After graduating from the history department of Odessa State University in 1973, Gleb Pavlovsky worked as a school teacher and simultaneously began communicating with dissidents - in the Odessa region and in Moscow (in particular, he considered the historian Mikhail Gefter his teacher), where he soon moved and where he was officially employed as a carpenter. In the late 1970s, he was co-editor of the samizdat magazine Poiski; he was accused of distributing it in 1982, spending about a year in a pre-trial detention center. He admitted his guilt and testified against many people from the dissident circle (however, they had already left the country); he was released in December 1985. Soon he became a co-founder of the first legal opposition organization - the Club of Social Initiatives, as well as the Moscow People's Front. In 1987, together with Vladimir Yakovlev, he founded the information cooperative Fact, which later became the first independent information agency in the USSR, PostFactum. In 1990–1995, he was the editor-in-chief of the magazine Vek XX i Mir. In 1991–1992, he was one of the founders and directors of the Kommersant publishing house. In 1995, he was a co-founder and, for the next 25 years, president of the Foundation for Effective Policy, a leading political technology and media-political institution in the country that initially collaborated with the opposition, but then played one of the most important roles in ensuring Yeltsin’s victory in the 1996 elections. Subsequently, until 2011, he was an advisor to the head of the presidential administration, although the FEP’s influence on decision-making began to decline in the early 2000s. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, FEP was actively involved in the creation of the first online news resources, such as Lenta.ru, Gazeta.ru and others. He actively participated in Viktor Yanukovych's campaign in the 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine. After 2011, he went into opposition to the Putin regime, and participated in Mikhail Prokhorov's campaign in the 2012 presidential elections. From 2012 to 2018, he was the editor-in-chief of the socio-political and historical online magazine Gefter.ru. Did the 1991 coup result in a revolution? Was it possible to carry out lustrations and restitution in the early 1990s and what would it have led to? Can the "trial of the CPSU" be considered successful? Why was it not possible to condemn the Soviet past in Russia? How did the events of 1993 predetermine the entire subsequent political history of the new Russia? Could the Supreme Soviet's victory in 1993 have led to a civil war? Why did opposition journalist Pavlovsky get involved in election campaigns, including Yeltsin's in 1996? Why, despite Yeltsin's low rating, did sociological surveys show that he could beat Zyuganov? What is a "red belt" and how were regional leaders convinced not to play against Yeltsin? Who made the Communists' fake leaflets and why? Did the Communists themselves believe in their victory in 1996? Were the 1996 elections democratic? What kind of "media-political machine" emerged as a result of the elections and how was it used for the so-called "Successor" operation? Why was Yeltsin so fixated on finding a successor since 1998, changing prime ministers? How did strong governors and the oligarchs who joined them almost defeat Yeltsin in 1999? How did popular Prime Minister Putin end up with the little-known Unity party, controlled by Boris Berezovsky, and ensure its victory in the 1999 State Duma elections? Where did the meme about Putin being the only candidate come from, and why did no one, including the governors, dare to challenge him and create a real opposition? Why was Yeltsin a religious figure? Gleb Pavlovsky answers these and other questions in an interview we conducted with him on April 7, 2017. 0:00 On the break with the Soviet past in the early 1990s 18:38 On the events of 1993 32:47 On the 1996 presidential campaign 49:20 Were the 1996 elections fair? 1:02:04 On the influence of the 1996 campaign on subsequent political life 1:09:08 On the search for Yeltsin's successor 1:20:07 On the events of 1999 1:33:30 How did Putin become the "uncontested" candidate in 2000? 1:42:53 On the significance of the 1990s and Yeltsin The Unfinished Time project website: https://theunfinishedtime.com/ The Unfinished Time film: • The Unfinished Time. Part I: Awakening • The Unfinished Time. Part II: Unfinished ... • The Unfinished Time. Part III: Belovezh ... • The Unfinished Time. Part IV: Shock ... • The Unfinished Tense. Part V: Cont... • The Unfinished Tense. Part VI: The First ... • The Unfinished Tense. Part VII: Vote... • Unpast tense. Part VIII: Mlador... • Unpast tense. Part IX: In search of... • Unpast tense. Part X: Take care of...