Nationalist Journalist Seeks Out Controversy

ST. PETERSBURG -- Twelve years ago, St. Petersburg liberals hated to miss "600 Seconds" - a hard-hitting daily news show hosted by muckracking journalist Alexander Nevzorov. Today, Nevzorov still has his flair for eye-grabbing footage, but he's emerged as an outspoken nationalist who makes his liberal former fans' hair stand on end.


Nevzorov's tenure as media adviser to St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev coincides with an increase in nationalist-leaning programming on local government television, which has blamed Russia's problems on foreigners and conspiracies.


Saturday's blistering segment on the Right Cause liberal party was done by Nevzorov's production company. But he is widely believed in St. Petersburg to be the hidden hand behind much of what airs on local TV - though there's little hard evidence.


Last week, Nevzorov described the nature of his advice to Yakovlev in an appearance on Petersburg Television.


"I advise him about how to use the press more efficiently," Nevzorov said. "The press must be biased, and it must be used to create a certain image. I try to explain to [Yakovlev] how to use our biased press," he said.


Nevzorov, 41, was a nurse's aide, a secretary, a stunt man, a lay brother in a monastery and a church choir singer before he became a journalist in 1987. His first show, the prime-time evening program, "600 Seconds," immediately became extremely popular for his nonconformist, groundbreaking reporting on crime and the underside of Soviet life.


"In the beginning, he was this politically neutral man, the first post-Soviet image of a police reporter," said Boris Pustyntsev, chairman of the St. Petersburg-based human rights group, Citizens' Watch. "Everybody watched his show. Unfortunately, he became more and more politicized."


Nevzorov's show first raised brows after it criticized gay people, and then ran damning footage about gypsies. But it was in January 1991, after Soviet OMON paramilitary police troops killed 14 people at the Vilnius television tower in Lithuania in an attempt to thwart the Baltic states' independence drive, when Nevzorov crossed over to "the other side" in the eyes of the city's liberals.


Nevzorov made a film called "Nashi," or Our Boys, in which he called the Lithuanian demonstrators "fanatics" and praised the OMON troops for "defending our Motherland." Holding a rifle, Nevzorov was shown strutting around the television tower and egging on the Lithuanians, to music by German composer Richard Wagner. Nevzorov was elected to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, from St. Petersburg in 1993 and then from the more conservative Pskov region in 1995. However, he rarely appears in the Duma.


Earlier this year, Nevzorov launched a new show on Petersburg Television, called "Politics - St. Petersburg Style." In one episode, he assessed politician's effectiveness based on how they got along with local crime bosses - in part, a concession to political reality, but Nevzorov's enemies thought he went too far.


Soon after the show appeared, 14 leading St. Petersburg luminaries wrote an open letter to Yakovlev complaining that Nevzorov's "programs constantly suggest to viewers that a 'serious' politician must have connections to crime and must be supported by bandits. Otherwise, it is claimed, he is a trivial figure unable to 'solve problems.'"