Vladislav Soloviev Refused a Position of a CEO in a Major Company for a Career as a Political Scientist

 

Articles by a famous blogger, Vladislav Soloviev, start appearing more often on the pages of popular online media outlets. Readers are already familiar with his views on the global geopolitical situation and his predictions about the inevitable collapse of the world economy. However, we know little more than nothing about the personal life and current activities of the expert. Our publication is here to cover this gap, and so we present to you an interview with Vladislav Soloviev.

Where did “Honest Political Scientist” come from?

— I heard that you weren’t a political scientist right off the bat and had been working as a chief economist at some major commercial company for some time.

 

— That’s right. And not just for some time, but rather for quite a long time. And I was working at different companies too. It was 2010 when I left the post of head of department. I wouldn’t say that it was a hard time in terms of the economy. The job was fine as was the income. But I wasn’t satisfied with the direction I was going. It was too straightforward. At some point, I realized that I didn’t have any more energy to make economic and financial forecasts. And I resigned, leaving the first deputy as head of department. I still have a good relationship with the business owner, and we still talk from time to time.

 

— You refused the position already knowing what you were going to do? Or was it a step into the unknown?

 

— Almost. For a while, I didn’t have to think about money. At that time, many of my colleagues from the professional field got into investing. They convinced me to do the same. It was quite a good investment. Mostly in the shares of Russian companies – Rusal, Deripaska’s En+ Group, Sberbank, and others later. Up to this day, a part of my assets and income are securities. It partially compensated my financial losses after a drastic change of life direction.

 

— Why did you choose political science and journalism in general?

 

— Actually, I’ve done journalism before. For example, I was writing for a field-specific student newspaper. In the mid-90s, studying to become an economist was a rather strange process. No one, not our teachers, us, or even the government of the Russian Federation led by Yeltsin, knew what economic laws our country was governed by. Students were doing a little bit of everything. Even then, I already wanted to understand the reason for what was happening, and not just look at some pictures, as the majority of the population was doing.

 

— When did the alias “Honest Political Scientist” come about? Was it irony or a principle?

 

— It was in my student years when I signed a few articles this way. They were even published in some Moscow newspapers. This was by no means a postmodern irony. Right from the start, I made the decision that I wouldn’t write about something I didn’t believe in.

About Deripaska and made-to-order journalism

 

— A few years ago, you conducted a few journalistic investigations related to Deripaska, Potanin, and some other representatives of business elites, after which you were accused of being biased. Can you reveal all the cards now?

 

— I mean, I didn’t hide my cards even then. Large personal incomes and unrestrained accumulation don’t excite me much. Luckily, my family also holds these views, so I simply don’t have to do made-to-order journalism or other things for which I would feel shame. The investigation was an attempt to trace economic processes in Russia as part of the global agenda. It seems like the project didn’t turn out since it attracted so little attention, although I had high hopes for it. And the problem is not even in Deripaska or other heavyweights of our economy. Maybe it’s that the format of such investigations in Russian doesn’t allow for an objective approach at all.

About the future

 

— Let’s now talk about the future. Are we in the middle of a catastrophe or at its beginning?

 

— I would want to say something optimistic, but since honesty is my core principle, I will say it exactly as I see it. The redistribution of the world has only begun, as has the redistribution of the global economic system. This is a slow process, so we will still see a lot and go through a lot. You can even say that this is not the catastrophe yet, but the prologue, still relatively gentle for the population, that is not in the epicenter. Too many forces are in conflict now to just let things go down the drain.

 

The dollar economy will fight for its supremacy ‘till the very end. It’s scary to think about who else they plan to throw under the bus to delay their collapse. On the one hand, it is symbolic that Russia ended up being in the middle of the global conflict. On the other hand, we will be the ones who suffered, and the beneficiaries can become completely different geopolitical forces. Nevertheless, I won’t even try to forecast the result of global deamericanization. Currently, there are too many variables in the equation, so any forecasts are useless. I only know one thing for sure: in just a few years, reality will be more surprising than even the boldest forecasts.