Vladimir Gusinsky

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Gusinsky (Russian: Владимир Александрович Гусинский; born October 6, 1952 in Moscow ) is a Russian media tycoon in exile.

Life

Rise during perestroika

Gusinsky was formerly a theater director in Tula and also worked on the side as a taxi driver. Perestroika enabled him to found together with friends 1987, a private cooperative that produced articles of clothing and simple plastic goods among others. During this time he met other young Russian entrepreneurs and made ​​it fast networks. The early nineties he was belonged to the founder and owner of Most Bank and president of the media holding company Media-Most, which also channel 4 ( later the first national private television station, NTV ), and the radio station Ekho Moskvy.

Semibankirowschtschina 1996

When in 1996 the re-election of Boris Yeltsin seemed highly endangered because of the resurgent Communist Party to Gennady Zyuganov, Gusinsky joined publicity with his arch-rival Boris Berezovsky and five other Russian oligarchs to "seven bankers gang " ( " Semibankirowschtschina " ) together to the then incumbent president by a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to victory to help. The cooperation of the oligarchs proved to be a success and Yeltsin became president again, after he was initially achieve only poll numbers in the single digits.

Problems with Putin

Russian President Putin was assisted by Gusinsky in his 2000 election to the presidency financially, but soon after turned against him. It started a cascade of allegations of unpaid debts and fraud against Gusinsky's company. Previously, the station NTV had broadcast a series of anti-government broadcasts. So it was from the fall of 1999 regular talk shows, which was discussed evidence for the involvement of the FSB in the bombings on the Moscow apartment buildings. In addition, Gusinsky's media had very critical reports on the official Russian actions after the Kursk disaster in the summer of 2000. For the allegedly unfair reporting Gusinsky had blamed Putin personally. The offices of the television station NTV were raided in 2000 in more than twenty different cases of armed and masked private security services. In the Russian public, such an approach had already been baptized as " Mask Show" when the government forced its fight against corruption. The pressure against Gussinksi increased. He sat for a few days in detention and was released after he signed a contract that allowed Gazprom to him for 300 million U.S. dollars every Media-Most abzukaufen shares. (see also the takeover of NTV )

In early 2001 Gusinsky left Russia to Spain to escape a warrant. Between Spain and Russia in 2001 there were because of him a diplomatic drama, but, just as in 2004 in Greece, did not succeed to the Russian authorities to achieve Gusinsky's extradition.

Life in new Israeli home

Gusinsky made ​​no secret of his Jewish origins and was President of Russia " Russian Jewish Congress " ( 1996-2001 ). Today, Gusinsky, whose Jewish ancestors demonstrably in the 15th century fled from Spain living in Israel in exile. By 2012, he was the majority shareholder of the Russian -language television RTVi, which can be received in Russia via satellite.