Konstantin Kostin - a well-known domestic political strategist, currently runs the Civil Society Development Fund. During the year he was the head of the presidential administration of Russia, oversaw domestic policy issues. He is a valid first-class state adviser.
Biography Politician
Konstantin Kostin was born in the Moscow region in 1970. In 1995, he graduated from the Journalism Department of Moscow State University. He began to try himself in the field of journalism much earlier, since 1986 he wrote and collaborated freelance with various media.
In particular, at the very beginning of the 90s he worked in the Kommersant publication, and then got into the Metapress market communications agency, which was associated with the Menatep company, owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
In 1992, Konstantin Kostin begins to make a successful career. He is executive director of an advertising agency for PR. And after a few months, he already heads the executive bureau in the advertisers association. It is in the Metapress that Konstantin Nikolaevich Kostin meets Vladislav Surkov.
Khodorkovsky structures
In 1994, Kostin transferred to work already at Menatep itself, where he began as head of the advertising department of the same name bank, and later headed the media directorate.
By the end of 1996, Konstantin Kostin was already vice president of Menatep Bank. In his interests, he works on affiliation of the Literary Newspaper, and as a result becomes the chairman of the board of directors in the publishing house of the same name.
In the advertising business
Since 1993, Kostin becomes a co-founder of an advertising agency called "Union", and soon leads him as president. In the mid-90s, Soyuz became one of the eight largest agencies in the country, receiving special accreditation at the Kommersant publishing house, which allowed it to rely on exclusive conditions in terms of advertising.
Even then, Kostin’s main activity was participation in various election campaigns. First, at the regional level (in Russia and Ukraine), and then at the federal level. He works in the elections of deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, helps Nikolai Vinogradov become the governor of the Vladimir region, Yevgeny Mikhailov - Pskov, Ravil Geniatulin - Chitinskaya.
In 2003, the already held Russian political strategist Konstantin Nikolaevich Kostin was accused of discrediting the Communist Party in favor of the party in power. It is believed that he does this by conspiring with Vladislav Surkov.
"System"
The next important stage in the biography of Konstantin Kostin is the work in the OJSC System of Mass Media, which is part of the concern of Vladimir Yevtushenkov. There he leads from 1998 to 1999. Department of Project Management and Economics.
Soon after this, he officially became Surkov’s adviser, joining the United Russia party. In the spring of 2005, under the patronage of his senior comrade, Kostin takes the post of deputy chairman in the party’s election commission, he is appointed responsible for PR, a direction he knows well. In this post, he replaces Vladimir Medinsky.
In this position, he is rebranding "Youth Unity" into the "Young Guard of United Russia."
In the presidential administration
After leaving work in United Russia in 2008, Kostin becomes the deputy head of the internal policy department of the presidential administration. His responsibilities include communicating with the regional elite, and he also oversees federal and network media.
It is believed that he remains the curator of the party in power from the presidential administration. In September 2011, another important event in the biography of Konstantin Kostin, whose photo is in this article, he is promoted to head of the department.
In 2012, he even received a fourth-degree Order of Merit for the Fatherland for organizing an election campaign in the State Duma a year earlier.
Civil Society Development Fund
The new project Kostin is still working on is the Civil Society Development Fund, which he created and headed in 2012, ending his work in the Kremlin. This is a non-governmental organization that studies Russian media, conducts expert assessments of the situation in the regions, and monitors moods in various areas of Russian society. Interestingly, part of the Foundation’s research is exclusively closed, according to Kostin himself.
The head of the Foundation for Effective Politics Gleb Pavlovsky is convinced that Kostin is one of the key links in the connection of the presidential administration with reality. In his opinion, the Civil Society Development Fund is an independent structure, which at the same time works closely with the internal policy department of the presidential administration, which Kostin himself once headed.
Having left his post in the Kremlin, the hero of our article continues to directly interact with the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Vyacheslav Volodin. He is officially his adviser. It is believed that it was Kostin who coined the term "nationalization of the elites." Since October 2012, Russia began to call the course of the new government that way.
In 2016, Kostin became an adviser to Sergei Kiriyenko when he was appointed first deputy head of the presidential administration. He himself noted that he will now pay increased attention to regional election campaigns in order to prevent the opposition from showing them. Now he continues this work, he is 47 years old.