“The market is a manifestation of life. The brightest manifestations of life occur in its condensation: in certain points, certain lines, certain spatial-temporal formations.”

For some, this might seem to be just a bunch of random words. In reality, they are the introductory remarks of an academic article supposedly penned by Anton Vaino, President Vladimir Putin’s newly appointed chief of staff.

Full of complicated terms, schemes and graphs, the article describes a device called a “nooscope.” Designed in Russia five years ago, the nooscope studies “the collective conscience of mankind” and registers “among other things, the unseen.” A network of “spatial scanners,” monitors changes in the “biosphere”.

“There is no way to prove that the world we’re used to — the world we know through sight, hearing and touch — exists in reality and not only in our imagination,” concludes the article, which was published in 2012 by the economic journal Issues of Economy and Law.

Anton Vaino today occupies one of the top positions in Russia’s bureaucratic hierarchy. His rise was as meteoric as it was unexpected, after Putin astounded Kremlin watchers by replacing close ally and political veteran Sergei Ivanov with someone younger and less well-known.

What we do know about Vaino, 44, is that he is the grandson of the former head of the Estonian Communist Party. Fluent in English and Japanese, he trained as a diplomat before serving in Russia’s embassy in Tokyo in the late 1990s, and then at Russia’s Foreign Ministry. Since 2003, Vaino has risen up through the presidential administration — forging a career as chief of the presidential protocol department, where he was in charge of schedules and similar management issues.

Russia’s officials describe Vaino as an efficient and loyal bureaucrat and Putin’s personal choice as his chief of staff. According to unnamed sources cited by business daily Vedomosti, Vaino is a “brilliant administrator.” One source referred to an “affable personality” and claimed the Kremlin’s new man had a reputation for living modestly, which would certainly be unusual in the field of top government administration.

Getting a Degree

It is not unusual for Russian officials to dabble in academic activities — getting a degree has been a mandatory ritual for a long time ago. Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and dozens of government ministers set the trend, and lower-level officials follow. For some, obtaining a degree is a necessary condition of climbing the career ladder, says Sergei Parkhomenko, co-founder of Dissernet, an online group fighting intellectual fraud. “For example, if you’re a district prosecutor and want to become a city prosecutor, you need to get a Doctorate. It’s not a written rule, but that’s how it works,” Parkhomenko told The Moscow Times.

According to Kommersant newspaper, Vaino published several articles on the economy in Issues of Economy and Law when he was the head of government staff between December 2011 and May 2012. In 2013, Vaino reportedly received an economic degree, about the equivalent of a U.S. masters, after writing and defending a dissertation on the mineral resources industry. Articles in scientific journals, including the one quoted above, were, apparently, a stepping stone to the dissertation. In Russia, anyone seeking to obtain such a degree needs to have articles published in such journals.

Vaino’s career, however, did not depend on getting a degree, argues Parkhomenko. Instead, to officials like him it is a matter of prestige. “It is like having a certain car, wearing a suit of certain brand, living in a mansion in a certain place, owning real estate abroad and such. It is part of a ’success kit’ for these people,” the activist says.