Born in Odessa in 1951, Gleb Pavlovsky is famed for being one of the grey cardinals of modern Russian politics. As an adviser to Vladimir Putin until 2011, Pavlovsky was one of Russia's leading political technologists – second only to Vladislav Surkov. During Putin’s second term as president, however, Pavlovsky became an outlying figure, attending protest marches and criticising the Kremlin and opposition alike.
Prior to this rise to fame, Pavlovsky cut his teeth as a dissident journalist during the 1970s and 1980s, even spending time in internal exile for anti-Soviet activity. Here he talks to Gleb Morev about reading science fiction, throwing bricks at the KGB and growing up Soviet in Odessa and Moscow.
Reading habits
Gleb Morev: As a student at Odessa University in the late 1960s, you were part of an unofficial student group. How much did you know about what was going on in Moscow, about the beginnings of what would later be known as the dissident movement? Did you have access to samizdat?
