Inside the Kremlin: Lights, Camera, Alen

Filmmakers and photographers seeking approval to shoot inside the Kremlin are being told to apply to a private company called Alen, and to pay for the privilege, according to officials from Alen and the Kremlin.


In an exclusive and unprecedented arrangement with the Kremlin's Chief Directorate of Security Guatds, Alen


is entitled to charge as it pleases for access to Moscow's inner heart. It is probably the only private firm in history to have had an office inside the Kremlin walls.


"We are trying to find other sources of capital to invest in the Kremlin", said Colonel Alexander Gusev, the Kremlin's deputy commandant. "The situation in this field in our country is not favorable, and we do our best to find all financial resources".


Under the arrangement with Alen, the Kremlin guards receive 70 to 80 percent of the funds paid for permission to film inside the venerable walls. This money goes into the Kremlin security service's operating budget, said Yelena Sergeyeva, Alen's commercial director.


Over the past year, the Kremlin has earned nearly 1 million rubles through


the service, said Alexander Kuznetsov, 33, Alen's general director.


Alen's charges are steep even by international standards, foreign journalists say. An hour's access to photograph the tombs of Stalin, Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders behind Lenin's mausoleum costs $500, according to Kuznetsov. Other, more complicated shoots can cost thousands of dollars. A desire to help provide the historic Kremlin with more financial resources is Alen's prime mission, Kuznetsov said, but he conceded that personal profit is also a goal. For that reason, foreigners are charged hard currency.


"We are interested in good, big projects because it means that more income will go into the Kremlin, and more to us to buy new equipment", said Kuznetsov. "Of course we are interested in profit and especially in hard currency; if someone is going to propose mutual cooperation, we are not going to refuse".


An office in the Kremlin and good contacts with Yeltsin's team also gives Alen unrivaled access to film Yeltsin at work and at play.


One foreign journalist said that Alen - a three-person company - had offered its special access to facilitate a private interview with President Boris Yeltsin, for money.


Kuznetsov "told me if we can pay $35, 000 he will make all the arrangements for an interview with President Yeltsin", said Shigenori Kanehira, bureau chief of Tokyo Broadcasting System.


Alen's Kuznetsov called Kanehira's statement "a joke", and said his firm had many detractors jealous of its success.


"Only the press secretary can assure an interview with Boris Nikolayevich", he added.


Yet Yeltsin's own press service says that press interviews do occur that they have neither arranged nor know about.


"There are instances when we did not participate at all", said Alexander Orfyonov, head of the president's press department.


"There were such occurrences because in society we have rather a lot of freedom - maybe too much in some cases - and also in some state structures bribery is mushrooming", he said.


Japan's NTV conducted one interview outside official channels during Yeltsin's vacation in Sochi this summer, Orfyonov said.


Toshiaki Takami, NTV's bureau chief, denied that he paid for the interview, but confirmed that he pays Alen around $50, 000 to receive a steady flow of video images of Yeltsin and other Kremlin events.


He also acknowledged that the network's year-long contract gives NTV an edge in covering Yeltsin.