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MOSCA – When at the age of 35 he was appointed prime minister in a country of gerontocrats, he was given the nickname “Kinder Surprise”. It was April 1998 and the surprise was bitter. The sudden collapse in oil prices forced him to declare the first default in Russian history and to resign soon after. Since then Sergei Kirienko has left the government, but not politics, to become the first deputy head of the presidential administration, the most powerful decision-making body in the Russian Federation.