The secretive author of a hugely popular Russian social media channel lampooning the Kremlin has revealed his identity, after years of speculation.
Alexander Gorbunov, alias StalinGulag, has notched up 300,000 followers on the Telegram messaging app.
He has over a million more on Twitter, his witty and acerbic posts deploring the current state of affairs in Russia.
Now he has decided to speak out to prevent reprisals against his family, he has told BBC Russian.
Police visited his elderly mother’s flat earlier this week.
In 2017 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, called him “the most important political columnist in Russia”.
StalinGulag’s recent targets include: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to Russia; government plans to introduce 5G technology; the Ukrainian presidential election and Russian proposals to ban Spanish ham and Parmesan cheese imports.
Alexander Gorbunov often highlights the absurdities and injustices of everyday life.
Last month he posted about a family in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk whose HIV-positive adopted child had been barred from school, and a sick, elderly patient in Irkutsk who reportedly killed himself in hospital after waiting hours for a simple blood test.
“It is impossible to be silent when mad things happen [in Russia],” he told the BBC.
The man behind StalinGulag has a back story that was extraordinary long before he became the Kremlin’s biggest social media critic.
Born in Makhachkala in the North Caucasus in 1992, he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, an incurable muscle-wasting condition that has made him a wheelchair-user for most of his life.
Gorbunov started his first business aged just 13, selling dietary supplements online.
From these humble beginnings he moved on to become a successful financial trader, specialising in derivatives and crypto-currencies.
He now lives in Moscow with his wife, enjoying what he describes as a good life with regular outings to restaurants and the theatre.
But he’s keen to stress that someone with his disabilities needs to be able to make money in order to pay for all the support he requires to have a normal life.
For someone whose pithy tweets frequently contain expletives and slang, Gorbunov in real life comes across as articulate, educated and thoughtful.
He arrives at the BBC office smartly dressed in a black polo-neck and tweed jacket. He speaks softly and with the quiet confidence of someone who is used to being listened to.
