“Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, I am writing not to the Chief, but to a friend. Excommunicated from the air six months ago, Karaulov begs Putin to return him to TV, promising to “butcher” Navalny

It seems that the regiment of innocently convicted people has arrived in large numbers. If you believe the famous journalist Andrei Karaulov, then the accusation against the (now, as usual, former) deputy head of the Federal Penitentiary Service Oleg Korshunov is completely fabricated.

In turn, Vladimir Osechkin points out that Karaulov’s documentary in defense of Oleg Korshunov is custom-made.

Why in in this case I believe not Karaulov, but Osechkin? Because Vladimir Osechkin cites facts and documents that you can’t argue with to support his opinion, for example:
Exclusive. List of Federal State Unitary Enterprises of the Federal Penitentiary Service, whose activities were controlled by O.A. Korshunov
Free prices: how much the arrested deputy director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Oleg Korshunov overpaid for gasoline and sugar
Jailer behind bars: Korshunov “inherited” at the poultry farm and in stores for prisoners
Karaulov’s film looks surprisingly helpless and toothless.

But I have even more doubts about the purity of journalist Karaulov’s thoughts about the choice of topic. Why was the journalist inspired only by the Korshunov case, while it is far from the first and not the only one?
Next is mine open letter. Karaulov, like the President of Russia, has an electronic reception. I copy from there:

Dear Andrey Viktorovich!
Your documentary “Strike on the Special Service” is recognized as an outstanding film for the glory and defense of corruption in the prison department. Is this so, and what actually inspired you to so courageously rush to the defense of the former deputy director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Oleg Korshunov?
What influenced the choice of subject?
When viewing, one is struck by the absence of documents, facts, and specific details. Throughout most of the screen time, several successful-looking men make passes with sleek hands, probably trying to influence the audience through hypnosis. The video sequence is reminiscent of pictures from school textbooks from the times of the USSR. Instead of clearly justifying your position, you express helpless hints and vague assumptions accompanied by sepulchral music.
.
Why, while standing up for the fallen celestial Oleg Korshunov, do you ignore the practice of mass falsification of criminal cases against ordinary innocent citizens of our country? After all, unlike customers of this story, the victims in each of the cases are ready to provide a rich evidence base for publication.

Is this due to the fact that you share the attitude of Korshunov, Voloshin, Lebedev and others like them towards Russian citizens as cattle, not worthy of documentaries or any attention at all?

Or, perhaps, your position is due to the insolvency of the families of innocent prisoners, from whom corrupt judges, at the suggestion of a dishonest cannibalistic investigation, took away their breadwinners, deprived them of their means of livelihood, and drove people into the abyss of poverty and hopeless despair?

As an example, I cite only two documents from only one (out of hundreds!) of fabricated criminal cases. From them it is obvious to what boundless impudence the so-called court reaches, distorting the personal data of the convicted person right on the very first page of the verdict! As you can easily check, this verdict of the Khimki City Court, drawn up in clear violation of the law, is nevertheless considered to have entered into “legal” force and has not yet been canceled.

Unlike the President’s reception, in Andrei Karaulov’s electronic reception no one is required by law to respond to letters. To be honest, I’m not expecting it, because... I think there is nothing to answer. Moreover, the experience of contacting the so-called. The media has already accumulated.
From the group's materials Freedom for the innocently convicted on FB :
Tatyana Leshukova: now it's clear why he ordinary citizens doesn’t help, but works on order, and whoever really needs help is asked by his assistants to call ten times, because they are all busy, but in the end nothing.
Natalia Sergeeva: I “called out” to him in 2016, asking him to help protect my son from trumped-up charges - silence... It’s like you’re shouting into the abyss.
Emma Tian: In 2016, I wrote for the program “Let Them Talk” and “Man and the Law.” In Koisomolbskaya Pravda and others where you can contact public bodies for human rights. It's as quiet as a tank. Only Babushkin answered me that he handed it over to the prosecutor’s office and there are still replies from there
Elena Smirnova: We also wrote and contacted everyone. It was funny to look at them. At first they did not understand us and thought that our victim seemed to have died, but was alive. Everyone swooped in like kites. The phones were simply cut off. When they found out how things really were, they disappeared.

The helplessness of our entire ideology in front of Navalny stunned me. Before our eyes, this insignificance turns into a symbol of... it’s unclear what. How was it allowed? Where were all our services (primarily ideological)? Why, after Navalny’s film about Medvedev, was I the only one who fought with Navalny all this time? Why, when my film “Through the Eyes of a Clown” is about Navalny received — how only we posted it on the Internet — 9 (!) hacker attacks, and the FSB, when I turned to the security officers, through our former curator A. Komelkov [read about this man below. - SDG], failed to protect our film? Why didn’t anyone think about distributing it on the Internet, if the film is evidence-based, collects hundreds of thousands of views, and most importantly — the only one to date on this topic?

Navalny’s plans are now like this: a film and in three or four weeks rallies in the streets. Heroes of future videos: Rotenbergs, Matvienkos, Timchenkos, Kovalchuks and young Kovalchuks (“Kurchatnik” is not touched, M.V. has merits in physics, especially the collider), His Holiness, and since mid-October, endless chatter about Putin, at least two series, including personal life President.

Navalny himself has nothing to do with the film about Medvedev. With our inaction, he managed to become a “brand”: anyone, be it Khodorkovsky or anyone else, can post any nonsense about anyone under this “trademark”. And for four million rubles, as in the case of Medvedev, “Barber” (Navalny started 11 years ago as a hairdresser) will voice anything.

The worst thing is: I have no one to tell all this to. Knowing that Shmakov [Mikhail Shmakov is the Chairman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia. - SDG] a meeting with the President is planned, I told him everything I knew at that time. Now my concern is only growing: Medvedev has been prepared with the “Lazarenko option”, and if we had not posted “Through the Eyes of a Clown” on the Internet on March 13 (and I am still sitting without broadcasts, I don’t understand why I was punished, although I really want to return to TVC ), — so, if we hadn’t rushed, then already on Wednesday the 15th Navalny would have sold a video about Medvedev to the ARD company, the Germans. And the film would go for a walk all over Europe; after ARD, the Swedes, Italians and French were going to show it — this is only what I know for sure. I also knew that the Germans, with their pedantry, would diligently study the counter-arguments of the film “Through the Eyes of a Clown.” And the sale deal to Europe will fall through.

They tore it off. Why counter-arguments, why not work proactively? I warned Alexey Alekseevich [Gromov, first deputy head of the presidential administration, oversees the media, about what can be expected from Navalny now. - SDG] about two weeks ago. Not directly, there is no direct connection, through mutual friends. Gromov, well done, firstly, he heard, secondly, he believed, and even, as I was told, he held some meetings at the AP. All others, like Seryozha Novikov [head of the presidential administration’s department for public projects, has been working with Sergei Kiriyenko for many years. - SDG], they didn’t even consider it necessary to pick up the phone.

Our film “The Passion of Isaac” did everything to disrupt all the February rallies on the Champs de Mars. PARNAS and Yabloko planned to hold them (under the guise of meetings of the population with deputies, which is not prohibited by law) throughout February.

According to Navalny I have specific plan I can quickly cut through all this stupidity, but even I can’t fight them alone.

Yours, Andrey Karaulov.

P.S. After 3–4 months in " Fiction“My “Russian Hell” is coming out [the first edition of the novel in two volumes was published in 2011 — Russian Hell. On the way to the underworld" in "Eksmo", "Russian Hell-2. Meeting with the Devil" - in "Algorithm". - SDG] - epic novel about the 90s, their full portrait, the book is dedicated to you, I’ll try to convey through Dima Peskov, maybe you’ll have a moment to look through it: it’s a shame to realize that Pushkin never read Dostoevsky!

Second letter

[spelling and punctuation preserved]

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, I am writing not to the Chief, but to a friend.

I'm sitting without broadcasts. I don’t understand why I was punished: Alexey Alekseevich [Gromov] has already shut me down twice: in 2010, after Luzhkov, and now. In all these years, I have never met Alexey Alekseevich, although I really wanted to compare notes.

Even before the New Year, I spoke with Sobyanin. He is not against “Moment of Truth” being on “TV Center” again. There are elections ahead, after all, and “Fifth” will sour without us, as Yuri Valentinovich [Yuri Kovalchuk — a friend of Putin, one of the founders of the National Media Group, which owns REN TV, Channel Five, the newspapers “Izvestia” and “Sport Express” , 25% of Channel One — SDG] honestly admitted — the other day — to my friends, filmmakers Fr. Tikhon and Mikhalkov.

Help, Vladimir Vladimirovich, without you — it’s impossible. Then, in 2010, it was you who helped. More than five years at Fifth were bliss. When I return to the air, only my enemies will regret it.

P.S. I did everything to last movie - "The Passion of Isaac" - would have stopped the Field of Mars, we turned the “opposition” inside out, but there was no “big broadcast” for the film, although the metropolitans, I know, were busy. We showed it only on the Internet, the coverage was not the same, although ten episodes of “Putin’s Russia” on the Internet attracted four million viewers.

The other day my “Russian Hell” is coming out in “Fiction” - an epic novel about the 90s, their full portrait, the book is dedicated to you, I’ll tell you, if possible, through Dima Peskov, maybe you’ll have a minute to look through it: it’s a shame to realize that Pushkin never read Dostoevsky.

The cult television journalist and investigator, host of the “Moment of Truth” Andrei Karaulov wrote a letter to the President of the United States and Nobel laureate Peace Prize open letter, which was delivered to the residence of Barack Obama on the same day. In it, the author of the most scandalous investigations and revelations talks about the list recently submitted to the US Congress by ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov Russian journalists, whom the opposition wants to “shut up.”

“Mr. President, I want to apologize. I want to apologize to you personally: the fact that our Russian scoundrels are making a laughing stock of you today is, it seems to me, my fault as a journalist,” says Karaulov. “In 2002, when Kasyanov, the favorite of the Yeltsin family, was omnipotent, we journalists said: the murder of the governor Magadan region Tsvetkov and the decision of Prime Minister Kasyanov of September 12, 2002 “On increasing the volume of total permissible catches of crabs and trumpeter shellfish - links in the same chain,” he recalls, talking about the scam with the blue crab - when Kasyanov allegedly allowed its catch for the needs of science, it was sold to other countries, and Governor Tsvetkov, who received the prime minister’s visa, was killed at the stage of dividing the money “It was not possible to divide the money, and Governor Tsvetkov paid for it, again in Russian - with his blood. Tsvetkov’s corpse lay in plain sight for almost half a day on Novy Arbat. We fell silent, Kasyanov got away unscathed,” says the journalist.

He recalls that Kasyanov’s influence then, under Yeltsin, “was so great that the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation actually stopped the investigation of another criminal case - the theft of more than forty million dollars allocated by the Russian Ministry of Finance for the creation of our military aircraft - MiGs in particular."

According to State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev, in the scam with that same money for MiGs, “the main signature, the main decision is Kasyanov.”

“Mr. President didn’t let us forget about Kasyanov - who: that’s right, including Boris Nemtsov. The same Nemtsov, whose name, as I assume, Kasyanov wanted to “privatize” today,” writes in particular he, “Kasyanov cooks up his lists as if these tapes no longer exist, as if Nemtsov himself did not protect his ministers last words, especially, as I remember, Mr. Artyukhov, and Kasyanov got it pretty bad. He is not afraid to deceive Congress, the main thing is to make noise. Will someone check what Kasyanov writes? How? That's what we're counting on."

"When we, journalists, television program“The moment of truth”, they began their investigation, their “Watergate”, Kasyanov became nervous. You will be surprised, Mr. Obama - right at the government meeting, Kasyanov forbade all members of the cabinet (that’s right: forbade) “to film with Karaulov,” the TV journalist shares.

"Boris Nemtsov was a nobody in the United States. Until he was killed. When Boris died, someone immediately suggested renaming the Zamoskvoretsky Bridge to his - the bridge where this atrocity happened. The bridge? It’s somehow strange... Why not not to name after Nemtsov any factory he saved in the 90s? Or some street he built in Nizhny, where he was governor for seven years? At least one factory? street? Are they there?” Karaulov asks the US President.

“Or maybe Boris Nemtsov, appointed First Deputy Prime Minister (he was responsible for fuel and energy), laid down some new oil refineries, built new modern cities where the drilling sites are, especially in the “norths”?” he adds.

“I wonder, Mr. President, if you had so many women, would you find the time to lead the country? It turns out you can’t ask such questions. Otherwise, Kasyanov will write a “Nemtsov list” and rush, Mr. President, to your Congress ", the investigator explains to Barack Obama.

“He doesn’t consider you people, that’s what. He takes you for fools. For some reason, Kasyanov knows for sure that in Congress no one will ask him why the paper he concocted does not contain the names of those whom our investigators suspect in Nemtsov’s murder “Kasyanov knows for sure that here, in Congress, no one will figure out whether he, Kasyanov, is lying with his lists or not,” he explains.

“Who cares that President Obama might become a laughing stock? Or maybe he already has?” Andrei Karaulov concludes his letter.

A rhetorical question, but a logical one?

"I'm waiting for a reaction. By the way, I recently told reporters that the once small American girl Samantha Smith, she was 10 years old, wrote a letter to Andropov, wanting to congratulate him on his election as Secretary General. Andropov answered Samantha immediately. So I hope that in best traditions dialogue that has always existed between our countries, I will receive an answer from Mr. Obama," Andrey Karaulov said to the website.

“How can you take a person like Kasyanov seriously? I don’t really understand how people like Kasyanov can be perceived in America. In the next two days I’m going to contact the General Prosecutor's Office Russian Federation with the question: why was the story of the “crab case” hushed up, where Kasyanov knowingly violated all conceivable and inconceivable laws of Russia,” the journalist added.

“In my letter, I apologized to Obama because we, journalists, were not able to complete our investigation back in 2002. Now that Kasyanov has so vividly recalled himself, I think that we will definitely complete this investigation,” - he assured the site.

The TV presenter asks to go back to the TV and wonders: “Why have I been the only one fighting Navalny all this time?”

Removed from the air six months ago after broadcasting programs about six attempts on Vladimir Putin’s life, TV presenter Andrei Karaulov “bombs” the presidential administration, the government, the Legislative Assembly and even the Federation of Independent Trade Unions with requests to arrange a meeting for him with the president or at least hand over letters. So far no success. The Federation Council office showed us two letters sent by Karaulov to Valentina Matvienko. The speaker also did not hand them over to the president. Exclusively reach the first person famous TV presenter will try to help the SDGs.

“I have a specific plan for Navalny”

First letter [spelling and punctuation preserved]

The helplessness of our entire ideology in front of Navalny stunned me. Before our eyes, this insignificance turns into a symbol of... it’s unclear what. How was it allowed? Where were all our services (primarily ideological)? Why, after Navalny’s film about Medvedev, was I the only one who fought with Navalny all this time? Why, when my film “Through the Eyes of a Clown” about Navalny received - as soon as we posted it on the Internet - 9 (!) hacker attacks, and the FSB, when I turned to the security officers, through our former curator A. Komelkov [read about this person below . - SDG], failed to protect our film? Why didn’t anyone think about distributing it on the Internet, if the film is evidence-based, collects hundreds of thousands of views, and most importantly, is the only one on this topic to date?

Navalny - according to his plans - now has this: a film - and in three or four weeks rallies in the streets. Heroes of future videos: Rotenbergs, Matvienko, Timchenko, Kovalchuk and the young Kovalchuks (they don’t touch the “kurchatnik”, M.V. has merits in physics, especially the collider), His Holiness, and since mid-October - endless chatter about Putin, at least two series, including the personal life of the President.

Navalny himself has nothing to do with the film about Medvedev. With our inaction, he managed to become a “brand”: anyone, even Khodorkovsky, anyone, under this “trademark” can post any nonsense about anyone. And for four million rubles, as in the case of Medvedev, “Barber” (Navalny started 11 years ago as a hairdresser) will voice anything.

The worst thing is: I have no one to tell all this to. Knowing that Shmakov [Mikhail Shmakov is the chairman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia. - SDG] a meeting with the President is planned, I told him everything I knew at that time. Now my concern is only growing: Medvedev has been prepared with the “Lazarenko option,” and if we hadn’t posted “Through the Eyes of a Clown” on the Internet on March 13 (and I’m still sitting without broadcasts, I don’t understand why I’m being punished, although I really want to return to TVC ), - so, if we hadn’t rushed, then already on Wednesday the 15th Navalny would have sold a video about Medvedev to the ARD company, the Germans. And the film would have gone for a walk all over Europe; after ARD, the Swedes, Italians and French were going to show it - this is only what I know for sure. I also knew that the Germans, with their pedantry, would diligently study the counter-arguments of the film “Through the Eyes of a Clown.” And the sale deal to Europe will fall through.

They tore it off. Why counter-arguments, why not work proactively? I warned Alexey Alekseevich [Gromov is the first deputy head of the presidential administration, oversees the media] about what can be expected from Navalny now. - SDG] about two weeks ago. Not directly, there is no direct connection, through mutual friends. Gromov is a great guy, firstly, he heard, secondly, he believed, and even, as I was told, he held some meetings at the AP. All others, like Seryozha Novikov [head of the presidential administration’s department for public projects, has been working with Sergei Kiriyenko for many years. - SDG], they didn’t even consider it necessary to pick up the phone.

Our film “The Passion of Isaac” did everything to disrupt all the February rallies on the Champs de Mars. "PARNAS" and "Yabloko" planned to hold them (under the guise of meetings of the population with deputies, which is not prohibited by law) throughout February.

Regarding Navalny, I have a specific plan to very quickly dismantle all this stupidity, but even I cannot fight them alone.

Yours, Andrey Karaulov.

P.S. In 3-4 months, my “Russian Hell” will be published in “Fiction” [the first edition of the novel in two volumes was published in 2011 - “Russian Hell. On the Path to the Underworld” in “Eksmo”, “Russian Hell-2. Meeting with the devil" - in "Algorithm". - TsUR] - an epic novel about the 90s, their full portrait, the book is dedicated to you, I’ll try to convey it through Dima Peskov, maybe you’ll have a minute to look through it: it’s a shame to realize that Pushkin never read Dostoevsky!

"When I return to the air, only my enemies will regret it"

Second letter [spelling and punctuation preserved]

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, I am writing not to the Chief, but to a friend.

Even before the New Year, I spoke with Sobyanin. He is not against “Moment of Truth” being - again - on TV Center. There are elections ahead, after all, and “Fifth” will sour without us, as Yuri Valentinovich [Yuri Kovalchuk is a friend of Putin, one of the founders of the National Media Group, which owns REN TV, Channel Five, the newspapers “Izvestia” and “Sport Express” , 25% of Channel One - SDG] honestly admitted - the other day - to my friends, filmmakers Fr. Tikhon and Mikhalkov.

Help, Vladimir Vladimirovich, we can’t do it without you. Then, in 2010, it was you who helped. More than five years at “Fifth” were bliss. When I return to the air, only my enemies will regret it.

P.S. I did everything so that the last film - "The Passion of Isaac" - would stop the Field of Mars, we turned the "opposition" inside out, but there was no "big air" for the film, although the metropolitans, I know, were busy. We showed it only on the Internet, the coverage was not the same, although ten episodes of “Putin’s Russia” on the Internet attracted four million viewers.

Friend of the President

Andrei Karaulov became famous as the author and host of the scandalous program “Moment of Truth,” which aired on RTR in 1992-1997, another year as a talk show on TNT, ten years on the Luzhkov TV Center, and from 2011 on the Fifth Kovalchuk channel.

Karaulov is also the author of the documentary films "Pipe(s)" about Mikhail Khodorkovsky (one of the main characters of the film People's Artist Russia's Svetlana Vragova, however, soon retracted her words, saying that she did not accuse Khodorkovsky of the murders and had no claims against him), about the Malaysian Boeing, in which, together with VGTRK journalist Arkady Mamontov, she argued that the plane was shot down by Ukrainian air defense , and many others like them.

In September 2010, on the NTV channel in prime time, in the “Emergency. Investigation” section, the film “The Case in the Cap” was shown, which critically assessed the activities of the capital’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov and his wife Elena Baturina. In response, Andrei Karaulov released a program in defense of Luzhkov, but it was only shown on Far East and was taken off the air, and the contract with Karaulov was terminated. A week later, President Medvedev dismissed Luzhkov with the wording “due to loss of trust.”

The TV presenter was repeatedly sued for libel. Thus, Channel Five and Karaulov had to pay 200 thousand rubles in compensation according to the claim of the shareholder of the Finam holding, Viktor Remsha, who was called a raider and mafioso in the program.

In July 2016, Moment of Truth received a letter from the hacker group Anonymous International (Humpty Dumpty) with an offer to buy the lot “Andrey Karaulov, Moment of Truth” for $33,652, while it was not put up for sale open auction Joker.buzz exchange (Karaulov himself claimed six months later that he was extorted “three hundred thousand” dollars, see the film about Navalny from 00:58). In the annotation, the hackers indicated: “The correspondence totals more than 28 thousand letters related to the work of the project in the period from 2005 to June 2016.”

In response, Mr. Karaulov made a statement on his website: “We consider this appeal to be outright blackmail for the purpose of extortion cash, the actions of criminals fall under several articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Our requests will be immediately sent to law enforcement agencies. This correspondence has nothing in common with the actual activities of the editorial office."

The issue of “Moment of Truth” dated December 12, 2016 was devoted to attempts on the life of Vladimir Putin, of which, according to Karaulov, there have been at least six since 1999. The leitmotif of the program is “how difficult it is for Putin to preserve Russia.” The program was attended by TASS military observer, reserve colonel Viktor Litovkin (previously had a second citizenship of Bulgaria - SDUR), MK journalist Eva Merkacheva, Yuri Luzhkov, ex-Prime Minister of Ukraine Nikolai Azarov. It soon became known that the channel’s management had not signed an agreement with Karaulov for 2017. Karaulov himself claimed that this was his initiative: some disagreements arose over the film “Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” which the channel did not air, and as a result Karaulov chose to start writing a book. A TsUR source says that the release about the assassination attempt displeased the top official, and the presidential administration immediately responded.

Curator of Ostankino

Mentioned by Karaulov in his first letter, curator Alexander Komelkov (at the Ostankino shopping center he received the nickname Eggplant) in the mid-80s served as deputy head of the department of the 5th Main Directorate of the KGB (working with dissidents, journalists, writers and artists). According to the Segodnya newspaper, in 1987, Colonel Komelkov was forced to resign from the KGB because one of the agents accused him of financial abuse.

After leaving the KGB, Komelkov opened a beer restaurant on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, and then worked in the representative office of a large French company. In 1992, during the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, he allegedly rented out Russian ships off the coast of Spain for hotels.

In 1993, Komelkov was invited to the Presidential Security Service by the almighty Alexander Korzhakov and assigned to oversee Channel One. According to some well-known journalists who at that time worked on the country’s main television channel, the curator scrupulously collected information on the topic “who sleeps with whom and what kind of pants the pretty TV presenters went through,” and then invited them to become secret informants. At Korzhakov’s request, Komelkov kept an eye on Boris Berezovsky, who had great influence in Ostankino.

After Korzhakov’s disgrace, the “supervisor” of journalists was not forgotten and Valentin Lazutkin was appointed to the position of assistant to the chairman of the board of directors of TV Center OJSC. Subsequently, Komelkov worked as an adviser to the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company Rossiya and OJSC Channel One until he retired.

“I didn’t write anything to Putin and I won’t comment on this s...nude”

Having lost television airtime, Karaulov began posting on the Moments of Truth website and Youtube channel documentaries, so odious and unctuous that they even refused to purchase the flagship 10-episode “Vladimir Putin’s Russia” Russian TV channels. Karaulov himself claims that “four European companies have expressed a desire” to show it.

Andrei Viktorovich is now sitting without money, and he has an apartment in the center of Moscow, a house of 800 square meters and a large plot of land near Naro-Fominsk, all of which needs to be maintained. Again, wife and children,” a person from Karaulov’s entourage shared his thoughts. - Here you will go to hell with horns to get hired.

The SDUR correspondent contacted Andrey Karaulov:

Are you planning to return to the air?

We decided to help you reach the Kremlin and publish your letters to Putin.

I didn’t write anything to Putin and I won’t comment on this bullshit. And then I’ll sue you, are you a rich man?

By the way, email address [email protected], from which Karaulov’s messages were sent, is also used by the director of the “Moment of Truth” Olesya Belyaeva, who wrote a book about Putin “VV” (published with the support of RFK and Mosoblbank).

It’s a shame to realize that Putin may never read Karaulov and Belyaeva like Dostoevsky’s Pushkin.

Letters from the host of the TV program "Moment of Truth" Andrei Karaulov, who was removed from the air six months ago ("at the top" were not liked its transmission about the alleged assassination attempts on Putin) were last night and this morning, it seems, the favorite reading of many. Fragments of these letters were published by the Investigative Management Center (IMC) media project. The addressee of the letters is Vladimir Putin. More precisely, both messages begin like this: “Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, I am writing not to the Chief, but to a friend”. And further, in particular:

“The helplessness of our entire ideology in front of Navalny stunned me. This nonentity is turning into a symbol before our eyes... it’s unclear what. How was it allowed? Where were all our services (primarily ideological)? Why, after Navalny’s film about Medvedev, I fought with Navalny all this time alone? Why, when my film “Through the Eyes of a Clown” about Navalny received - as soon as we posted it on the Internet - 9 (!) hacker attacks, and the FSB, when I turned to the security officers, through our former curator A. Komelkov [about this person] read below. - SDG], failed to protect our film? Why didn’t anyone think about distributing it on the Internet, if the film is evidence-based, collects hundreds of thousands of views, and most importantly, is the only one on this topic today?

Karaulov’s main problem, which he asks Putin to solve, is simple:

“I’m sitting without broadcasting. I don’t understand why I was punished: Alexey Alekseevich [Gromov](First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration. – RS) )has already closed me down twice: in 2010, after Luzhkov(This refers to Karaulov’s program in support of Luzhkov, which was taken off the air on the eve of the dismissal of the then mayor of Moscow. – RS) , and now. In all these years, I have never met Alexey Alekseevich, although I really wanted to compare notes.

Help, Vladimir Vladimirovich, we can’t do it without you. Then, in 2010, it was you who helped. More than five years at Fifth were bliss. When I return to the air, only my enemies will regret it."

Well, at the same time:

"P.S. In 3–4 months, my “Russian Hell” will be published in “Fiction” [the first edition of the novel in two volumes was published in 2011 - “Russian Hell. On the way to the underworld" in "Eksmo", "Russian Hell-2. Meeting with the Devil" - in "Algorithm". - TsUR] - an epic novel about the 90s, their full portrait, the book is dedicated to you, I’ll try to convey it through Dima Peskov, maybe you’ll have a minute to look through it: it’s a shame to realize that Pushkin never read Dostoevsky!”

Naturally, I immediately remember the classic, Chekhov’s story “Vanka”:

“Dear grandfather, Konstantin Makarych! And I am writing you a letter. I wish you a Merry Christmas and wish you everything from God. I have neither father nor mother, you are the only one left [...]

I’ll grind tobacco for you, pray to God, and if anything happens, whip me like Sidorov’s goat. And if you think I don’t have a position, then for Christ’s sake I’ll ask the clerk to clean his boots, or instead of Fedka I’ll go as a shepherd.”

But other readers of letters “not to the Chief, but to a friend” have other literary associations:

There are also historical parallels, and not without tragedy:

If Karaulov really wrote all this, then it’s hellishly funny, of course. The style of Bukharin's letters to Stalin is perfectly maintained.
But the funniest thing, of course, is this:
“I did everything so that the last film - “The Passion of Isaac” - would stop the Field of Mars, we turned the “opposition” inside out, but there was no “big air” for the film, although the metropolitans, I know, were busy. We showed it only on the Internet, the coverage is not the same, although ten episodes of “Putin’s Russia” on the Internet attracted four million viewers."
Andrey Viktorovich, dear. The video about Ivangai eating snot collected four times more.

Andrei Karaulov himself denies that he wrote to Putin. When asked to comment on these messages to a LRC correspondent, he replied: “I didn’t write anything to Putin and I won’t comment on this ***** [nonsense]. And then I’ll sue you, are you a rich man?”

But, judging by the impression made by the publication of the SDG on the public, and most importantly - by the reputation of Karaulov himself, it will be difficult for their alleged author to convince anyone that the letters are a fake.

I would burst into tears if I read this text by Comrade Karaulov. if not for one "but". When in the mid-1990s comrade. Karaulov came to film the Chairman of the Constitutional Court V.A. Tumanov for his program, I saw with my own eyes how Karaulov’s bald spot was painted over with black paint before filming. And this knowledge changed my whole life. I refuse to accept what makes the character with the painted bald head stand out.

Notes of a madman.