Yulia Gutova, a correspondent for "Russian Reporter" and a very thorough young woman, spent a lot of time in our office, went to various events I attended, interrogated my colleagues, traveled to Yekaterinburg following in my footsteps, and wrote a long feature, "Navalny, Who Are You?"
Yesterday she described the article to me as "good, but also pointing out the dark side." Darth Vader detected
The Russian Reporter people said they wanted to put my mug on the cover, which would have been a first for me.
But apparently, so I wouldn't come down with too much celebrity fever, they put only half as much of me on the cover as they had promised—half a face:
There are a lot of funny moments in the article. Lawyer Volov, who handles all of Navalny’s scandalous court cases, sits right behind the wall of the meeting room. — What kind of boss is Alexei? Authoritarian or democratic? I ask him. Dmitry straightens up. — Sound carries very well here, — he says, jerking his head toward the wall. .... Navalny’s build resembles that of a silverback gorilla .... any normal person wants to send them a text message saying, “Drop dead, you bastard!” — Alexei says, siding with his fans.
and photographs by Max Avdeev