There are people who are always in sight, but there are completely different. Few people suspect about their existence, and even more so they are not public figures. But at the same time their impact on the lives of other people is enormous. It is to such "gray cardinals" that Mikhail Lesin belongs, the cause of death of which is still doubtful by many. This man left a significant mark in the history of Russia.
Cardinal's childhood
Lesin Mikhail Yuryevich was born on July 11, 1958 in the capital of the Soviet Union. His father was a builder in the military sphere, and his son grew up a cocky, active, restless boy. I received reprimands for fights at school more than once. There is information that for this reason he was even expelled from the pioneers, and then not accepted into the Komsomol. Yard comrades called the young Lesin Boatswain.
Youth
Mikhail Lesin graduated from high school in 1975, and immediately failed to become a student. Therefore, in 1976, the guy was taken into the army. He had the chance to repay his homeland as a marine.
Returning home in 1978, the young man still decides to graduate. The choice fell on the Moscow Civil Engineering Institute named after Kuibyshev. The student life was stormy. Mikhail led an active public life and even was a member of the institute team of KVN. He received an engineering degree in the eighty-fourth year.
Search for yourself
Lesin's first posts were connected with the system of the Ministry of Industrial Construction of the Soviet Union. Labor activity took place in Moscow, as well as in the capital of Mongolia, Ulan Bator.
After five years of work in the industry, Mikhail Lesin, whose biography began in the family of an engineer, abruptly changed course. The father’s successor did not work out of him.
Perestroika was in full swing in the Union. Gorbachev allowed ordinary citizens of the country to open private cooperatives, firms and engage in commercial activities. Private entrepreneurs appeared like mushrooms after rain in the Soviet Union. And Lesin did not stand aside. In 1987, an active and creative young man started organizing commercial concerts, creating the Panoptikum studio with his comrades, where, according to some reports, he performed the functions of an administrator. In this area, he lasted one year.
The beginning of the era of television
In 1988, thirty-year-old Mikhail Lesin found what became the work of his life - television. And he did not even have to start from the bottom. Lesin was immediately appointed deputy director for the production of television programs in the association "Game-Technique". Here the Kawean experience was very useful for him - it was necessary to organize commercial programs of the Club of the cheerful and resourceful.
Later, Lesin headed the TV program "Funny Guys", and even later (in 1990) - the youth creative production association "Radio and Television" ("RTV"). Under his leadership, various television contests were organized and held. A year later, “RTV” turned into an advertising agency with the loud name “Video International”.
From 1993 to 1996, Mikhail Lesin worked at the TV company TV News, holding there first the head of the commercial department, then the deputy director, and then the general director.
In '94, Mikhail Yuryevich officially broke off relations with Video International, abandoning the status of a founder. But in fact, his cooperation with the agency continued. It is Lesin who is credited with authorship of scripts of videos well-known to everyone that advertise Imperial Bank.
Policy
With his hand in commercial advertising, Lesin tries himself in political advertising. The ninety-fifth year’s parliamentary elections were the starting point for him, during which he created campaign videos for the movement “Our Home - Russia”.
And in 1996, the novice PR manager was more seriously involved - he completely prepared the election campaign of Boris Yeltsin, who was running for a second presidential term. And in the framework of this project, Lesin Mikhail Yurievich came up with a lot of "chips" that have become classics. So, for example, he is the one who holds the famous call “Vote with your heart”. Lesin also advised Yeltsin to contact the Russians daily on television. And in the videos “Save and Save” and “I Believe, I Love, I Hope” there is a share of his work.
During the election campaign, Lesin worked closely with Mikhail Chubais and the daughter of the candidate - Tatyana Dyachenko. After the race ended successfully for Yeltsin, the president expressed gratitude to the talented assistant, and later made him head of the Russian President’s Office of Public Relations. So Mikhail Lesin, whose biography could turn out to be very simple and ordinary, got to the Kremlin.
VGTRK
From 1997 to 1999, Lesin was the first deputy chairman of VGTRK (All-Russian Broadcasting Company). In a relatively short period of time, he managed to gather practically all state - owned mass media into one “fist” . Under the roof of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company there were Rostelevision, the Kultura channel, Radio of Russia and Mayak, RIA Novosti and the Unified Production and Technological Complex created by Mikhail Yuryevich.
Mikhail Lesin - Minister of Press
And in 1999, Lesin went even further - he was entrusted with the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Press, Broadcasting and Mass Media. He began his activities in this chair when he was Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, managed to work in the governments of Putin and Kasyanov.
But it was not only Mikhail Lesin who was directly involved in managing the media sphere at this post. The minister actively participated in the 1999 presidential race and in the 2000 parliamentary elections. Analysts call him a key figure in these two campaigns, which did a lot for Putin and the pro-Kremlin Unity power to come to power.
Loud scandals
Once at the very top of Russian politics, Lesin does not forget his brainchild Video International. At least this was stated by some individuals in the media. Mikhail Yuryevich is accused of abuse of power, which he allegedly uses to help the agency. According to informants, it was under the wing of Lesin that the brainchild of Video International captured about seventy percent of the advertising market on Russian television, successfully avoids taxation, hides income, interacts with the criminal world and conducts other illegal activities. And the minister himself controls the agency, owning a blocking stake, although he has no official relationship with the company.
One of the Communist deputies allegedly filed a corresponding request in the name of the president with a request to understand the situation and take action. But the head of state did not dismiss his minister. The complaint did not affect Lesin's career in any way. It is possible that these are only rumors that ill-wishers spread.
President's advisor
In the spring of 2004, the ministry headed by Lesin was liquidated. Instead, they created a new structure - the Federal Press and Mass Media Agency. It was subordinate to the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications.
Analysts predicted Mikhail Yuryevich the main post in the new agency, but he did not receive it. Mikhail Lesin jumped even higher, becoming an adviser to the President of the Russian Federation on media affairs.
In the summer of the same year, Mikhail Yuryevich first entered the Board of Directors of Channel One. Later, he was elected to this post more than once.
Last decade
Lesin's last decade of life was quite intense and contrasting. In 2007, Mikhail Yurievich was included in the Council under the President of the Russian Federation, which was to prepare for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. In the two thousand and eighth year, using the administrative resources, he helped Dmitry Medvedev win the presidential race.
A year later, Lesin fell out of favor. He was fired from his post as adviser to the president. And in 2010, Lesin left the board of directors of Channel One.
In the same year, information appeared in the media that Video International was now controlled by Rossiya Bank. And Lesin became a member of the board of directors of National Communications, a controlling stake in which belonged to this bank.
In 2013-2015, Mikhail Yuryevich presided over the management board of Gazprom Media Holding and managed to take many high-profile steps in this post, among which, for example, was the revival of the TEFI award. Also, the holding during this period bought out several successful television channels (Pyatnitsa, TV-3 and some others), four radio stations, a film company and a production company that produced Voronins, Real Boys and other popular youth and not only TV shows.
Personal life of Mikhail Lesin: family and children
The hero of this article first got married very early - already in the year nineteen seventy-ninth, his daughter Catherine was born. Mikhail Lesin, whose wife was also probably quite young, was unable to save his family. The couple divorced. In general, little is known about this marriage of a statesman. But it is not a secret that he did not remain a bachelor. In 1983, the boy Anton was born. His father was Mikhail Lesin. Valentina's wife, the mother of her second child, almost until the death of the politician and businessman remained his faithful companion, devoting himself only to his family and home.
And only in 2014 did the media get information that this marriage of Lesin had broken up. An aging man already replaced the second spouse with a twenty-eight-year-old model who gave birth to another daughter. But this information is not reflected in the official biographies of the activist.
Journalists with pleasure and ridicule relished the marriage of Mikhail Yuryevich to a young beauty. And in the summer of 2014, the former presidential adviser “pleased” the press with another scandal. This time financial. The case concerned real estate acquired in America. On it, one of the US senators had questions for Lesin. The politician asked where the chief of propaganda got twenty-eight million dollars for a mansion in Los Angeles. And here’s what Mikhail Lesin answered him: “Children bought this house on credit.”
Ekaterina Lesina actually already lived at that time in the United States of America and was in charge of the Russia Today American bureau, so the answer was quite similar to the truth.
Death
On November 6, 2015, Mikhail Lesin was found dead in his hotel room in Washington. The cause of his death for a very long time remained hidden from the general public. And even after the official version was announced - a heart attack, people had questions. And in the press every now and then conflicting information appears. Either Lesin was beaten on the eve of his death, then he didn’t die at all, but simply hides from everyone so that he might someday “rise”.
Many then, in November 2015, were interested in the question of where Mikhail Lesin was buried. The answer seemed strange to most. Politics were cremated, and the ashes rest in the United States. He was never brought to his homeland.
Importance of Lesin
Mikhail Lesin, whose family was very simple, achieved a lot in his life. From a production engineer to an adviser to the president, not everyone is given access. Mikhail Yurievich liked to discuss this moment.
His high position was not a formality. This person was actually an influential person. He is credited with the formation of the Russian media market, as well as the definition of state policy in relation to the media. Lesin’s figure is associated with the closure of several independent media and, in general, the infringement of freedom of speech. But about the dead, either good or nothing ... The premature death of Mikhail Yuryevich was a real shock for those who loved and respected him. And there were many such people.