My best story from my years covering Russian politics (1995 to 2005)

Some background: In 1996 I was working in the Russia section of the Open Media Research Institute in Prague. My main beats were campaigns and elections and parliamentary politics.

My colleagues and I did not call ourselves journalists. Our job title was “research analyst.” Most of the time we were not reporting the news first-hand. We were consuming vast quantities of Russian news reports (wire services, newspaper articles, radio and tv broadcasts) and synthesizing them for our readers. The idea was that people reading our digests would not miss any big story happening in Russia. We provided concise reports about any newsworthy event or interview.

We traveled to Russia only occasionally. I went to Moscow for three weeks during the early part of the 1995 parliamentary campaign, then traded places with Robert Orttung a few weeks before that election. For the presidential election, he took the first shift in Moscow, then I came for about six weeks.

YouTube did not exist, and most of our readers did not have access to Russian television networks. So part of our job during campaigns was to describe and analyze how candidates and political parties were appealing to voters. We translated excerpts from a lot of printed literature and videos aired during the free television time all candidates received. We also described their pitches in paid tv or radio ads.

One of my beats was the Russian media. I was particularly interested in how rival outlets covered the same news. In 1995 the state television networks and the main private network had reported on the war in Chechnya very differently. In contrast, almost the entire Russian media (private as well as state-owned) fell in line behind President Boris Yeltsin during the 1996 presidential campaign, because journalists who remembered the Soviet period feared what might happen if Communist leader Gennadii Zyuganov won the election. In May and June 1996, I often wrote about how news coverage was slanted toward Yeltsin.

Because my colleagues and I mostly worked from Prague, and because we were not approaching the political news in the same way as Moscow correspondents for other western media outlets, OMRI did not get us credentialed as journalists in Russia. We went there on work visas, but it wasn’t worth the trouble to try to get a media credential for a few weeks a year. We didn’t need accreditation to show up at a campaign rally or roundtable discussion about the election. We didn’t need to attend events restricted to credentialed journalists, since we could do our analysis based on the Russian media reports.

No one received 50 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election on June 16. The top two candidates were given the same amount of free air time on state television before the runoff, set for July 3. Like some other European countries, Russia had a “blackout” period—no campaigning on television the day before an election. So the last free air time slots for Yeltsin and Zyuganov were scheduled for the evening of July 1.

Most candidates used their tv time either to deliver a pre-recorded monologue or to air a video including biographical information and clips from some campaign rallies. The Communist videos tended to be boring. But in late June, Zyuganov’s campaign announced that the film-maker Stanislav Govorukhin would deliver a monologue during Zyuganov’s final free prime-time slot on nationwide Russian Public Television (Channel 1).

Govorukhin was a superstar actor and director. I can’t think of any American with comparable stature, who not only makes popular films, but also is a respected intellectual figure. Govorukhin was neither a dissident during the Soviet period nor a tool of the regime. His 1990 documentary “Tak zhit’ nel’zya” (“We can’t live this way” or “This is no way to live”) was a smash hit of the Gorbachev era. It shone a light on some social problems that were taboo subjects in the Soviet media.

While many of his contemporaries were aligned with pro-Yeltsin “democratic” reformers, Govorukhin dabbled in nationalist politics during the early post-Soviet period. Still, almost the entire Russian cultural elite backed Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996, even those who had sharply criticized his economic policies and the war in Chechnya. They didn’t want Communists back in charge. So it was a major news story when an icon like Govorukhin endorsed Zyuganov for president.

Like many others, I was eagerly anticipating Govorukhin’s taped monologue on Zyuganov’s behalf. I planted myself in front of the tv on the evening of July 1, VCR rolling so I could write a full transcript later for one of OMRI’s presidential election reports. But Channel 1 replayed a five-minute Zyuganov video I had taped a few days earlier.

The next day I learned the Communists had tried to purchase five extra minutes of air time. The network claimed that the payment didn’t come through, so instead of airing Govorukhin’s ten-minute clip, they had no choice but to re-run a five-minute spot, which had been submitted the previous week.

Zyuganov’s campaign screamed censorship, with good reason. They insisted they had paid for the extra time. I believed them. Anyway, even if there had been some problem with the payment, as a matter of fairness, Channel 1 should have run the ad and sought to collect the money later. They had other commercials in heavy rotation, which were ostensibly neutral messages to encourage Russians to vote, but were in fact aimed at boosting Yeltsin’s chances to win the runoff.

Russian and western media reported Zyuagnov’s allegations and denials from state television executives. Whether Channel 1 bosses made an honest mistake or played a dirty trick, there was no way to remedy the error. Airing Govorukhin’s video on July 2 would have been illegal, because of the blackout period.

Two of my prime research interests converged in this story: how candidates presented themselves to voters, and how state television was biased toward Yeltsin. I was already curious about the case Govorukhin would make for electing a Communist. Now I became determined to find out what he had said that was considered too dangerous to broadcast on Channel 1.

While working for OMRI in Moscow, I did most of my writing in an apartment with no internet connection. I filed my stories in the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty bureau. On July 2, I asked the journalists working for RFE/RL’s Russian service if any of them knew how to get hold of this Govorukhin video. No one had a copy or knew of anyone who did. At the Yeltsin campaign’s press center on election night, I asked a bunch of reporters if they knew what was in the censored video. No one had seen it. According to one rumor, Govorukhin had talked about Yeltsin’s supposedly poor health. The president had hardly been seen in public since June 16.

Starting the day after the election, I tried to get a copy of this video. I didn’t bother contacting Channel 1. I figured my best chance was reaching out to the Communists. But remember, I was a research analyst based in Prague, not a journalist with a lot of experience in Moscow. Although I’d been immersed in Russian domestic politics for more than a year, I had essentially no contacts among Russian politicians. I was cold-calling the Communist Party headquarters and its office in the parliament, leaving messages when no one answered the phone.

Whoever listened to the messages would have had no idea who I was, since I did all of my writing in English for a specialist audience. It was unlikely any of them had heard of the Open Media Research Institute. Actually, that was probably for the best, since OMRI was funded by George Soros. He was hated in Communist circles for having supported various dissident groups financially during the 1980s (the Solidarity movement in Poland, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia).

At this point, it started to work in my favor that I was not a journalist. As far as I could tell, no one else was chasing this story. Russian journalists were not interested in reporting what Govorukhin tried to tell a national tv audience, possibly because the censorship underscored how massively the Russian media had been in the tank for Yeltsin. The western reporters had filed stories on July 2 about state tv refusing to run Zyuganov’s final campaign video. Now they had more important news to cover, like whom Yeltsin would appoint to his cabinet and other fallout from the election result. My colleagues Robert Orttung, Scott Parrish, and Peter Rutland were writing up those stories for OMRI, leaving me free to pursue my obsession.

I don’t remember how many times I called the various Communist numbers I could find. Finally, two days before I was due to fly back to Prague, I got through to a woman who worked for the Communist faction in the parliament. I introduced myself and explained that I was interested in telling our readers what Stanislav Govorukhin had wanted to say to the people of Russia. She told me I could meet with one of the members of parliament the following day to watch the video. I can’t remember the man’s name. He was not a high-profile politician, just a back-bencher. Probably his name is in a notebook tucked away in one of my boxes.

Having been to the parliament building only a few times, I didn’t have a good sense of how long it would take to get there on public transit. Not wanting to screw up my opportunity by being late, I set off way earlier than I needed to. I signed in as a visitor, because I didn’t have the accreditation to sign in as a journalist. Visitors were only supposed to be in certain areas of the building, and there was a limit on how long you could stay, either 60 or 90 minutes if I recall correctly. I wasn’t worried about any of that, because this was Yeltsin’s Russia. People were not sticklers for details.

To kill time before my meeting, I went to the press room and chatted with a couple of people, I think including Floriana Fossato. Then I went to this Communist State Duma deputy’s office, in a part of the building where regular visitors weren’t supposed to go. I wasn’t concerned anyone would check my pass. Indeed, no one checked my pass.

The Communist was alone. He stood up to shake my hand as I thanked him for meeting with me. He sat behind his desk and I sat in a chair, pen and notebook in hand, ready to write down as much as I could from the Govorukhin video. If I were lucky, maybe he would show it to me more than once, so I could take better notes.

The man said, “I didn’t bring my cassette player today.” I looked around and realized there was no television in his office. I looked back at him. He wasn’t smiling. I was not prepared for this at all.

I’m trying to think on my feet. I didn’t speak Russian nearly as well as I could understand it, but I managed to say something like, that’s too bad, I was really hoping to be able to tell our readers what Stanislav Govorukhin had said. I know a lot of people would want to hear his message to voters, why they should support Gennadii Zyuganov for president, what the authorities refused to play on Channel 1.

He said something like, well, I have the tape with me. I can let you borrow it if you promise to bring it back tomorrow.

Now I’m excited. This is even better! I can take the tape back to my apartment and watch it as many times as needed to get a full transcript. I assured him, I will definitely return your tape tomorrow. The truth was, I was going to be on a plane to Prague the next morning. But I had every intention of keeping my promise by asking a friend to return the video for me. I wasn’t planning to steal it.

He gave me the video. I thanked him and put it in my bag, along with my notebook. I didn’t think to ask for a note authorizing me to borrow the tape. (Amateur hour.)

As I made my way back to the entrance, I was walking on air. I could not believe I had a copy of this video. We wrote lots of original analysis at OMRI, but breaking news was a new experience for me. This was going to be an exclusive on an important story related to the presidential election.

I ran into a journalist acquaintance in a hallway, and we talked for a while. By now I was way past the time limit for people on a visitor’s pass. I wasn’t worried anyone would hassle me. This was Yeltsin’s Russia.

On my way out of the parliament building, just a few steps from the door, a guard put his hand on my arm and said, “Devushka” (young lady).

I’d been walking on air, but in a split second I came crashing back to earth. All of a sudden I realized that I was a foreigner, doing the work of a journalist without the proper accreditation. I had spent too long in the building for someone on a visitor’s pass. I had gone to an area where I was not authorized to be. I had nothing in writing showing that I was allowed to borrow this video. No eyewitness had seen the man give me permission to take it.

If this Communist set me up (knowing that I worked for a Soros-funded institute), and the guard searched my bag, very bad things could happen. As in, “American arrested while impersonating a journalist and trying to steal property from the parliament building.”

Hoping my face didn’t reveal how panicked I felt, I looked at the guard. He asked for my phone number.

It took a second or two for that to sink in. I have never felt so relieved to have a total stranger try to pick me up. I smiled and said I’m sorry, I don’t live here, I live in the Czech Republic, I am going back there tomorrow. The guard let me leave without searching my bag.

As soon as I got back to the apartment, I set to work transcribing the monologue. To my disappointment, it was kind of a rambling mess. They should have whittled it down to a cogent case against Yeltsin that Govorukhin could deliver in five minutes. Though who knows, maybe Channel 1 would have found some other pretext not to broadcast the video.

My friend and colleague Natasha Gurushina came over to help me translate the few lines I couldn’t understand. Then I headed for RFE/RL’s bureau to file my story. Someone there transferred the tape onto another cassette, so I could bring a copy back to show colleagues in Prague. I left the original with a friend, who made sure it was returned to the parliament building the next day.

I have no idea whether any of the Communists ever saw the final OMRI special report on the presidential election, containing my one and only real scoop from the decade I spent writing about Russian politics. I’m enclosing the text of Govorukhin’s monologue in a separate note.

Image of Stanislav Govorukhin in 2008, from a photograph taken by Yevgenia Davydova, available via Wikimedia Commons.