Zaitsev was the tailor to Vladimir Zhirinovsky for his 1996 Russian presidential campaign. Zaitsev, who planned to vote for Boris Yeltsin, stated on Zhirinovsky, "He wanted something distinctly Russian, so I thought back to the military-style jackets of the 20s, the 30slike Stalin, only in new colours". On 27 May 1996, President of Russia Boris Yeltsin awarded Zaitsev the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and the arts. In 1996, Zaitsev was also made an honorary citizen of the city of his birth, Ivanovo.