![]() ![]() ![]() More than a decade later, that movie is increasingly dark and disturbing. “Shall we attack oligarchs? Who’s the enemy this week? Politics has got to feel like a movie!” “But we still have to give our viewers the sense something is happening. He was small and spoke fast, with a smoky voice: “We all know there will be no real politics,” he said. Here, Moscow’s flashiest minds gathered for a weekly brainstorming session to decide what Ostankino would broadcast.Īt one end of the table sat one of the country’s most famous political TV presenters. And that’s how I ended up surrounded by Russian media gurus tucked away on the top floor of Ostankino, the Soviet-era television center that is the battering ram of Kremlin propaganda-home to the studios of the country’s biggest channels. A friendly Russian publisher who wanted me to work for him had invited me to what would be my first meeting in Moscow. It was 2002, and I was just out of university, living in Moscow and working at a think tank meant to be promoting Russian-U.S. There was so much smoke it made my skin itch. There were more than 20 of us sitting around the long conference table: tanned broadcasters in white silk shirts, politics professors with sweaty beards and heavy breath, ad execs in trainers-and me. This article has been adapted from his recent book about Putin’s Russia, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible. Peter Pomerantsev is a TV producer based in London. ![]()
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