From the "Hamburger Abendblatt"
April 1, 1998Parliament wants to question new executive chief
Moscow - Has the Scientology sect already gotten its foot in the door of the Russian government? Sergei Kirijenko, named by President Boris Jeltsin as candidate for Minister President, was confronted with a completely unexpected question last Friday before the first election in the Duma.
In his years as a business entrepreneur, Kirijenko had contact with the Scientology sect in Nischnij Novgorod, the sect commissioner of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexander Dvorkin, told the "Hamburger Abendblatt."
Kirijenko, as director of the Garantia Bank, attended a one-week seminar at the Hubbard College of Administration in Nischnij Novgorod in 1995, continued Dvorkin. He had also sent the management of his bank there. Kirijenko is said to have been particularly impressed with "the simplicity and clarity" of the Scientologists.
Boris Nemzov, First Vice Premier of the prior Russian administration, tried to take Kirijenko under his wing yesterday. The candidate for Premier Minister finds himself in a situation "in which information of this sort is bound to come up. He will have expected it and is hardly amazed," said Nemzov. Nevertheless, he said nothing to address the matter at hand.
Last year, Nemzov brought the unknown and just-turned-35-year-old Kirijenko from the province to Moscow and paved the way for him in the management of the department of energy.
Nemzov himself has fallen under a shadow of suspicion. One of his staff, Michail Teodorowitch, is also supposed to have been a "graduate" of the Hubbard College at Nischnij Novgorod.
Sect experts fear that Kirijenko could represent a security risk for the administration. Scientology, according to critics, seeks world domination. In the event that the sect has a folder containing (possibly intimate) discussions with him, he could be a potential target of blackmail. The Russian representatives wish to question Kirijenko in detail on this subject on Friday.
(SAD)