Vladimir Gusinsky

Vladimir Gusinskyis a Russian businessman who built a media empire in Russia in the late 20th century. His holdings included television, radio, newspapers, and magazines known both for their professionalism and for the critical stance they often adopted toward Kremlin policies.

Gusinsky was born into a Jewish family, and he studied for a time at a petrochemical institute before enrolling in a school for theatre directors. In 1979 he began a career as an actor and director in the provincial city of Tula. In the late 1980s, however, he took advantage of a new mood of economic liberalization to establish himself in private business. In cooperation with an American partner, Gusinsky set up a consulting company that facilitated joint ventures between Soviet and Western firms. In 1989 he established Most Bank, which soon emerged as a strong commercial banking group, and in 1993 began to handle the accounts of the Moscow city government and the vast amounts of money passing through them. In turn, Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s administration reportedly helped Most acquire some of the choicest development plots in Moscow’s booming real-estate market. The Kremlin suspected Gusinsky of financing Luzhkov’s presidential ambitions, and Gusinsky was one of seven wealthy businessmen who, alarmed by the prospect of a Communist victory in Russia’s presidential election in 1996, bankrolled Pres. Boris Yeltsin’s reelection campaign.

In 1992 Gusinsky founded the newspaper Segodnya and the independent television channel NTV. Later he acquired the Ekho Moskvy radio station, and in 1996 he launched a weekly political magazine, Itogi, a joint venture with Newsweek. NTV especially irritated the Kremlin through its critical coverage of Russia’s 1994–96 war in Chechnya and through its merciless satirizing of the foibles of Russia’s leaders. In 1997 Gusinsky left his post at Most Bank to concentrate on his media interests, run by the private holding company Media-Most.

Following Russia’s 1998 financial crash, advertising revenues dried up. To keep his publications afloat, Gusinsky was obliged to borrow large sums of money. He turned to the natural gas monopoly Gazprom for funding, putting himself heavily in debt to a company seen by many as an arm of the Russian state. Russia’s new president, Vladimir Putin, came to power in 2000 vowing to strip the “oligarchs”—Russia’s richest businessmen—of their privileged access to political power. Within weeks of Putin’s inauguration, Gusinsky had been jailed on embezzlement charges. Then Gazprom began to demand repayment of its loans. After a bitter court battle, Gusinsky was forced to relinquish control of his media holdings, and he left the country for exile in the Spanish resort of Sotogrande. NTV was placed under new management; Itogi and Segodnya were closed down. The Russian government subsequently charged Gusinsky with money laundering and fraud and demanded his extradition. The Spanish courts, however, refused the request.

While his supporters depicted him as a champion of media freedom and victim of Kremlin persecution, the Russian authorities contended that the case was merely a matter of property rights and the repayment of loans. Many thought that the truth contained elements of both interpretations and lay somewhere in between. From Spain, Gusinsky moved to Israel, where he again accumulated significant media holdings.