Nabiulina's attempts to keep her distance from the public backfired and became more visible.
Since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia one after another. US President Biden even threatened that "the ruble will soon be reduced to rubble". In this war without gunpowder smoke, a Russian beauty is waiting for an opportunity...
On March 31, Putin used his "killer" - signing the "Ruble Settlement Order", requiring companies from non-friendly countries to open ruble accounts in Russian banks , and then pay for the purchased Russian gas through this account. This carbine has relieved a lot of the sanctions imposed by Western countries to "isolate Russia".
It was Elvira Nabiulina, the governor of the Russian central bank, who helped Putin fight against Western sanctions. The trick she gave Putin not only broke the "poisonous curse" that the United States and the West wanted to collapse the Russian financial system, but also allowed the ruble to rebound all the way, breaking the high since November 2021. Nabiullina allowed Western politicians to see their power again. In the
Russian political arena, Nabiullina is a maverick figure.
She doesn't like to be in public and she's not good at words. She always wanted to keep a distance from the public, but it backfired and got more attention.
On June 24, 2013, Putin announced that Nabiullina officially succeeded Sergei Ignatiev, who had been the head of the Russian central bank for 11 years, becoming the first female head of the Russian central bank. At that time, Russia's economic growth slowed down, the ruble exchange rate was unstable, and the inflation situation was severe. Putin "airborne" Nabiullina to serve in the Bank of Russia, which is a long way to go.
But the industry does not believe that Nabiullina, then 50, can bring new life to Russia's economy. Some experts even believe that she will bring a crisis to the Russian central bank, or will lead to higher inflation expectations and currency devaluation.
Nabiullina ignored the doubts from the outside world and silently defended Russia's economy in her own way.
In 2014, the United States and Europe imposed sanctions on Russia over the Crimea incident. She is deeply aware that "Russia needs to build up its own reserves". So, she spent nearly 8 years building a "financial fortress" worth 640 billion US dollars (about 4,076.8 billion yuan) for Russia. Under her leadership, the Bank of Russia has amassed one of the world's largest reserves of foreign exchange and gold, cleaned up a slew of lenders the government deemed mismanaged or undercapitalized, and reduced Russia's inflation rate to its lowest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union . It can be said that at the most dangerous moment for Russia, Nabiulina helped the Russian economy withstand the fluctuations in oil prices and US sanctions, and became famous in the first battle.
On the other hand, Western media believe that Nabiullina, who is usually unsmiling, prefers to express her opinions with accessories. At the beginning of 2020, a reporter asked Nabiullina, "what kind of bird do you think she is". The reporter's implication is that if it is an eagle, it means that she is in favor of a tightening monetary policy with high interest rates to resist inflation; if it is a dove, it means that she prefers a low interest rate policy and is more willing to see easing. monetary environment.
She did not immediately answer the reporter's question. Not long after, Nabiullina wore a stork-patterned brooch, which the West called "the bird that sends children", at a meeting announcing that the Bank of Russia would cut interest rates slightly. Some people think that this symbolizes the rebirth of the Russian central bank and the Russian economy. A month later, she wore a brooch with a tumbler doll pattern to attend a meeting. Western observers said Nabiulina wanted to use the brooch to symbolize the recovery of the Russian economy after the epidemic.
In early March this year, shortly after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict broke out, Nabiullina attended the meeting wearing a black dress without a brooch. "She was wearing black and no brooch, indicating that it was time to abandon normal monetary policy," said Sergei Guriev, a professor of economics at Sciences Po and an expert on Russia who knew Nabiullina well. Sure enough, soon after, Putin signed the "Ruble Settlement Order", which made Western countries dumbfounded.
Later, some scholars concluded that strong professional ability and absolute loyalty to the president were the main reasons why Putin chose her as the governor of the Russian central bank. On March 18, Putin officially nominated Nabiullina for re-election as governor of the Bank of Russia.
From small town girl to Kremlin star
Unlike many of her colleagues from famous families in Russian politics, Nabiullina came from a bitter child. She was born in 1963 in Ufa, an industrial city about 700 miles east of Moscow. Both parents are workers. Perhaps because of this, she knew from an early age that only knowledge can change her destiny, so she was very eager to learn and motivated since she was a child, and her personal photos were hung in the most eye-catching place by the school. scholarship.
After entering the workplace, Nabiullina has been working in the economic sector, and her career has been smooth sailing. She first served as chief expert and research consultant in the Union of Russian Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and in 1994 was appointed as Deputy Director of the Economic Reform Department of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. Two years later, she was promoted to Director and a member of the Ministerial Committee of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade is Nabiullina's blessed land. Here, she got on the elevator for promotion, which is inseparable from the help of nobles. During her postgraduate studies at Moscow State University, Nabiulina met her mentor, Professor Yevgeny Yasin.
Professor Yassin is a well-known liberal economist in Russia, known as Nabiullina's mentor and ideological agitator. He served as the Russian economy minister and is regarded as the soul of the Russian economy in the Yeltsin era. Nabiullina was highly regarded by him as an extremely talented student.
In the autumn of 1998, the Russian Prime Minister was replaced. As a liberal economist, there was no market in the cabinet. Nabiullina had to go to the private Industrial and Commercial Bank as a vice president. But within a year of working, she was transferred to Putin's Economic Staff Strategic Research Center as deputy director.
At the time, she was tight-lipped about the reasons for the move, but some analysts believed she had an important mission, the economic part of Putin's presidential campaign platform. Later, it was disclosed by public information that she and other senior economists at that time jointly formulated Russia's development strategy for the next 10 years, that is, the reform plan of the new government.
Since then, Nabiullina has gradually become a core member of Putin's economic think tank.
After Putin was re-elected as president, she officially took up the post of Deputy Minister of Economy and Trade, one of the few female ministers in the Russian government.
The position of minister not only means a high sense of trust and responsibility, but also means that Nabiullina must begin to step into the political foreground.
At that time, she was responsible for almost all the affairs of the ministry, and her job responsibilities went far beyond the scope of technical responsibilities. During the period, she also drafted President Putin's State of the Union address with the then presidential assistant Surkov and others, and won the President's Special Appreciation Award.
After that, Nabiullina gradually turned to the frontier of economic work, and entered the expert committee leading the Presidential Committee for the Implementation of the National Social Security Project, and was responsible for leading the work of the Organizing Committee of the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg. As a result, the outside world regarded her as an economic reform expert and strategist in Putin's team, and later she became Putin's presidential economic assistant, which is also a matter of course.
In addition, Nabiullina's most notable achievement during her tenure as minister was helping Russia end 20 years of WTO accession negotiations and finally joining the World Trade Organization in 2012.
Back then, the little girl from a remote town was already a dazzling political star in the Kremlin.
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