(单词翻译:单击)
Post-KGB Life
离开克格勃之后
The Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989, and soon after Putin and his family returned to Russia. By this point Putin held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB. However, the KGB was nearing the end of its existence, and Putin was able to find work at the State University of Saint Petersburg. He was no ordinary professor though, he was still working with the KGB. Part of his job included keeping an eye out for students who showed promise as potential new KGB recruits. Through this job, Putin was also able to reconnect with his former professor Anatoly Sobchak. Sobchak was elected the Mayor of St. Petersburg in 1991, and Putin joined his team as an adviser. He worked for Sobchak until 1996. When Sobchak lost re-election, Putin could have opted to continue working for his successor, but Putin believed that taking a job with Sobchak’s political opponent would be disloyal, and he instead chose to move to Moscow to begin working with the Yeltsin Administration.
柏林墙于1989年11月倒塌，很快普京及其家人回到俄罗斯。至此普京在克格勃中拥有中校的头衔。但是，克格勃的时日有限，普京在圣彼得堡大学找到工作。不过他不是普通的教授，他仍在为克格勃工作。他的部分工作包括关注那些有潜力成为克格勃新人的学生。通过这项工作，普京还能够与他以前的教授阿纳托利·索布查克重新建立联系。索布查克于1991年当选为圣彼得堡市市长，普京加入他的团队担任顾问。他一直为索布查克工作到1996年。当索布查克未能连任时，普京本可以选择继续为他的继任者工作，但是普京认为与索布查克的政治对手共事是不忠诚的，所以他选择搬到莫斯科，开始为叶利钦的政府工作。
Politics
政治
During Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, Putin rose through the ranks, first serving as Deputy Chief Administrator for the Kremlin, Russia’s version of the White House, and by 1999 he was named the Secretary of the Security Council and became Yeltsin’s chief advisor on matters of foreign relations and intelligence. But is was then, Putin’s career really got a boost. Yeltsin decided he didn’t want to keep his current Prime Minister, so he got rid of him.That was in August of 1999, and Putin was the beneficiary of this decision as Yeltsin named Vladimir Putin to the post. Yeltsin offered Putin the position of as a “Prime Minister with prospects,” somewhat foreshadowing the next step in Putin’s career, because only months after naming Putin as Prime Minister, Boris Yeltsin himself stepped down and Vladimir Putin became the acting President of Russia in December 1999. Then, only three months later in March of 2000, Putin was officially elected and became President of Russia in his own right.
在叶利钦担任总统期间，普京获得晋升，最初担任克里姆林宫事务管理局副局长，到1999年，他被任命为联邦安全会议秘书，并成为叶利钦在对外关系和情报事务上的首席顾问。在那时，普京的职业生涯迅速发展。叶利钦决定，他不想保留当时的总理，因此罢免了他。那是在1999年8月，普京是这一决定的受益者，叶利钦提名普京为总理。叶利钦让普京做总理是认为普京是“有前途的总理”，这在一定程度上预示了普京职业生涯的下一步，因为在普京被任命为总理仅几个月后，叶利钦本人就辞职了，普京在1999年12月成为俄罗斯代总统。然后，仅在三个月后的2000年3月，普京正式当选并成为俄罗斯总统。
Presidency
总统任期
Ten opponents ran against him for President, but he won, and for the first time in Russia’s history there was a peaceful transfer of power to a Democratically-elected President. Putin used his first term to advocate for certain international policies, including approval of the START II arms treaty, and improving relations with China. Putin was also initially supportive of the United States’ War on Terror that followed the 9.11 terrorist attacks, but he did not support the United States’ invasion of Iraq. During Putin’s first summer in power, tragedy struck Russia when the Kursk Submarine sank in the Barents Sea in August. Putin was on vacation when the sinking occurred, and he did not immediately return home to address the sinking and the deaths of all 118 crew members who had been on board. Then, when asked what went wrong for the Kursk, Putin replied starkly that: 'It sank.' Distraught and angry, Russians were attacking their President for his handling, or lack thereof, of the Kursk disaster, with some even accusing him of leaving sailors to die when a rescue might still be possible. Despite that, opinion polls showed that overall his image did not sustain much damage from the tragedy. Indeed, four years later, the Kursk tragedy did not affect his re-election at all. In 2004, the Russians re-elected Putin to a second term as their President. They were apparently pleased with the job he had been doing, as Putin received over 70% of the vote.
有十位竞争者与普京一起竞选总统，但普京获胜，这是俄罗斯历史上第一次和平地将权力移交给民选总统。普京在第一个任期内就倡导一些国际政策，包括批准《第二阶段削减战略武器条约》，还改善与中国的关系。普京最初在9.11恐怖袭击之后也支持美国发起的反恐战争，但他不支持美国入侵伊拉克。在普京执政的第一个夏天，俄罗斯在8月份遭遇悲剧，库尔斯克号潜艇在巴伦支海沉没。发生沉没事件时，普京正在休假，他没有立即返回办公室以解决沉没以及所有118名人员的死亡事件。然后，当被问到库尔斯克号出了什么问题时，普京严肃地回答说：“它沉了。”由于感到痛心和愤怒，俄罗斯人因库尔斯克灾难的处理、或缺乏处理而抨击了他们的总统，甚至有人指责普京在仍有可能进行施救时让船员丧生。尽管如此，民意测验显示，总体而言，他的形象并未因这起悲剧而遭受太大冲击。的确是这样，四年后库尔斯克号的悲剧根本没有影响他的连任。2004年，俄罗斯人再次选举普京进入第二个总统任期。普京获得超过70％的选票，显然他们对普京的工作感到满意。
Second Term
第二个任期
During his first term in office, Putin had focused on economic reforms. Having denounced communism, he instead supported an economic system that was essentially capitalism with very strict regulations and oversight. After years of economic struggle, Russia was finally beginning to see a stabilizing and even growing economy under Putin. Some reports put Russia’s growth during his first term at 7% annually. He’s still remembered favorably for this growth, though it came with increased nationalization of industry and, in part because of the mid-2000’s global financial crash, the growth did not last. But in a country whose economy was in disarray for nearly the entire decade before Putin’s rise to power, an era of growth in which disposable income nearly doubled was reason for the people to think positively of Putin. Putin continued to work on economic policies in his first term, but also made strides in foreign relations, including making a historic trip to Israel. This was the first by a Russian leader to the country.
在普京的第一个任期间，他专注于经济改革。在谴责共产主义之后，他支持一种本质上是资本主义、具有非常严格的法规和监督的经济体系。经过数年的经济行动，俄罗斯最终开始出现普京领导下经济稳定甚至增长的情况。一些报道称，俄罗斯在普京首个任期内的年增长率为7％。他仍然因这期间的增长获得正面评价，尽管这种增长是伴随着工业国有化程度的提高，一定程度上由于2000年中期的全球金融危机，这种增长并没有持续。但是在普京上台之前的整整十年中，俄罗斯经济一直处于混乱状态，一个可支配收入几乎翻倍的增长时代是人们对普京持积极态度的原因。普京继续对第一个任期内的经济政策进行改善，但在外交关系方面也取得了很大进步，包括历史性的以色列之行，这是俄罗斯领导人首次访问以色列。
Conversations between Putin and Israeli leaders focused largely on security issues. The trip garnered much attention around the world, as it came in the midst of strengthening ties between Russia and Israel, though the two nations disagreed on topics such as the Russian sale of missiles to Syria. The trip was also seen as a move by Putin to help secure Russia’s position as a key diplomatic actor in any Mideast peace discussions or agreements.Security issues were present not just abroad though, and homeland security would become a major focus for Putin. Unfortunately, this is something that became all too clear during the horrific tragedy at the Beslan School in 2004. In September, terrorists held over 1,000 people hostage at the Beslan School in North Ossetia. Nearly 800 of these hostages were children.For three days, the terrorists, demanding Chechnyan independence from Russia, held these people hostage.
普京与以色列领导人之间的对话主要集中在安全问题上。尽管两国在俄罗斯向叙利亚出售导弹等问题上存在分歧，但这次访问在俄罗斯和以色列加强联系之际引起了全世界的广泛关注。普京还认为，此行是确保任何中东和平讨论或协议中俄罗斯作为关键外交角色的举动。安全问题不仅存在于国外，国内安全也成为普京关注的重点。不幸的是，在2004年别斯兰学校的惨剧中，这一点变得更加清楚。当年9月，恐怖分子在北奥塞梯的别斯兰学校劫持了1000多名人质。这些人质中有近800人是儿童。这些恐怖分子在三天之中将这些人扣为人质，要求车臣从俄罗斯独立。
The situation ended tragically when tanks, rockets, and other artillery were used by the Russian military to try to clear the school. Special forces entered the school after hearing explosions from inside where the hostages were being kept, but their actions did not save lives. Quite the contrary, in the siege of the school, over 300 people died, nearly two-thirds of whom were children. The tragedy shook the world, and while the government was cleared of wrongdoing initially, the European Court of Human Rights later stated that Russia had used excessive force, and lacked caution, when they stormed the school.Despite anger and discontentment at the government’s handling of the tragedy, in general, it did not affect the public’s view of Putin very much at all.Quite the opposite in fact, a poll taken after the Beslan massacre stated that 83% of Russians were still happy with him.
当俄罗斯军方使用坦克、火箭弹和其他大炮试图清理学校时，事件最终出现悲惨结局。特种部队在听到劫持人质的内部出现爆炸后进入学校，但他们的行动并没有拯救生命。在围困的学校中，有300多人死亡，其中近三分之二是儿童。这场悲剧震惊了世界，尽管政府最初撇清了不当行为，但欧洲人权法院后来表示，俄罗斯部队冲进学校时过度使用了的武力，缺乏谨慎。尽管人们对政府的处置感到愤怒和不满，但从整体上看，这完全没有影响公众对普京的看法。事实上，情况恰恰相反，在别斯兰大屠杀之后进行的一项民意调查显示，仍有83％的俄罗斯人对普京感到满意。
The Beslan tragedy did lead to changes in the halls of power of the Russian government though, primarily giving more power to the Russian President. For instance, instead of electing governors in regions like North Ossetia and Chechnya, the President would have the power to appoint governors. In 2007, during his second term, Putin was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. The magazine called the final year of his second term “his most successful yet,” and the cover photo for the issue, a portrait of Putin, won the photographer the World Press Photo Award. During the shoot, the two discussed their mutual admiration for the Beatles. This connection helped Putin become more comfortable, and gave the photographer the chance to get his award-winning shot of the intimidating world leader. No matter how popular Putin was, though, the Russian people could not elect him to a third term. The Russian Constitution forbid it. However, Putin found a way around this rule just when his time in office was about to run out.
别斯兰悲剧确实导致俄罗斯政府内部出现权力变化，但主要是普京获得了更多的权力。例如，不必选举北奥塞梯和车臣等州的州长，普京就有权任命其州长。在2007年第二任期中，普京被《时代》杂志评为年度人物。该杂志称，普京第二届任期的最后一年是“他最成功的一年”，这期杂志的封面照片是普京的肖像，这张肖像的摄影师获得了世界新闻图片奖。在拍摄过程中，两人讨论了他们对甲壳虫乐队的共同喜爱，这种联系使普京变得更加轻松，并为摄影师提供了机会，让他拍到了这张获得殊荣、令人胆怯的世界级领导人的照片。但是，无论普京多么受欢迎，俄罗斯人民都无法选举他担任第三个任期的总统。俄罗斯宪法禁止这样做。但是，普京在任职期即将结束时找到了绕开这一规则的方法。
