"This president," he emphasizes, "is not a democrat and not a communist. He is a capitalist."
And he's begun to bring international attention to Kalmykia, a rural republic on the Caspian Sea with 320,000 people, about 45 percent of whom are Asian Kalmyks, and 37 percent Russian.
Ilumzhinov is 30 years old, as thin as most campaign promises, and as confident as anyone his age would be who claims to be a billionaire in rubles and a millionaire in dollars. "I don't have time to count it," he said, evading, as he always does, a direct answer to the question of how much he's worth.
He's also not all that forthcoming when asked where he made his money, or how he will achieve some of his campaign pledges, such as the one about giving every family in the republic $100.
But he's been very direct on some questions of policy, and he's already made changes in government organization that go far beyond anything done elsewhere to break down old communist structures.
He promised during the campaign that the 130-member Supreme Soviet of Kalmykia would be disbanded and replaced by a streamlined 25-member parliament.
This had great symbolic impact in a country where one of the endearing communist slogans was "All Power to Soviet," and Boris N. Yeltsin is having so much trouble extricating himself from a continuing political wrestling match with the national Supreme Soviet.
To sweeten his proposal, Ilumzhinov, forever the realist, said he understood that the deputies "won't go away just like that." So he offered them loans with low rates "so they could do some business."
And a week ago, the Soviet quietly voted itself out of business. ''Ilumzhinov said he'd make profound change if he won," explained Ilya Bugdaev, the former chairman of the Supreme Soviet, who was cleaning out his desk here last Wednesday, the day before giving up his office to the new head of the parliament.
