by Andrew Ryvkin at Air Mail: Pavel Durov, the Russian enfant terrible who created Telegram, the notorious messaging app, is not easily pegged. French authorities arrested him last week, claiming that he allowed Telegram to be used in myriad alleged cyber-crimes, including child sex abuse. Is he a Russian Mark Zuckerberg or a criminal with a flair for tech? His encrypted app made him a hero of the anti-Putin opposition in Russia, but he might also be a collaborator with the Kremlin, since Putin hasn’t yet put him in jail, although the Kremlin has denied making any deals with him. It’s possible Pavel Durov is all of the above.
Pavel, whom I knew as “Pasha” when he was a classmate at St. Petersburg State University, is the son of Valery Durov, who was the charismatic head of the Classical Philology Department. His father’s lectures on Roman literature and Latin case syntax have produced some of the most insufferable students at St. Petersburg University, much like the characters in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
After spending part of his childhood in Turin, where his father was a guest lecturer, Pavel returned to Russia to attend Saint Petersburg’s top prep school—and graduated with honors. His classmates say that to do so, Pavel didn’t shy away from cheating on exams. At that school, Pavel befriended Vyacheslav—son of Mikhael Mirilashvili, known as “Saint Petersburg’s Al Capone,” a man who essentially owned the city in the 90s and had numerous dealings with its then deputy mayor, Vladimir Putin.
His first Web site, Durov.com, was branded as a resource for students in the Philology Department and became a go-to tool for those seeking a degree without much effort. It offered lectures, cliff notes, cheat sheets, and, most importantly, exam answers.
His next venture, the university-wide forum SPBGU.ru, rapidly emerged as our primary hub for fights, gossip, and news, and soon gained recognition as the largest and most technologically advanced student Web site in Russia.
More here.
