100 Young Russians to Watch

Et voila ...

With this, our ninth installment, we bring to a close our year-and-a-half-long series “One Hundred Young Russians To Watch in the New Century.”

Over the course of this project, we have had the privilege of meeting with nearly half of the candidates ourselves, and have been endlessly impressed with the calibre of individuals that are leading Russia in many important spheres.

Since we began this project, many of the individuals we featured have added new feathers to their caps, which we thought worth mentioning in the introduction to this final installment.

In April, humorist Maxim Galkin performed concerts at the prestigious Rossiya Concert Hall. Shortly after we wrote about him last year, he became the moderator of Russia’s version of the popular TV game show, “How to Become a Millionaire,” making his face known to millions more Russians. Tennis player Yelena Dementieva has risen from the rank of debutante to indisputable leader of the Russian women’s team. She signed an endorsement contract with Yonex, and was in the finals of the Kremlin Cup 2001 (beating Martina Hingis in the semifinals). IT businessman Nikolai Repin celebrated the issuance of his company’s 10,000th Internet card.

Actress Yelena Morozova recently wowed Moscow’s theater world with her portrayal of Marlene Dietrich. Writer Dmitry Lipskerov organized a contest for young writers called “Debut” (which helped us to find another worthy young Russian writer, Arkady Babchenko (see page 38). In December 2001, architect Timur Bashkaev participated in a high-profile exhibition in London, where he represented modern Russian architecture. The charming Olga Budina has, since our interview, starred in many popular TV films, winning special praise for her role in Salome. Skier Yulia Chepalova won a gold medal in Salt Lake City, while skater Yevgeny Plyuschenko was ostensibly upset by his Olympic “setback,” having “only” brought home a silver medal (Alexei Yagudin took the gold).

No sooner had we written about the two doctors from Nizhny Novgorod, Anna Belova and Vera Grigorieva, than we had inquiries from US experts asking us to help them get in touch with the two neurologists. And we were obviously proud when sculptor Aydyn Zeynalov came to our Moscow offices to tell us he was contacted by an interested US customer who had read our profile on him.

Not only has this long effort helped us learn more about some up-and-coming Russians, it has also introduced us to some fine journalists who will surely be making further contributions to Russian Life in the years ahead. Natalia Fedosova, Galina Papernaya, Tatyana Pichugina and Larisa Fabrichnikova, to name just a few of these new authors, have shown exceptional professionalism and an excellent ability to fit their writing into our rather stringent format for this series.

For the profiles in this issue, we are grateful for the assistance of Eleonora Sutotskaya, Nikolai Poroskov, Natalia Fedosova, Galina Papernaya, Tatyana Pichugina from InformNauka scientific news agency  (www.informnauka.ru), writers Olga Slavnikova and Mikhail Butov, Novy Mir editor in chief Andrei Vasilevsky, photographers Andrei Golovanov and Dmitry Azarov.

Needless to say, we are not stopping this project “just like that.” You can already find an index to the individuals we have profiled on our website (www.russian-life.com) and there we will offer as current information as we can muster on what these remarkable individuals have been up to lately. As well, from time to time in the months and years ahead, we will add new individuals to our roster of Young Russians to Watch. We have no doubt that Matushka Rus’ will continue to offer an ample supply.

Profiled In This Issue