Vladimir Alexeyevich Kara-Murza

Who is Vladimir Alexeyevich Kara-Murza?

Vladimir A. Kara-Murza is a Russian journalist and TV host.

Kara-Murza graduated from the history faculty of Moscow State University in 1981; while at the university, he was nearly expelled for defacing portraits of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. He taught history at school. In the 1980s he refused state employment, citing his opposition to the Soviet regime.

In 1992, with the onset of President Boris Yeltsin's democratic reforms, he joined the weekly "Itogi" programme on Channel One of Russian TV - first as editor, then as correspondent. In 1993, along with his colleagues, joined the newly created NTV, Russia's first independent television channel founded by Vladimir Gusinsky. In April 1995 Kara-Murza became the anchor of NTV's news programme "Today at Midnight".

In April 2001, in protest at the seizure of NTV by the Russian government, Kara-Murza, along with other NTV journalists, went to TV-6 channel, where he became anchor of the evening news programme "Grani". When TV6 was closed down by the government in January 2002, its journalists contested the competition for the frequency, and won, returning in June 2002 as TVS channel. Kara-Murza continued his "Grani" programme, which enjoyed some of the highest viewer ratings on Russian television.