Word: lebedev
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Herein lies the reason for Lebedev's split personality. He is indeed an oligarch - the Russian magazine Finans reported that he was the 25th wealthiest person in the country in 2008, up from No. 46 in 2007. But he has never bent the knee to Putin. In Lebedev we find, if you like, the good oligarch - the Russian with whom Westerners can do business. He has made friends with prominent people in London (Elton John, Margaret Thatcher) and Hollywood (Kevin Spacey, John Malkovich), floating freely between boardrooms and state dinners. In March, Lebedev traveled to Washington with Gorbachev...
...this has aroused Lebedev's reformist zeal. More than ever, he says, Russia needs an independent judiciary and legislature, a free press, real elections, real political parties. The oligarchs, he says, understand that the system cannot survive forever. They are scared and looking for handouts. (At the top of the list is Oleg Deripaska, head of investment firm Basic Element, which has interests in the aluminum, energy and financial-services sectors among others, and recently received a $4.5-billion infusion from the state.) "Once they found themselves in trouble they started this sort of SOS signal, calling on Putin...
Russia's problem, Lebedev thinks, is not Putin but the bureaucracy, which is sprawling and antidemocratic, and stymies reform. "As far as Putin is concerned, I'm not blaming it on him. I think he doesn't see it. These TV channels pocket billions of dollars in exchange for flattering Putin." Lebedev has hopes for Medvedev. He was impressed with the President's decision to meet with Novaya Gazetta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov and Gorbachev earlier this year, following the killing of yet another Novaya Gazetta reporter. "Medvedev ... said he's a full supporter of the Gulag Memorial project...
...Lebedev the reformer he sees himself as, or does he play another role? "There's a belief - and this existed in Soviet times - that allowing a pressure valve of dissent and allowing certain voices out there is important for legitimacy," says Robert Amsterdam, a Canadian attorney in London who has represented Khodorkovsky and frequently blogs about Russia. "In a strange way, and whether or not Lebedev is part of this, he may well be seen as a demonstration of the regime's legitimacy." As long as he doesn't "cross any of these invisible lines, Lebedev may actually shield...
...Lebedev understands that he has multiple uses - that he alternately angers, inspires, amuses and mystifies the Kremlin, fellow oligarchs, democratic activists and Western allies alike. Yet this much seems indisputable: simply by calling for a more open Russia and denouncing the myopia and ignorance of "the power," Lebedev is helping to make room for a new kind of politics. This is the overwhelming sense you get when speaking with him: that possibilities are opening, that things are happening that you are only vaguely aware of. You sense - you hope - that these things will somehow deliver Russia from its current doldrums...