Vladimir Alexandrovich Gussinsky

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Vladimir Gusinsky.jpg

Vladimir Alexandrowitsch Gussinski ( Russian Владимир Александрович Гусинский ; born October 6, 1952 in Moscow ) is a Russian media magnate in exile .

Life

Ascension during perestroika

Gussinski used to be a theater director in Tula and also worked as a taxi driver. The Perestroika allowed him together with friends in 1987 a private cooperative to establish that produced, among other articles of clothing and simple plastic goods. During this time he got to know other young Russian entrepreneurs and networks quickly formed. In the early 1990s he became the founder and owner of Most-Bank and president of the media holding Media-Most , which also included Kanal 4 (later the first national private television broadcaster, NTW ) and the radio station Echo Moskwy .

Semibankirovshchina 1996

When in 1996 the re-election of Boris Yeltsin because of the resurgent communist party around Gennady Zyuganov seemed to be threatened, Gussinski joined forces with his arch rival Boris Abramovich Berezovsky and five other Russian oligarchs to form the “Seven Bankers Gang” (“Semibankirovshchina”) to help the incumbent president to win through a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.

The cooperation between the oligarchs turned out to be a complete success and Yeltsin became president again after initially only achieving polls in the single-digit percentage range.

Problems with Putin

Russian President Putin received financial support from Gussinski in his election as president in 2000, but soon afterwards turned against him. A cascade of allegations of unpaid debts and fraud against Gussinski's company began. Previously, the station NTW had broadcast a number of programs critical of the government. From the autumn of 1999 there were regular talk shows discussing references to the involvement of the FSB in the bomb attacks on Moscow apartment buildings . In addition, Gussinski's media reported very critically about the official Russian approach after the Kursk accident in summer 2000. Putin personally reprimanded Gussinski for the allegedly unfair reporting. The offices of the television station NTW were raided by armed and masked private security services in over twenty different cases in 2000. Such an approach had already been dubbed a “mask show” by the Russian public when the government stepped up its fight against corruption. The pressure against Gussinksi increased. He sat for a few days in custody and was released after he signed a contract that Gazprom enabled, all Media-Most abzukaufen him for 300 million dollars shares. (see also takeover of NTW )

At the beginning of 2001, Gussinski left Russia for Spain to avoid an arrest warrant. There was a diplomatic drama between Spain and Russia over him in 2001, but, as in 2004 in Greece, the Russian authorities failed to extradite Gussinski.

Living in a new Israeli homeland

Gussinski made no secret of his Jewish origins and was President of the "Russian Jewish Congress" in Russia (from 1996 to 2001). Today Gussinski, whose Jewish ancestors evidently fled Spain in the 15th century, lives in exile in Israel . Until 2012 he was the majority owner of the Russian-language television channel RTVi , which can be received in Russia via satellite.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Margareta Mommsen , Angelika Nussberger : The Putin system . Verlag CH Beck, 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54790-4 , p. 125.
  2. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/publikationen/7B7WKS,3,0,Politisches_System_und_politischer_Prozess.html
  3. ↑ http://www.worldbank.org/html/prddr/trans/feb98/bigseven.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.netstudien.de/Russland/gussinski.htm
  5. ↑ An abyss of betrayal . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 2004 ( online ).
  6. ↑ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/ntv1_4-16.htm
  7. ↑ Wse woprossy ja reschal tolko s Vladimirom Gussinskim , kommersant.ru, March 23, 2012

Web links

  • Tovarish President (Russian), documentary by Gussinski's own channel RTVi about his falling out with Vladimir Putin
  • Oligarchs (Russian / Hebrew), biographical documentary by RTVi about well-known Russian oligarchs, numerous interviews with Vladimir Gussinski
  • The Gussinsky Case Article by Vladimir Volkov (wsws.org)
personal data
SURNAME Gussinski, Vladimir Alexandrovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gusinsky, Vladimir Alexandrovich; Гусинский, Владимир Александрович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian oligarch
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow