GQ magazine is owned by Condé Nast, in the current print edition there is an article by Scott Anderson, quoting former KGB officials who maintain that Putin was behind several explosions in Moscow in 1999 that resulted in death of hundreds of citizens and was promptly blamed on the Chechen terrorists. This was the pivotal moment when Putin started to consolidate power and ascend to the virtual dictatorship. After the article was published, the executives at Condé Nast went to the extraordinary lengths to prevent this article from being translated into Russian and even published on the web in English. NPR – Why ‘GQ’ Doesn’t Want Russians To Read Its Story:
“Conde Nast owns Vanity Fair and GQ as well as other publications, including Russian versions of GQ, Glamour, Tatler and Vogue. On July 23, Jerry S. Birenz, one of the company’s top lawyers, sent an e-mail memo to more than a dozen corporate executives and GQ editors. *** He ordered that the article could not be posted to the magazine’s Web site. No copies of the American edition of the magazine could be sent to Russia or shown in any country to Russian government officials, journalists or advertisers. Additionally, the piece could not be published in other Conde Nast magazines abroad, nor publicized in any way.”
Gawker asked the readers to translate the article into Russian, the article was translated in 24 hours and promptly published on the blog together with a legible facsimile of the print English edition. Gawker – Эй, вы можете прочитать запрещенную статью GQ про Путина здесь.
Further reading: