Aram Ashotovich goes into sports

With whom the king of the yellow press Aram Gabrelyanov quarreled and how his empire breaks up

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More recently, Aram Gabrelyanov was one of the most influential media managers of Russia, he was even called the shadow minister of press. In the past two years, he, quarreling with the patrons from the closest encirclement of Vladimir Putin, lost everything, and now the authorities are forced to think over the options for his employment. What is behind the swift collapse of the creator of "Life" and Life.ru - The New Times understood.

The legend of the altruist

The most characteristic legend of Gabrelyanov in 2013 was told by TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak . Allegedly, in the 2000s, the Kremlin wanted to control the popularity of Gabrelyanov’s “Life”, and then the deputy head of the presidential administration Vladislav Surkov invited him to the Kremlin. At the meeting of the Surkov, according to Sobchak, he suggested that Gabrelyanov sell half of the business to understanding power to people and thus give control over the newspaper. The media Magnate made an unexpected move: he said that he loves the president so much that he was ready not to sell the business, but to give it to the time of the needs of the country. The Kremlin official was so impressed that Gabrelyanov bought the fraction of the more than originally, the money was supposed, and he himself was left not only by the manager of the newspaper, but also in the future, a huge holding was entrusted.

It is impossible to confirm the reliability of this story, but Gabrelyanov himself never refuted it. “I always wanted to work with the president,” he answered the request of his acquaintance - the interlocutor NT - to comment on the legend. “It was a good chance.”

In this legend, Gabrelyanov’s ideas about business: he understands that in Russia you can earn money only on relations with the authorities, says a media manager who is familiar with Gabrelyanov. “In this sense, he is very consistent,” the interlocutor NT is ironic. “If a conditional State Department comes to power tomorrow, then its journalists will write in English and praise Navalny.”

In this legend, the essence of Gabrelyanov’s ideas about business: he understands that in Russia you can earn money only on relations with the authorities

The first novel with power

Gabrelyanov began his labor career in the 1980s in the newspaper Ulyanovsk Komsomolets. In private conversations, he likes to recall his first achievement: he went to Moscow to cover an important event with the participation of USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, broke through to him and asked several questions.

But he did not achieve proximity to power then. Gabrelyanov became a trustee of one of the key party functionaries of the Ulyanovsk region - Yuri Goryachev. It was thanks to Goryachev Gabrelyanov who received the Ulyanovsk Komsomolets department, which he renamed the “Word of Youth”. When Goryachev became the governor of the region in 1992, the newspaper Gabrelyanov was located in the mansion in the center of Ulyanovsk, Forbes reported. Later, the media manager and politics had disagreements, and Gabrelyanov supported the nominee of Moscow, General Vladimir Shamanov, in the governor’s elections in 2000. He eventually sent Goryachev to retire.

Gabrelyanov moved to Moscow, where in 2001 he established the Life Publishing House. The newspaper began to quickly gain popularity, and soon Boris Fedorov became interested in the asset, who, according to the results of negotiations, bought 49% of the shares. It was Fedorov who could provide Gabrelevanov with ties in the highest echelons of the Russian government. Fedorov worked in the government in the 1990s, rose in 1998 under the premiere Sergey Kiriyenko before the deputy prime minister post, and was friends with many officials.

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Fedorov’s people were the first to discover financial problems in Gabrelyanov holding. According to Forbes, they studied financial documents and came to the conclusion that the holding is on the verge of unprofitability. Then the general director became a representative of Fedorov, who tried to put reports in order.

In 2008, Fedorov died, and Gabrelyanov quickly had a new partner - according to the results of the already mentioned meeting with Surkov, he became a close to Putin Yuri Kovalchuk, who created the National Media Group (NMG) in the same year.

Patron from St. Petersburg

In private conversations, Gabrelyanov admitted that he always dreamed of a full -fledged holding: in addition to the "yellow" newspapers "Life" and "Your Day", as well as the LifeNews portal later created, he also wanted to get a respectable political newspaper, television channel and radio station. Kovalchuk gave Gabrelyanov a chance to realize a dream.

It was Kovalchuk since then that he was the chief chief of Gabrelyanov. Periodically, Aram Ashotovich came to work not in traditional jeans and a T -shirt, but in a suit, recalls one of Gabrelyanov’s employees. According to him, this meant that the “chef” on this day would go to St. Petersburg to “Yuri Valentinovich”. The costume, Gabrelyanov told the employees, he put on only for the sake of two people - Kovalchuk and Putin. Visits to the latter, by the way, happened much less often.

The first fruits of friendship with Kovalchuk appeared in 2011. Gabrelyanov received the first element of the dream holding - a political newspaper. Six months before the State Duma elections of the next convocation, he was appointed chairman of the board of directors of the Izvestia newspaper, which three years before transferred from Gazprom-Media Holding to the NMG. First of all, Gabrelyanov evicted employees from the historical building on Tverskaya and transferred to the building near the Belorusskaya metro, where the office of his "yellow" assets was located.

Photo: en.wikipedia.org / sergey samoylov Life

During this period, Gabrelyanov began to be especially often at meetings in the Kremlin with Vladislav Surkov, fulfilling all the tasks of the authorities to illuminate the United Russia election campaign, a familiar Kremlin official says. At the same time, the authorities did not skimp on expenses - Gabrelyanov was encouraged as no one else, according to anonymity, a high -ranking unicorn claims.

Another fact is talking about the special status of Gabrelyanov. When protests began at the end of 2011 and it became clear that the Surkov was dismissed from the post of curator of domestic politics, he decided to give something like a farewell interview. According to a person close to the Kremlin, Surkov insisted that the interview be released precisely in Izvestia, and he set the condition that Gabrelyanov would personally take him. He did not agree immediately - consulted with the leadership of the Izvestius editorial office and, only enlisting the assembly of the team, went to the Kremlin, says the holding employee.

However, the first time Gabrelyanov declared that he was not going to demand excessive loyalty from the "Izvestia". For example, he always said that he would never agree to put in the newspaper the heading of the “Brilliant Victory of United Russia” in the election - such a degree of loyalty should have been characterized by Lifenews (such headings appeared regularly there), but not a response newspaper that he promised to do. Another former employee confirms - until 2012 Gabrelyanov “burned” by Izvestia and tried to ensure that the information in the newspaper looked balanced.

The situation began to change shortly before the presidential election. At the height of protests, he called key newspaper employees and said that, perhaps, the newspaper would have to take a “patriotic position” against the background of protests. By the summer, he kept his promise and finally turned it into the Kremlin Rupor.

To the Kremlin as a job

At this point, Gabrelyanov lost interest in Izvestia. He is generally so arranged: at first he burns something, then he is fond of new, and the old one destroys, says his acquaintance. Instead of Izvestia, the manager prepared to launch new parts of the empire - a channel and a radio station.

Both he received in 2013. The Life channel was launched from scratch, but almost immediately was included in the packages by all leading cable operators, and its journalists immediately received the most privileged positions in the Kremlin pool. They began to take them to all the events of the head of state without exception, says the interlocutor NT, familiar with the course of the launch of the channel. Radio Gabrelyanov gave the already existing and before that “Russian News Service”. She was headed by Star and Honored Leading Sergey Dorenko, but for the sake of Gabrelevanov they said goodbye to him.

At first, Gabrelyanov declared that he was not going to demand excessive loyalty from Izvestia

In the Kremlin, Gabrelyanov began to visit even more often than under Surkov, his acquaintances say. The domestic political unit of the presidential administration was already headed by Vyacheslav Volodin, and Gabrelyanov publicly talked about friendship with the Kremlin official. NT sources claim that they regularly saw a media manager in Volodin's receptionist. He came out from there with the “tasks”, says one of the interlocutors. The journalists of other publications who noticed this began to call him the "shadow minister of the press."

Gabrelyanov liked to be an instrument in political intrigues, his acquaintances say. The most striking example is the story of the division of the government. In 2013, Life published a scandalous video under the heading "Vladimir Putin threatens to dissolve the government." The channel said that he was published by a fragment of a video from a closed part of a meeting with members of the government, recorded after the president’s request to turn off the camera. On the record you can hear Putin sharply criticizes the audience and threatens with resignation.

On the same day, the scandal flared up-the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov criticized Life for violations of ethics, after the exclusion of journalists from the Kremlin pool appeared. In fact, the video of Life reporters was transferred from the president’s press service, two informed sources say. The President thus demonstrated the people how he was baking officials, adds one of the interlocutors of NT. This is confirmed by the fact that the video was later shown on the air of all central channels. Gabrelyanov always liked such “wiring”.

But the expansion of the empire did not end there. In 2015, Gabrelyanov, after a long preparation, launched a new channel in St. Petersburg - Life78. The channel, according to the plan, was supposed to critically illuminate the activities of Governor Georgy Poltavchenko, the interlocutors say. Poltavchenko is customary to attribute to the sphere of influence of the Rotenbergs brothers, the excessive strengthening of the current governor is not very satisfied with the senior comrade Gabrelyanov - Yuri Kovalchuk.

Chronicle of the fall

At the end of 2015 - early 2016, incredible, as it seemed then rumors appeared on the market: Izvestia would be taken from Gabrelyanov. He himself had long refuted this information, but the newspaper soon began permissions. In early February last year, Alexander Potapov, appointed by Gabrelyanov, left the post of chief editor. His place was taken by the former vice-governor of the Kaluga region Arseniy Oganesyan. He is the creature of the chairman of the board of directors of the NMG Kirill Kovalchuk, although only Gabrelyanov himself made a decision on the management of the editorial office, the interlocutor in the holding notes.

Already in the summer of 2016, Izvestia was removed from the Gabrelyanov department and converted into the direct jurisdiction of the NMG. Later they were combined with other assets of the group - REN TV and the Fifth Canal. No intelligible explanations of what happened then sounded.

This year the process continued. In March, information appeared on the withdrawal of the Life78 channel from the Gabrelyanov Directorate, then there was a message about the closure of the Life Sound radio station created by Gabrainov based on the RSN radio station. Finally, in August, Life Channel was stopped. In addition, it became known that Gabrelyanov was fired from the post of deputy general director of the NMG, who symbolized the association of his holding with the Kovalchuk group.

Probably, after the presidential election in 2018, Gabrelevanov will take the site Life.ru, a person in NMG predicts

Probably, after the presidential election in 2018, he will be taken away from Life.ru, a person in NMG predicts. Gabrelyanov became a victim of a model of business association with NMG. All assets were in his administration, but significant shares belonged to the group, so that it was easy to pick up all the assets from him, the interlocutor continues. Understanding this, Gabrelyanov brought all the key employees from Life. Already several former employees of Gabrelyanov launched new projects in which he acts as an investor.

One of these projects is the Ararat football club. Gabrelyanov is now very passionate about them, a person who is familiar with the mediaman, who was close to the leadership of the Kremlin administration, said with the mediaman. According to RBC, in September, Gabrelyanov, through his representative, became the owner of the club. The interlocutor NT says that he heard at a high level of discussion of other options for further employment of the manager. “I even heard the idea of ​​making it by the dean of the Faculty of Journalism,” the interlocutor said, without specifying which university we were talking about and how seriously this idea sounded.

Money and politics

Informed NT sources agree that the Gabrelyanov empire broke up due to the coincidence of political and financial reasons. At a certain moment, the NMG (as at one time Fedorov) decided to figure out what was happening with Gabrelyanov with money, and made a lot of unpleasant discoveries for herself, says a familiar manager. Gabrelyanov spent millions of dollars on the construction of the channel studio, say two interlocutors who saw estimates for the purchase of equipment. According to them, the launch of the channel as a whole was very expensive, and the shareholders could not understand what the money went for.

The shareholder also caused the targeted use of funds that Gabrelyanov received, concluding contracts with the heads of regions and companies. The wiring of these revenues was, to put it mildly, not too transparent, notes a person close to NMG. Gabrelyanov always distributed funds as he himself considered fit, this annoyed the shareholder, says a subordinate creator Life.

The quality of the product also often raised doubts: the shareholders counted on success in St. Petersburg Life78, considerable money was also spent on it, but at the same time the effectiveness was lower than expected, a source close to the Kremlin says.

Gabrelyanov’s shocked positions could be affected by the attitude of the influential Kremlin official, the first deputy head of the Kremlin administration Alexei Gromov

Gabrelyanov’s shocked positions could be affected by the attitude of the influential Kremlin official, the first deputy head of the Kremlin administration, Alexei Gromov, follows from the words of NT interlocutors. Gabrelyanov had close relations with the curator of domestic policy Volodin, but with the curator of information policy Gromov, they were always tense. The interlocutor NT says that he was somehow present during the telephone conversation of Gromov and Gabrelyanov. According to him, Gabrelyanov all the time asked: "Alexey Alekseevich, who tunes you against me?" In addition to Gromov, there were many other ill -wishers in power, says a source close to the Kremlin.

Volodin for a long time covered Gabrelyanov, but at the beginning of 2016 Volodin’s positions were already weakened, many understood that he would be transferred from the Kremlin to the State Duma, so Gabrelyanov became more vulnerable, his acquaintance says.

In general, the reason for the problems is that Gabrelyanov did not understand on time that one loyalty is now not enough, his friend was reasoned by another. He continued to behave as if only he helps the Kremlin: he quarreled with whom he wanted, and spent money as he wanted. “Although in reality everything is now loyal, almost every media is ready to comply with the order of the Kremlin administration. In this sense, Gabrelyanov ceased to be unique, ”summarizes the acquaintance of the unclenched king of the yellow press of Russia.