In Moscow, they said goodbye to the former head of the presidential administration Sergei Filatov

The farewell ceremony for the former head of the presidential administration, chairman of the Writers’ Union of Moscow, Sergei Filatov, took place on Tuesday in the ritual hall of the Central Clinical Hospital No. 1 of the Presidential Administration. The funeral took place at the Troekurovsky cemetery.

Sergey Filatov died in Moscow on August 25 at the age of 87 from blood diseases. It’s probably not quite correct to say so, but the second head of the Russian presidential administration (Filatov headed it in January 1993 at the age of 56) will remain in the memory of many people thanks to his pleasant face. There were not so many people at the Russian political top of those years about whom the same could be said.

With all the riot of political vicissitudes of the 1990s, which undoubtedly affected Sergey Filatov to the full extent, there was something pacifying in him.

There were enough charismatics, heroes and scoundrels around, and this was just a man who was born, grew up, studied and worked in Moscow, and in difficult turbulent times did not hide, did not lose his head, but shrugged his shoulders and set to work that fell to him, different from that I am used to – the work of a deputy, deputy chairman of parliament, a member of the Security Council, and finally, the head of the Kremlin administration.

The time was such when any position of such a rank becomes a firing squad, if not literally, then figuratively. It included the conflict between the president and the Supreme Council (1993), the first war in Chechnya (1994-1996), and the beginning of the campaign to nominate Yeltsin for a second term (1996), which still generates irreconcilable disputes between those who believe that democracy was then saved, and by those who believe it was strangled. Sergei Filatov himself believed that Yeltsin needed to stay; he moved from the administration to work at the campaign headquarters.

However, in the same 1996, Sergei Filatov left the civil service, but remained publicly active. He created and headed the Foundation for Socio-Economic and Intellectual Programs, was the chairman of the expert council of the Attention Charitable Foundation, which helped, among other things, children with acute forms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was a member of the Union of Journalists, headed the Writers’ Union of Moscow.

This last role was by no means episodic for him. Filatov was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Big Book Prize, served on the board of the Russian Book Union, established (in 2003) the Lipki Forum of Young Writers – the event was last held in 2021, and this year, after a break, start accepting applications.

All this public activity, not too noisy, but involving a lot of people, seemed to show an example of the life of a politician after retirement, not exactly typical of our country.

And at this time, Filatov’s face, in which calmness and nobility have increased over the years, united people with often diametrically opposed views. For example, he himself signed an open appeal in 2014 in support of holding a congress “Against war, self-isolation and the restoration of totalitarianism” – but his position on this issue did not prevent him from communicating and cooperating with political opponents for years, who now speak of him with gratitude.

Farewell to Sergei Filatov also brought together very different people.

Ex-premier Sergei Stepashin and journalist Alexei Venediktov (recognized as a foreign agent), former head of Dagestan Ramazan Abdulatipov and ex-chairman of the Presidential Council for Human Rights Mikhail Fedotov, translator and poet Galina Klimova and writer and communist deputy arrived at the morgue on Marshal Timoshenko Street Sergei Shargunov. “He reached everyone,” said Ramazan Abdulatipov about Filatov. Sergei Shargunov recalled how “paternally open and easy” Filatov communicated with young writers, among whom were not only ideological opponents, but also people from different sides of the armed conflict in Ukraine.

Perhaps, from the obvious difference in the views of those gathered at this farewell, unlike many similar ones, there did not seem to be a feeling of a dull gathering of the former, who disperse from the ritual hall to nowhere. For some reason, it seems that this farewell was about the fact that at any time and with any ideological differences, it is important to continue to do your job and take care of your garden.

The widow of the first president of Russia, Naina Yeltsina, sent a letter of condolence to the relatives of the deceased: in Sergei Filatov, “Boris Nikolayevich found a man whose decency you can always rely on. His reputation has always been impeccable.” A telegram of condolences was also sent by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

Ivan Tyazhlov