OFFTOPIC : A Too Candid Camera

Kommersant hasn't won itself many friends by splashing photos of Russia's elite across its front page.

President Vladimir Putin flips through a wad of 1,000-ruble notes and mulls a bet on the horses while former chief of staff Alexander Voloshin stares icily into the camera from behind a pair of massive sunglasses.

In the next room, Mikhail Gorbachev pours a drink with French actor Gerard Depardieu while an unshaven Roman Abramovich discusses business takeovers and metal tycoon Oleg Deripaska stares at some nudes.

"Front-Page Photos," a celebration of 15 years of Kommersant at the Museum of Private Collections, culls some of the best photographs of the country's elite from the 15 million photographs housed in the newspaper's archive.

Known for ironic headlines and acerbic copy, Kommersant has also earned notoriety for its propensity to snap newsmakers in unusual poses. Kommersant's front-page satire has pierced the egos of influential celebrities from time to time, and while Andrei Vasilyev, the paper's chief editor, will joke about the calls he gets from offended subjects, he carefully refrains from naming names.

"We used to get quite a few calls about the photographs, but that was a while back," Vasilyev said. When asked if he ever received calls directly from the Kremlin, he said, "Yes, sometimes," but would not elaborate.

Vasilyev, who does not like to be photographed himself, smiled and pointed to his two favorite Kommersant photos -- of Putin and of Boris Berezovsky, the businessman who controls Kommersant and has gained asylum in Britain since leaving Russia.

Putin looks sideways out of his car in March 2003 with an expression that is aggressive, cautious and pensive at once. Berezovsky, photographed just months before he left Russia, also looks out through a limousine door, his eyes tough and a little uncertain.

Some of the images have improved with age. For a year now, for instance, Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been battling with Putin, and is currently standing trial for fraud, tax evasion and organized crime. Photographed in better times, presumably at a slide show, he stands with the president's initials, VVP, projected on his chin.

Another entry catches Central Elections Commission chairman Alexander Veshnyakov at a less than photogenic moment, just seconds after activists from the National Bolshevik Party threw mayonnaise at him.

Eduard Limonov, a writer who also heads the National Bolshevik Party, said in a Moscow Times interview that he particularly liked the photo of Veshnyakov, but was upset that Kommersant left out its more powerful photographs.

While the main public players appear in the exhibit -- oligarchs and prime ministers, sports stars and the cultural elite -- some power brokers are palpably missing.

"They have had more powerful and aggressive photographs, in my opinion," Limonov said. "There was a vicious photograph of [deputy head of the presidential administration Igor] Sechin, and he is one of the key people who pulls the strings of power."

"Front-Page Photos" runs to Oct. 31 at the Museum of Private Collections, located at 14 Ulitsa Volkhonka. Metro Kropotkinskaya. Tel. 203-7998/1546.

By Guy Faulconbridge
(From The Moscow Times, 22.10.2004)

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And here's this famous picture - a real nightmare, isn't it?