Kurginyan Sergey

Theater director, political expert, the leader of the movement Sut Vremeni (The Essence of Time)

KURGINYAN, Sergey Yervandovich (b. 1949) graduated from the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute with a degree in geophysics in 1972. In 1974 - 1980, he was a researcher at the Institute of Oceanology, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, in 1980 - 1986, he was a Senior Researcher at the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute. He has been a theater director since his student years. In 1988, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. That year, he proposed the Central Committee of the Party to make a report on ethnic conflicts in the USSR. In December of that year, when a conflict broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenian and Azerbaijani communities, Kurginyan left for Baku. Upon his return, he published a short report for the Politburo, where he urged to suppress the unrests with brutal force.

After this trip, Kurginyan also traveled “for expert work” to Karabakh, Tajikistan, and Lithuania. The future “informal member of the State Emergency Committee” and the then member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, Yuri Prokofiev, highly appreciated the work of Kurginyan. In September 1990, Kurginyan proposed draconian measures against the emerging private business to the Soviet Council of Ministers. After the collapse of the USSR, Kurginyan carried out various shady political activities, although there is no much information about this part of his biography. Nevertheless, his influence was, apparently, considerable. Thus, he was behind the dismissal of General Alexander Lebed who once refused to comply with the criminal orders of the State Emergency Committee from the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

Kurginyan came back to politics in 2011 as an anchor of an internet show Sut Vremeni (The Essence of Time) and the creator of the public movement of the same name. His movement includes supporters of a “red revenge” and restoration of a renewed USSR, glorifies Stalin, and calls itself a “left-patriotic.”

The Kremlin’s military aggression against Ukraine, which started in February 2014 and led to the Russian occupation of Crimea and a part of Donbas, gave Kurginyan a new impetus. In June 2014, Kurginyan arrived in Donetsk. During heavy fighting in the Donbas on July 7, he criticized Igor Strelkov (Girkin), commander of pro-Russian militants in Sloviansk, accusing him of leaving the city, trying to surrender Donetsk and going to Russia to overthrow Putin. To this day, the major political activity of Kurginyan is the justification of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Many activists of “The Essence of Time” became pro-Russian militants in Donbas. Kurginyan is a frequent guest on various propaganda TV shows on federal TV, where he invariably supports Kremlin’s policies.

- Participation in the campaign of propaganda and public justification of the criminal policy of the Kremlin.

- Active support for Russian military aggression against Ukraine, which resulted in the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of a part of Donbas and almost led to the occupation of other Ukrainian territories. Among other things, the Essence of Time supplied military equipment and parts of firearms to pro-Russian militants. Members of the movement also volunteered in the Vostok militant battalion. The volunteer detachment of the movement, The Essence of Time also took part in the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

- Inspiring and actively supporting the extremely obscurantist and inhuman activity of the All-Russian Parents' Meetings, including support for the so-called Anti-Orphan Law (aka Dima Yakovlev Law and Law of Scoundrels).