Russia's Dick Morris

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Shuttling to the Kremlin seems an unlikely occupation for a man with a bio like that of Pavlovsky, 49. Born in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, he lived in a commune in his late teens. The group was radical but confused. "We were inspired by May 1968 in Paris and Berkeley," he recalls, "and worshipped Che Guevara and the Rand Corporation." The commune broke up over women, and Pavlovsky moved on to more serious dissident activity. He was eventually exiled on court order to the Komi Republic, in Russia's far north, for three years. He received a relatively light sentence, he says, by pleading guilty--treachery in the eyes of most dissidents. Komi was followed by years of living illegally in Moscow, and the gradual shift via alternative media in the Gorbachev years to political consulting under Yeltsin. Putin's ascendancy has brought him fame, though when pushed about his plans, he hints cloudily at a future outside politics. As he has predicted optimistically in recent appearances, Putin should usher in a more boring era of politics.