"Russia needs me," pronounced Vladimir Gusinsky with characteristic immodesty recently. "My contribution to the new society is vital for its survival." An exaggerated claim, perhaps, but at 46, with a personal fortune said to be approaching US$1 billion, Gusinsky has enjoyed a meteoric rise. Barely a decade has passed since he was a struggling play director -- now he's not only one of Boris Yeltsin's tennis partners, but the mogul atop Russia's first and biggest media empire. Be it news, TV, satellite, or the Internet, Gusinsky is determined to deliver Russia into the 21st century.
During the budding of glasnost in the mid-'80s, Gusinsky tried to break into big-time theater. At one low point, he drove a cab to make ends meet. When the empire's days ran out, Gusinsky merged into the capitalist vanguard. In 1989 he founded Most, one of Russia's first commercial banks. After winning government business and opening dozens of new branches, Gusinsky was flush. But, as he said recently, he "never intended to become just a banker."
So in 1993 he returned to his entertainment roots, launching Russia's first privately owned TV network, Nezavisimoye Televidenie, or NTV. In short order, Gusinsky's conglomerate grew tentacles. Now, he also owns a radio station, magazines, and newspapers, as well as a publishing house. Leap-frogging a crumbling telecommunications infrastructure, in November he will bring his first satellite online, delivering television and data services to the country's 10 time zones. And NTV-Plus plans to provide Net access to Russians in the coming years.
For all its economic "independence," NTV's relations with the state have at times turned incestuous. During Yeltsin's 1996 re-election campaign, NTV boosted the politician. The network's director even planned Yeltsin's campaign strategy. But by late1994, Gusinsky had grown too big for certain folks -- an armed presidential guard stormed Most headquarters, seizing files. Gusinsky fled to London. Today he continues to live abroad, occasionally returning to his stately dacha outside Moscow with an entourage that's burly even by Russian standards.
This article originally appeared in the April issue of Wired magazine.
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