, and its leaders, are more than just leaders and she is more than just a city. At the center of the daily management of Russia's most important city is the Mayor of Moscow. Unlike what the West considers a mayor's job, Moscow's mayor goes far beyond just managing the city. He is not simply an elected municipal leader.
He reports directly to the President of Russia. He is inherently virtually a Muscovite dictator and national political bear. And though Russia shrugged off Communism, it certainly hasn't installed an established and lasting system, especially at the municipal level. This has left the Mayor of Moscow with unprecedented power to do as he sees fit, especially as long as Moscow continues to experience prosperity untouched by the rest of the nation. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, no Russian icon has changed more than the city of Moscow. Though there is only one real dynamic figure to take this office, Yuri Luzhkov has truly been the spearhead in this change.
In order to better understand its unique politics, one must first understand Moscow's basic setting. It is not only the capital of the nation of Russia, but also of the Moscow oblast (region). The oblast has a gubernatorial executive. In other oblasts, the regional governor is the power point. In Moscow, oblast and city, it is the mayor who maintains the greatest power. The politics of this are far reaching, for example is the most recent election of the Moscow Oblast's governor.
In January of 2000, Acting President Putin supported Gennadiy Seleznyov, just to oppose Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's ally. Luzhkov's candidate won. Going against personal wishes, but attuning to the political climate of Russia, Putin then desires to appoint Luzhkov as a deputy minister of new, powerful regional council. l 2 As with all of Russia, the pivotal has been economics. Moscow's Mayors Office has taken a more than active role in seeing prosperity in Moscow, if nowhere else. Luzhkov likes to refer to himself as a khoziaistvenik (business manager).
He is visibly at ease discussing business plans and financial flows. Unlike most Russian managers, he has a good head for facts and figures. Even more unusual for a Russian, he neither smokes nor drinks. But he rules Moscow with an iron fist. In December of 98, he even imposed Christmas spirit by decree. "All stores and restaurants around the capital had to put p Christmas and New Year's decorations. 3 " Luzhkov runs Moscow on a two-tier basis. Apart from the $ 8 billion official budget, there is an "unofficial" budget, where revenues from city-owned businesses and buildings get directed to construction of new apartment blocks, schools, shopping malls, stadiums and roads.
Moscow officials put the size of this budget at about $ 4 billion. Most people think it's a lot bigger than that. 4 Rival and presidential contender, General Alexander Lebed, describes the problem with this politics, "Russia has long been sick with symptoms of a dinosaur -- a huge body and tiny head. By the time a signal from the head passes through the body and reaches the tail, it is already time to turn in the other direction. " But Lebed, the sting of Moscow's czar. During the 2000 campaign, Forbes magazine went to interview Lebed as his Moscow campaign headquarters near Teriyaki Gallery. The rooms were not only modest, but very bare and empty; just "cheap linoleum and fluorescent lighting. " Early in the interview, Lebed tells of Moscow's hard-hitting politics, "Luzhkov is trying to evict us. The building has been declared an architectural monument and we " ve been told we have to go. " Regardless, Moscow has become an oasis of prosperity in a ravaged nation.
In 1996 Luzhkov was reelected mayor with 90 % of the vote. Whereas rivals clash with mafia and special interests, Luzhkov coexists with them in the Russian capital; but he makes them cough up big money in return. In a recent interview, Mayor Luzhkov was asked why the city of Moscow has successfully retained so much control. "We say that privatization is necessary to create new owners who will manage the factories better than the old, but that is possible only if the factories are sold for real money, so the new owner has to work to make a return on his investment. " 5 The mayor's office opinion is simple, "We have to have a flexible policy. If an enterprise is working well and improving itself, don't touch it. Forget about how the new owner obtained it. " The Mayor's office has demised a mafia esque plan of doing this. Unlike the rest of Russia, Moscow is exempt to the privatization rules of Yeltsin's government.
The city still controls property and the sale of it. Thus, you can still buy property, but the mayor's office decides how much it will cost you and where the proceeds will go. As communism collapsed, Luzhkov simply grabbed many of the best Moscow enterprises and properties for the city government. He has assembled a great business empire with more than half the working population of Moscow directly -- or indirectly -- on the municipal payroll. 6 The City of Moscow owns and operates two big auto plants, an oil company, several big construction firms, part of the local phone and electric utilities, a TV network, two fast food chains (including part of the local McDonald's), dozens of food processing plants, several big hotels, and hundreds of shops and restaurants.
This economic plan doesn't believe in price controls, but favors a highly interventionist government policy to spur Russia's industrial revival. He wants to use the government's position as monopoly supplier of electricity, gas, and rail transport to run those businesses -- at a loss, if necessary -- in order to bring down the basic costs of living and doing business. No free trader, he advocates tariffs to protect inefficient Russian industries as a means of spurring the generation of money. Additionally, the Mayor's office has gone out of its way to bring foreign capital into Moscow. The city has attracted $ 12 billion in direct investment and credits, the lion's share of all such funds invested in Russia. The city is home to some 5, 000 foreign companies and joint ventures.
Moscow's next, and most ambitious project is the new financial district, Siti, an 8 billion dollar project to be crowned by the 115 floor Russian Tower. The greatest extortion involves taxes. Most of the biggest Russian companies are registered and pay their taxes in Moscow. Most of the money never leaves the city. Consider Gazprom, the gigantic natural gas utility. It pumps its gas from Western Siberia, pipes it across the length of European Russia and sells it in Germany, Italy and France.
Gazprom pays its taxes in Moscow and there most of the money stays. 7 But the municipality of Moscow reaches far beyond the ring. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has steeped his national power especially deeply with the beginning of his own political party. "Russia Homeland" is a nationalistic party founded by Luzhkov, giving him a basis of national support and a much more far reaching platform. Yet Fatherland politics have been inflammatory. In an interview with Note Ivestiya on 25 September, Samara Governor Konstantin Titov blasted the Moscow city government for its policies vis-a-vis non- Muscovites, saying that Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov "is hunting down Caucasians, has turned Moscow into a screening camp, and is eliciting a chauvinistic wave in this multinational state. " Titov, who is also head of the Voice of Russia bloc, which is aligned with Right Cause and New Force, said that Luzhkov's policy "threatens the stability of Russia no less than terrorism. " Two days later, Saratov Governor Dmitri Ayatskov, who is a member of Our Home Is Russia, told ITAR-TASS that his region will "not allow civil rights to be infringed upon or people divided on an ethnic basis. " The governor added that he is planning to meet with members of the local Chechen diaspora to discuss their involvement in settling the North Caucasus conflict. 8 This has gone on to affect Moscow politics, with a greater concern over anti-Semitic relations and the influx of Russians to the prosperous city.
Washington, DC, The Federal City, has faced immense change in its short 200 years. In modern times, Washington has been plagued with the nation's highest murder rate, high poverty levels and poor education, Washington is still home to the US Federal Government. Behind the US Capitol is a slum. Down the road from the White House is the nation's crime capital. But it is still the center of American political power, the base of Congress, the Supreme Court, DOD, the President. the central nervous system of American government.
But these are just guests in the city of Washington. The city itself, a non-state District has nonvoting representation in Congress and receives its budget from local taxes and federal monies. The city has been plagued by its last mayor, Marion Berry. Following years of simply foolish remarks and policies, plus incidents regarding prostitutes and a cocaine habit, the city has turned to a new mayor. Anthony Williams, a young democrat, defeated Berry to become mayor in 1998. Williams sees DC's greatest challenge is one of reinventing itself.
Much like Rudolph Gullioni's new New York, may...
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