Biznes wrote that this new trend meant that the Kremlin and the municipal leaders of Moscow had struck a deal on the future of Moscow without the incumbent mayor, Yury Luzhkov, whose term expires in December 2007.
According to the paper, there are signs that the Kremlin has agreed to a big "severance payment" in the form of new highly paid jobs for Luzhkov's subordinates. The price of the deal is the post of the Moscow mayor, which is unofficially regarded as the third highest in Russia after the posts of the president and the premier.
Once the second most senior figure in the Moscow hierarchy as deputy mayor, Valery Shantsev was recently appointed governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region (European Russia) upon Vladimir Putin's recommendation. A similar post has been chosen for another prominent Luzhkov supporter, Georgy Boos, who is a vice speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. He has been nominated for the governorship of the Kaliningrad region, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea.
There are two notable facts. First, influential figures in the Moscow establishment are being offered posts out of Moscow, though it would have been simpler to give them senior posts in federal bodies of power. Second, members of the Moscow team are being appointed to influential Russian regions.
Tycoons are being offered positions in the Russian Far East in the hope that their money would help revive the impoverished regions. Billionaire Roman Abramovich will most probably keep his post as Chukotka governor, and Viktor Vekselberg, the head of TNK-BP, is rumored to be in line for the governorship of Kamchatka. But Muscovites are offered rather cushy numbers in Russian terms.
It is not yet clear who will become the next Moscow mayor, but he will certainly come from the president's inner circle. On the other hand, it is evident that his team from his home city of St. Petersburg, although it is very influential, has to fulfill certain conditions advanced by the Moscow clan before it can gain control over Moscow, the newspaper said.
