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57
4
the
darker
side
Muzzling the media
Boris Yeltsin is rocking a baby Vladimir Putin in a cradle. Thebaby is wailing. Yeltsin tries to sing him to sleep.‘Oh, oh,’ sighs Yeltsin. ‘You’re so ugly. And – God forgiveme – your origins are so dark … and your looks so … murky …Oh, Lord, why did I – a democrat to the marrow – give birthto
this
?’A fairy appears above him. It is Boris Berezovsky, theoligarch who helped bring Putin to power at the end of the1990s. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘your first-born were prettier.’Yeltsin yawns and puts his head down, saying, ‘Oh, I amso exhausted. I am going to take a well-earned rest.’ He fallsasleep.‘Poor man,’ says Berezovsky. ‘He’s worn himself out.’Suddenly the baby starts crying out loud: ‘Wipe ’em outin the outhouse,’ he shouts. ‘All of ’em … wipe ’em out in thetoilet!’‘Sssh,’ says Berezovsky. ‘Not all of them … Calm down, lad. We’ll make a human out of you.’The scene is based on a fairy tale,
Little Zaches
, by the
— The Strongman —
58
German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, the story of an ugly dwarf who has a spell cast on him by a fairy so that others find himbeautiful. It was just one episode in the brilliant satiricalpuppet show
Kukly
(Puppets) which used to be shown on theindependent television channel NTV.Putin had to endure such mockery week in week out at thestart of his presidency. He hated it. The ‘wipe ’em out in thetoilet’ line was, of course, a reference to his notorious threatto annihilate Chechen terrorists. Berezovsky was the oligarch who used his television channel to ‘beautify’ Putin and paperover his KGB past to make him electable. And the dwarf? Well, every Russian viewer understood the reference to Putin’slack of inches.The scriptwriter of
Kukly
was Viktor Shenderovich, animpish, bearded writer with an irrepressible sense of humourand disdain for authority. He is sure Putin never forgave themfor
Little Zaches
. ‘Several people told me independently thatPutin went mad after this programme.’
1
But
Kukly
was not the only thing on NTV that offendedPutin. When the channel started up under Yeltsin it quickly gained a reputation as a free-thinking outlet, which broadcastunvarnished reports about the war in Chechnya (including theshocking truth about Russian atrocities and the demoralisedstate of Russian conscripts). Sunday evening’s
Itogi
, a politicalchat-show hosted by the channel’s leading journalist, Yevgeny Kiselyov, was unmissable viewing for every thinking Russian.Russian broadcasting was still in its infancy. Western tradi-tions of balance and independence had not taken root. NTV was used quite openly by its owner Vladimir Gusinsky tofurther his own interests, as was the main channel, ORT, by its prime shareholder Boris Berezovsky. They had both helpedto get Yeltsin elected in 1996, when their business interestscould have been threatened by a communist comeback. But inthe December 1999 Duma elections, while Berezovsky’s ORThad thrown its weight behind Putin’s Unity Party, NTV had
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The Strongman
Taken from Angus Roxburgh's new book 'The Strongman, a study of Vladimir Putin's rise to power, this extract explores the darker side of the man.
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