GOVERNMENT AUDIT OF STATE TV
I. Audit points to abuses by federal broadcaster.
By Julia Shargorodska
A Federal Audit Chamber investigation into Russia’s
main state-owned radio and television company has revealed improper financial
practices and mismanagement that cost the government “tens of millions
of dollars” over the past seven years.
Venyamin Sokolov, head of the auditing department
that conducted the audit of the All-Russia State Radio and Television Co.,
or VGTRK, said at a news briefing [on 12th February] his investigators
had uncovered “very serious” mismanagement of the company since it was
established in 1990.
The auditing chamber did not reveal precisely how
much money was lost due to the alleged mismanagement. But Yevgeny
Nikulishchev, head of the inspection team, put the figure “in the tens
of millions of dollars.”
Copies of the report have already been submitted
to President Boris Yeltsin and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
VGTRK chairman Nikolai Svanidze, who joined audit
chamber officials at the news conference, said he agreed with the audit’s
findings, but he said company officials were forced to resort to irregular
practice by chronic under-funding.
“The finances are very bad,” he said. “All
the managers in the last couple of months and years had to take measures
to get out of the situation, and it goes without saying they did not always
make the right decisions.”
The chamber is a watchdog body tied to parliament.
It launched the audit of VGTRK in November on the request of the State
Duma, parliament’s lower house.
VGTRK runs the RTR and Kultura television stations
and the Radio Rossia radio station.
After a 21/2 month investigation, the report concluded
that managers at various levels ignored or freely interpreted laws and
decrees and failed to take responsibility for company finances.
The report states that the financial activity of
the company went completely unsupervised from 1990 until 1996. The
report blamed the government for inadequate regulation of VGTRK.
It also pointed the finger at the State Property Ministry for failing to
ensure the company used its property appropriately.
The chamber found numerous violations in the way
the company ac counted for and used government property and funds.
According to the report, VGTRK lost about 40 million French francs ($6.5
million) through ill-advised contracts with building contractors for renovation
work on the company’s premises.
It states VGTRK was guilty of misuse of federal
property abroad. It says the company illegally transferred 420 million
Italian lira ($237,000), supposedly for the upkeep of its bureau in Italy.
The money was used to buy an apartment for its correspondent in Rome.
In December 1997, VGTRK was fined the equivalent
of $2.2 million for frequent violation of laws on currency transactions,
the report said.
Sokolov said the audit is only in tended to bring
order to VGTRK and encourage the government to tighten its oversight over
the company. He refuted calls made by some in the government for
the company to be privatized.
“Our material and inspection must strengthen the
company . . . but not under any circumstances tear the company apart or
limit its rights or opportunities,” he said.
The Moscow Times, February 13, 1998
II. Auditors find serious shortcomings at Russian state TV.
Veniyamin Sokolov, an auditor with the Russian Audit
Chamber, has described the results of an investigation into the activities
of the All-Russian State TV and Radio Broadcasting Company [VGTRK] as showing
“serious shortcomings bordering on crime.”
[Sokolov] The reprimands and violations are very serious, to such an
extent that we have sent some material to the Procurator’s Office.
At the same time, this is not a reason for abolishing this state company
or in any way limiting its possibilities. This is our position, my
personal position, the position of those who carried out the inspection
and the collegium of the Audit Chamber as a whole. This position
is that the material of our inspection should form the basis for strengthening
the discipline and management of this state company and strengthening the
state television company, in general. But it should in no way lead
to the company being torn apart or its rights and possibilities being limited
and so on.
[Presenter] For his part, the chairman of the company, Nikolay Svanidze,
stressed that the company had experienced difficulties since its foundation,
and under various bosses. This does not excuse, but helps to explain,
a number of the violations discovered by the commission of the Audit Chamber.
As for the conclusions of the commission, he agrees with them entirely.
Ekho Moskvy radio, Moscow, February 12, 1998
I. Critics Say Media Bill Poses Threat.
By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
Proposed changes to the liberal 1991 law on
mass media would pose a serious threat to freedom of speech and of the
press in Russia, critics warned.
The stated aims of legislation being considered
in the State Duma, parliament’s lower house, are to curb Russia’s powerful
media groups while making journalists more accountable to their readers.
But critics say that the bill was so poorly written
and is so full of legal loopholes that it would fail miserably to achieve
its declared goals. At the same time, they say, it would substantially
undermine Russia’s 1991 law, which removed the state’s grip on the media.
“The Duma thinks that journalists have gone too
far, have assumed too much power, and they should be taken in hand or at
least annoyed,” said Andrei Richter, director of the Center for Law and
Mass Media at Moscow State University’s School of Journalism.
The new bill was proposed by Communist lawmakers
and deputies from Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s nationalist faction and earned
preliminary approval in January. The Duma set a March 14 deadline for proposed
amendments.
Yelena Radnevskaya, a Duma staffer and one of the
bill’s drafters, said this week that more than 100 proposals have been
made. Revisions will be made, she said, but they will not change the substance
of the measure. She said it was still unclear when the bill would come
up for consideration again.
Under the original version, it would be illegal
for banks, foreigners, or any one with a criminal record to publish newspapers,
and Internet web sites would have to be registered and pay taxes.
Another provision would give any one the right to
sue a media organization and demand a correction, even if they were not
directly affected by the offending report. Critics say this could cause
havoc in the courts.
Even opponents of the legislation agree that some
changes to the 1991 law are necessary, but they say the Duma’s bill is
not the answer. Richter called some of the provisions legal nonsense.
“It is absolutely clear that the draft was written
by journalists or politicians, but not by lawyers,” he said this week.
Under the bill, financial groups, banks and “monopolists
on goods and services markets” are prohibited from holding television or
radio broadcast licenses and publishing mass-circulation newspapers or
magazines, or from owning a controlling stake in them.
No one with a broadcast license can control more
than one daily newspaper or hold licenses to radio or television stations
with broadcast areas overlapping by more than 30 percent.
These provisions would seem capable of breaking
up the powerful media groups that are controlled by financial magnates
such as Vladimir Gusinsky, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Potanin.
The magnates’ control over television and newspapers,
and their ability to use their media outlets to promote their political
agendas, has provoked heated debate and raised questions about freedom
of the press.
But Richter said the bill’s attempts to break monopolies
are naive. “Gusinsky and Berezovsky can control mass media through intermediaries,”
he said.
Even today, few of Russia’s media organizations
are owned directly by a bank or financial-industrial group. Berezovsky
formally owns only an 8 percent stake in ORT television, which he is widely
believed to control. Gusinsky’s Media-MOST company is separate from his
MOST Bank.
The bill also has been widely criticized for including
“computer information” in the definition of mass media, which would require
Internet web sites to become registered and pay taxes just like television
stations and newspapers.
The Duma measure would prohibit a newspaper that
publishes a correction, as the result of a court decision, from printing
its commentary on the dispute in the same issue.
The bill also broadens the grounds for a publication
to be suspended or closed down.
Radnevskaya acknowledged that the original version
was “raw” and said it would be amended.
The ban on foreign ownership and the Internet regulations
were likely to be removed altogether, Radnevskaya said.
But she stood by the legislation’s main concepts.
“We have to defend society first of all, and give
it the possibility to speak with the press as. equals,” Radnevskaya said.
The Moscow Times, April 2, 1998
II. Radio-TV bill affected by political considerations.
The State Duma’s bill on TV and radio broadcasting
“has been shifted onto the plane of political compromises,” according to
Valentin Tsoi, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee for information
and telecommunications.
Tsoi was speaking at a news conference devoted to
the situation that has arisen around the bill. Tsoi said that
“the desire of all branches of power to control television and radio complicate
the fate of the bill.” Debates on the bill are expected in May, but
“without political agreement” its fate is complicated, Tsoi commented.
“No one wants to weaken positions in the run-up to elections,” the deputy
chairman of the committee explained. Tsoi noted that the bill is
based on the concept of legal control by the public over the observance
of broadcasting licences and the right to suspend them in a judicial procedure.
This control will be exercised by a non-government federal commission on
TV and radio broadcasting, due to be formed by all branches of power.
The bill also calls for establishing a legal status of broadcaster, defining
the terms of sponsorship of television and radio programmes and advertising
on frequency channels.
RIA news agency, Moscow, March 17, 1998
III. Reactions to Duma moves to curb TV advertising.
The Union of Women of Russia [on 5th March] spoke
out against the violence that’s everywhere on television screens.
Mind you, the endless advertisements bother the viewers just as much.
The state is attempting to do something about this. In February alone,
the State Duma sent the Anti-Monopolies Committee four draft amendments
to the Advertising Law.[Correspondent Tatyana Kuzmina] The MPs paid particular
attention to TV advertising in their draft amendments, which is hardly
surprising. The members of parliament probably also are irritated
by the many advertising sequences which break into the most enthralling
films and the most entertaining shows. But the legislators are more
bothered by the content than by the quantity. One draft law
proposes not allowing adverts to be shown during films if they do not fit
the film’s scenario. This would mean that the script-writers of feature
films in particular would have to bear this in mind when writing film scripts
based on books. Another draft law contains the no less exotic demand
for adverts not to infringe parental rights and not to include intimate
scenes and, most importantly, not to show women naked as far as the waist.
[Natalya Fonareva, head of Anti-Monopolies Committee] The first question
we had was: naked above the waist or below? One can have different
kinds of nakedness. But there are some quite exotic recordings which
of course left us absolutely shocked.
[Kuzmina] The position of the Anti-Monopolies Committee does not mean
to say that all proposals by deputies are daft. However, none of
the draft documents makes any recommendation on how private and state television
companies can find money.
[Aleksandr Ponomarev, general director of Moscow Independent Broadcasting
Company] I favourably regard all bans if the amount of money being taken
from TV broadcasters after every ban is weighed up and that sum of money
is returned to us.
[Kuzmina] One can add that the understanding of what is permissible
and what is not is a deeply individual matter. Should the deputies
not perhaps debate the issue of a total ban on the sale of goods which,
in their view, undermine the moral foundations of our society?
TV6, Moscow, March 5, 1998
IV. Duma approves TV, film “morality” watchdog.
Duma members’ concern about the state of morality
in the country and unhappiness about the corrupting influence of television
have come to a head. Disenchanted with the activities of bodies monitoring
television and radio broadcasting and aware that it is pointless to haul
television and radio company chiefs over the coals, the deputies [on 11th
February] adopted a law “On the Higher Council on Ethics and Morality in
the Sphere of Cinematography and Television and Radio Broadcasting in the
Russian Federation.”
Under the law, a new permanent state organ will
be set up to “monitor observance by cinemas and television and radio broadcasters
of the demands of the constitution and laws.” The higher council
will comprise nine people appointed on an equal footing by the president,
Federation Council and State Duma. The new body will protect morality
and cultural values and also Russian film and television programme makers.
Moreover, it will be empowered to devise policy in the sphere of cinematography
and television and radio broadcasting and impose sanctions on television
broadcasters and cinemas. The range of sanctions is very wide—from
a warning to a fine, a reduction in airtime, curtailment or revocation
of a licence. People could be penalized for distributing television
programmes inciting criminal acts, threatening the security of the individual
or state, fuelling ethnic or religious strife, defaming people and, in
particular, containing pornography. . . .
But not all deputies liked the idea of a council.
The Yabloko faction voted against it, unhappy, according to Yelena Mizulina,
about the creation of a new body with judicial as well as administrative
functions. NDR [Russia Is Our Home] member Oleg Gonzharov said that
we should not revive censorship, having only just got rid of it. . . .
Aleksandr Kotenkov, the president’s representative,
unhappy about the Council’s excessive powers, put the question: “What is
this body: judicial or administrative?” As he observed, there are already
bodies monitoring television and cinematography. . . .
The reply of Nikolay Gubenko [one of the bill’s
supporters] that “you can have organs, but, as we men know, they may not
function” delighted the deputies, who had no hesitation in supporting the
law in its first reading by 215 votes.
“Deputies revive censorship. Moral standards on TV will be determined by higher council,” ‘Russkiy Telegraf,’ Moscow, February 12, 1998
V. Duma pushes for “Parliamentary Hour” on TV.
The State [on 11th February] set up a special parliamentary
commission to facilitate the broadcasting of the “Parliamentary Hour” television
programme. The decision to set up this commission was taken in accordance
with article 27 of the rules governing the State Duma in view of the need
to coordinate the work to commence broadcasting, on the Russia state television
channel [Russia TV], the “Parliamentary Hour” programme reflecting the
opinions of deputies of the State Duma, leaders of various parliamentary
factions and groups and also the chamber as a whole, on very important
events of internal political life and international life.
State Duma deputy Aleksey Zakharov has been appointed
chairman of the commission. Deputies Vladimir Zorin and Svetlana
Naychukova have been appointed as his deputies. The commission also
includes other parliamentarians representing all factions and deputies’
groups of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament. The commission
has been instructed within one month to put forward for confirmation by
the State Duma regulations governing its activities and a plan for providing
material and technical back-up for the work of the commission and to put
forward a list of members of staff for the apparatus of the commission
to ensure the broadcasting of the “Parliamentary Hour” television programme.
ITAR-TASS news agency (World Service), Moscow, February 11, 1998
I. Kultura TV trustees discuss strategy.
[The] scheduled meeting of Kultura TV’s Trusteeship
Council took place [on 13th March] despite the [President Yeltsin’s] illness.
The meeting, held in the library of the Kremlin’s No 1 building, was attended
by council members Mstislav Rostropovich, Vladimir Bulgak, Oleg Sysuyev,
Sergey Krasavchenko, Tatyana Dyachenko, Valentin Yumashev (who opened the
session), Culture Minister Natalya Dementyeva and writers and academics.
It was chaired by Mark Zakharov. The Hermitage’s director, Mikhail
Piotrovskiy, read out a letter from [the distinguished medievalist] Dmitriy
Likhachev. Sergey Kapitsa spoke about the importance of scientific
programmes on the Kultura channel. Edvard Radzinskiy, Grigoriy Baklanov,
Nikolay Petrov, Kirill Lavrov and Aleksey German also spoke.
Back from the Kremlin, Mikhail Shvydkoy, chief editor
of the Kultura TV channel, told your ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ correspondent
that the session was planned and prepared long ago and was not caused by
any scandalous, behind-the-scenes events requiring a high-level meeting.
All speakers talked about the channel’s overall strategy: in Mikhail Shvydkoy’s
opinion, Oleg Sysuyev addressed this most fully. The vice-premier
noted that the Kultura channel today is to a greater extent than ever fashioning
a new national idea, because Russia’s culture is synonymous with the national
idea, which the country has been seeking throughout recent years.
And it only remains to put the idea into practice, namely to ensure the
channel Russia-wide coverage.
According to Mikhail Shvydkoy, the topic of the
channel’s dissemination ran through all the speeches. Here, according
to the channel’s chief editor, work is under way in two areas: “the securing
of frequencies, and accords with local broadcasters.” Premises
were another topical issue, because “the Kultura channel has no possibility
of actually broadcasting today except from Zubovskiy Boulevard.”
The public council session drafted recommendations to the government with
regard to providing the all-Russia Kultura channel with permanent premises
and facilities (Mark Zakharov proposed that the RIA-Novosti building on
Zubovskiy Boulevard be transferred to Kultura). Questions of sponsorship
of the channel and advertising on it were discussed pretty keenly, as it
is unclear to date which forms of sponsorship could be acceptable on such
a channel.
It is possible that a Fund for the Support and Development
of the Kultura Channel will be set up in the very near future.
The Trusteeship Council’s meeting with the president
has not been cancelled and will probably take place in April-May.
‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta,’ Moscow, March 14, 1998
II. Yeltsin praises Kultura TV channel.
However recently established, the Culture [Kultura]
television channel has already won an honourable place in the Russian mass
media. Its appearance was the most important event on last year’s
television, federal presidential staff members said to Novosti. The
channel Council of Trustees holds session in the Kremlin tomorrow to sum
up its work and discuss prospects. President Boris Yeltsin, founding
father of the channel, will attend the event.
Mr Yeltsin was referring to the channel [on 13th
March] to stress that it is to survive at all cost. He praised the
staff and trustees for keeping commercials off. The Culture channel
must deal with culture and not stoop to advertising, he pointed out.
Assisted by RIA Novosti, the VGRTK [All-Russia State TV and Radio Company]
television company established the channel at a pace unheard-of in Russia—the
president signed its establishment decree [on] 25th August 1977, and broadcasts
started [on] 1st November. This showed rare efficiency and ability
to cope with the most complicated and responsible tasks, said persons close
to the federal president.
Channel telecasts now take a daily 17 hours, with
public ratings exceeding four-to fivefold the St Petersburg TV company’s,
which used to possess its present frequencies, say presidential staff members.
Tomorrow’s council session will debate two essential problems facing the
channel—technical and artistic. The one concerns an urgent necessity
to extend the broadcasting scope southwards—in particular, to the North
Caucasus, Rostov-on-Don and Black Sea resorts. The other concerns
the audience. The Kremlin thinks it is too small now. The channel
ought to cater not only for a modest number of highbrows but for all people,
especially young. Meanwhile, the channel does not offer them anything
attractive.
[Another report by RIA on 13th March quoted Kultura
TV’s editor in chief, Mihkail Shvydkoi, as saying that “the cost of one
hour of broadcasting on the Kultura channel is only one-twentieth of that
on ORT [Russian Public TV].”]
RIA news agency, Moscow, March 13, 1998
I. Media-Most to expand satellite broadcasting.
The Media-Most group, which includes the NTV [Independent
Television] company, is expanding its news influence to the regions.
A plan codenamed TNT-Telenetwork is being implemented. It is assumed
that TNT’s 20 satellite stations will make it possible to create a single
broadcasting network for different regions. Specialists believe that
the project will be a good venture. But they are worried about some
of the details.
The NTV company once managed through former Russian
Deputy Communications Minister Yelizarov to pay for its communications
services at state prices, which cut the private TV company’s costs at least
fourfold. Admittedly, there was an agreement that it would in exchange
implement a number of projects—such as taking part in the development of
a new Gals-series satellite. Unfortunately, the promises were forgotten.
Not everything has gone smoothly with satellite
broadcasting either. The footprint does not cover the entire broadcasting
area. In order to solve the problem, they made it oscillate—effectively
“roaming” across Russian territory. As a result, some NTV Plus dishes
get a clear picture, while others pick up interference on their screens.
People are being told that atmospheric conditions are to blame.
Media-Most’s new project, for which a 140m-dollar
loan has been obtained, has been presented as a way of saving satellite-based
TV broadcasting. And it has by no means been advertised that in the
event of the project’s successful implementation, V. Gusinskiy will have
a monopoly on the airwaves—all state broadcasters and a number of private
companies will be forced to use his services.
Experts reckon that V. Gusinskiy has every chance
of success, since his firm links to the Russian Federation Ministry of
Communications are well known. At a recent conference at the ministry
at the invitation of Vice-Premier V. Bulgak he shared his views on innovations
in the sphere of the licensing of communications and TV and radio broadcasting,
payment for frequencies and the reorganization of communications enterprises
carrying TV and radio broadcasts.
The attempts by the Russian Federation State Antimonopoly
Committee to achieve justice have been unsuccessful so far. Moscow’s
Court of Arbitration has sided with NTV.
‘Rabochaya Tribuna,’ Moscow, March 14, 1998
II. Unexim Bank plans to set up media holding, television.
Moscow’s Unexim Bank is not planning any acquisitions
of major media outlets, bank president Vladimir Potanin told newspaper
‘Kommersant-Daily’ [on 6th March]. However, the creation of a media
holding company that would include the newspapers ‘Izvestia,’ ‘Komsomolskaya
Pravda’ and ‘Russky Telegraf,’ the Prime news agency, the ‘Expert’ magazine
and the Europa Plus radio station is one of Unexim Bank’s priorities, Potanin
said.
The bank is also planning to develop a regional
television project that calls for participation in the purchase or creation
of regional companies that would produce television programmes and transmit
them to the regions, he said.
Interfax news agency, Moscow, March 6, 1998
III. Vice-premier Nemtsov opposes press monopolies.
Visiting Russian First Vice-Premier Boris Nemtsov
spoke against monopolization of the electronic and printed mass media in
Russia. According to him, a monopoly of the press, television and
radio is “an element of an oligarchic society where the mass media are
in the hands of a small number of owners.”
Boris Nemtsov, who is paying a working visit to
Germany, said in his address to the German public in Bonn that there was
“one prescription against this malady: competition.”
“It is not necessary to seize television channels
from their current owners, it is necessary to simply increase their number,”
he explained. “It is a matter of big money and time. The monopoly
of the mass media will be destroyed, not today but in a few years,” Nemtsov
said.
Work to achieve this end has already been started
by the anti-monopoly committee of the Russian Federation, Nemtsov said.
“The deals that lead to the monopolization of the media market will be
outlawed,” he said.
ITAR-TASS news agency (World Service), Moscow, March 5, 1998
IV. ORT shareholders confirm state’s “priority status.”
In [the 13th February] issue ‘Kommersant-Daily’ reported
on a meeting of ORT [Russian Public TV] shareholders. After the meeting,
it became known that of the 11 members of the new council of directors,
six are representatives of the state. Despite this, Boris Berezovskiy
fully managed to retain his influence on Channel 1 [ORT].
So the ORT shareholders’ meeting, which was promised
about two months ago, has been held. We remind you that the last
meeting reached an impasse because Maksim Boyko, who had been called upon
to support Anatoliy Chubays’s platform in the council of directors, failed
to get the necessary decisions passed. The meeting was postponed
on the initiative of Tatyana Dyachenko and Boris Berezovskiy. As
everyone was already dispersing, Berezovskiy commented that next time many
of them would no longer be there. In particular, Maksim Boyko is
no longer concerned about ORT’s problems.
The meeting, which had been postponed several times
in just the last month, having paused in the finest theatrical traditions,
had a maximal effect: The viewers were tense and had no time to get bored.
At 1800 hours the potential owners of ORT from the state—Tatyana Dyachenko
and Sergey Yastrzhembskiy, accompanied by Boris Berezovskiy—stepped out
of the lift on the sixth floor of the building at Nikitskiye Vorota.
Their appearance together at the ORT shareholders’ meeting attested clearly
and absolutely to the fact that the changes, which had been announced at
the last shareholders’ meeting on 2nd December, will, nonetheless, take
place.
Two hours later, it became known that ORT’s council
of directors had been cut from 19 to 11 people, six of whom were members
of the government collegium of representatives of the state at ORT, which
was created by a decree issued by [Russian Prime Minister] Viktor Chernomyrdin.
Later it was learned that from now on, the final decisions at the council
would be made by two-thirds of the votes (and not three-quarters, as before).
The whole thing ended peacefully: Both the private
shareholders and the state shareholders agreed with two-thirds, which is
actually what allowed Boris Berezovskiy to say something to the effect
that the “necessary balance of interests has been observed.”
His joy is easy to explain. After the ORT
closed-type joint-stock company was converted into an open-type one, the
company’s shareholders could have one day discovered strangers among their
united ranks. In order to prevent an unwanted attempt to seize property,
ORT’s shareholders opted for realistic calculations over unhealthy competition.
By including representatives of the state collegium into ORT’s council
of directors, the company’s shareholders reminded all the interested parties
that the blocking package of ORT shares belongs to the state—that was the
first thing. Second, they indicated by name everyone who at ORT will
be defending whose interests.
The election of the general director of ITAR-TASS,
Vitaliy Ignatenko, to the post of chairman of ORT’s council of directors
definitely indicates Viktor Chernomyrdin’s increased influence at Channel
1. Vitaliy Ignatenko is an invariable member of the premier’s team.
In addition to him, Igor Shabdurasulov, head of the government’s Department
of Culture and Information, was also included in the council of directors.
Shabdurasulov’s role to build up the premier’s image is becoming stronger.
He will most likely be responsible for tactics in the sphere of Viktor
Chernomyrdin’s public relations.
Therefore, Boris Berezovskiy once again managed
to confirm the state’s priority status in the management of the biggest
television channel and remind everyone of the old truth about the main
thing: L’etat c’ est moi. And the presentation of [video] cassettes
of “Old Songs About the Main Thing-3” to all the members of the council
looked very symbolic.
[The report was followed by the following passage:
The new staff of ORT’s Council of Directors: Vitaliy Ignatenko (chairman),
general director of ITAR-TASS; Badri Patrkatsishvili, first deputy general
director of ORT; Tatyana Dyachenko, adviser to the president of the Russian
Federation; Igor Shuvalov, deputy minister of state property management;
Sergey Yastrzhembskiy, deputy chief of the Presidential Staff and press
secretary of the president of the Russian Federation; Yuliy Dubov, general
director of the LogoVAZ AOZT [closed-type joint-stock company]; Kseniya
Ponomareva, general director of ORT; Natalya Rusina, general director of
the ORT-KB ZAO [closed joint-stock company]; Viktor Ilyushin, general director
of the Gazprom-Media holding; Oleg Sysuyev, vice-premier of the Russian
Federation; Igor Shabdurasulov, head of the government Department of Culture
and Information.
The following people have left ORT’s Council of
Directors: Andrey Vavilov, former first deputy minister of finance (now
president of the Institute of Financial Research); Albert Kokh, former
vice-premier of the Russian Federation (now head of the Montes Auri investment
company; Maksim Boyko, former vice-premier, who headed the State Property
Management Committee (now general director of the Video International advertising
group); Pavel Borodin, the presidential affairs manager; Rem Vyakhirev,
chairman of the board of directors of the Gazprom RAO [Russian Joint-Stock
Company]; Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, head of Yukos; Aleksandr Smolenskiy, chairman
of the council of directors of the SBS-AGRO bank group; Mikhail Fridman,
chairman of the council of directors of the Alfa-Grupp consortium; Nikolay
Glushkov, first deputy general director of the Aeroflot company; Kirill
Ignatyev, first deputy general director of ORT.]
‘Kommersant Daily,’ Moscow, February 14, 1998