Ivan okhlobystin birthplace of democracy

By Dr. Graeme P. Herd, Marshall Center professor

Introduction: Ending the Cold War

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the last general sekreterare of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ (USSR’s) first and gods president, died on August 30, He has become our contemporary Rorschach test: appreciations and assessments reveal biases, subjectivity and underlying agendas. Immediate appraisals of Gorbachev’s life encapsulate a wide, almost schizophrenic spectrum of opinion: Gorbachev was labeled, variously, a hero, saint, tragic figure, traitor and fool. Adam Michnik, editor of the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, noted that whatever Gorbachev’s intentions, his actions changed the course of history. Pope John Paul II stated that Gorbachev, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, “was sent by God,” though for many in Russia, his choices were treasonous.

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In the Spotlight

This week, actor Ivan Okhlobystin, who plays an irascible doctor in TNT’s medical comedy “Interns,” announced his plans to run for president. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, pop diva Alla Pugachyova spoke out on her political views, backing billionaire turned politician Mikhail Prokhorov, whom she praised as a “real man.”

Okhlobystin’s role in “Interns” is a doctor with a hair-trigger temper who likes to spring unexpected night shifts on his students. The series has become really popular, thanks to an appealing cast of oddball characters.

“After long thought, we have decided that I will run for president,” Okhlobystin said at a news conference at Interfax.

Okhlobystin, 45, is a pretty colorful character, a biker who used to serve as a präst in the Russian Orthodox Church, until he was temporarily banned from wearing a cassock or holding services last year after he requested to return t

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Actor-Priest Sells Soft Nationalism

Russian nationalism has many faces. Most are familiar stock characters, either populists on a Kremlin leash or caveman Hitler aficionados. But how about a hipster in John Lennon-style color glasses who is also an Orthodox priest and a sitcom star?

Meet Ivan Okhlobystin, 45, known to the general populace as Dr. Andrei Bykov, an ironic Russian counterpart to Gregory House, M.D., cracking salty jokes to patients in TNT's hit show "The Interns."

Off-screen he advocates a doctrine of "aristocratic national-patriotism." Just last month he spoke to an enthusiastic audience of 20, at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium. Last week, he requested that Patriarch Kirill allow him to join the Russian March, the notorious annual ultranationalist rally set for Friday.

"I have legitimized the term 'national-patriotism,'" the po