'You have no place on TV': How Pavel Zarubin became Putin's journalist
Pavel Zarubin appears alongside the president during a «Direct Line» broadcast.
A telegraph circle appeared on screens in hundreds of thousands of televisions across the country, and inside it — a girl about ten years old, diligently enunciating every sound. She was addressing the president of Russia.
«When Pasha retires, I will replace him, and please don»t go anywhere — wait for me, and I will cover your work,« is how Viktoria asked Vladimir Putin to hire her. This segment amused the head of state and viewers of the »Direct Line« on the afternoon of December 19.
A young viewer expressed her ambition to join the press corps covering the president.
The «Pasha» Vika was talking about communicates with the president more often than any of his colleagues. This is Pavel Zarubin, host of the program «Moscow. Kremlin. Putin», in which he once a week recounts what the head of state has been occupied with over the last seven days. Actually, Zarubin is still very far from retirement. He is 44, and for seven of those years, Pavel has spent nearly every day side by side with Vladimir Putin.
It is through his eyes that millions of television viewers look at the president — and are influenced by the enthusiastic tone of reports from the Kremlin. Zarubin is a product of Yekaterinburg television. Here«s how a regional journalist from a commercial TV channel became the author of the televised version of the presidential chronicle.
A Struggle with Consonants
Zarubin co-hosted the live broadcast with Channel One«s presenter Yekaterina Berezovskaya.
Pavel Zarubin is originally from Beloretsk, a city in Bashkortostan, from a family of metallurgists. He wanted to be a television journalist since childhood. The dream of a career led him to the journalism faculty of Ural State University in Yekaterinburg, where he studied in the late 1990s — early 2000s.
At the turn of the century, many Ural journalists studied or worked with him — but almost none of them dared to talk about their acquaintance from youth who today works with the head of state.
A fellow student of Pavel«s told a correspondent from E1.RU that in his first years he had a serious problem with pronunciation — it seemed that with such a defect, a pass to TV was out of the question.
The reporter travels extensively with the presidential entourage within Russia and abroad.
«After enrollment, at a meeting, the deputy dean told us we had to submit applications for a specific group: print or television/radio broadcasting. About seventy percent of the first-year students chose the latter: everyone wanted to become stars, to be shown on screens. But we had to divide equally, and they asked us to think. Only one young man categorically refused to switch to print. That was Zarubin,» a journalism faculty graduate told a correspondent from E1.RU.
Footage shows Zarubin as a university student participating in campus television projects.
According to her, Pavel had undeveloped speech. He pronounced several consonants poorly and had other pronunciation issues.
«He was told: you definitely have no business being on television. He swore it was temporary, and the deputy dean gave him a year to correct it. He worked with a speech therapist and a speech teacher from a theater institute. And his speech improved,» Pavel«s classmate said.
From Stories About Mud to TEFI-Region
At 18, «Channel 4» took Zarubin on as an intern — one of the country«s best private regional TV companies, and soon Pavel was hired for a job.
«They literally babied me, because I came completely green, I was 18, I couldn»t do anything. I only had a wild desire to work. I saw an ad in the newspaper that the news service of «Channel 4» needed a reporter — a man under 40. I called them myself,« Zarubin said in a 2024 interview with young journalist Yekaterina Shamorova.
«Channel 4» made news for the viewer, without groveling before the authorities or sponsors. Pavel would come on the «Morning Express» program to talk about the main city events live. The show connected with correspondents who were comfortable on camera, recalls Alexei Vanchenko, who was a host in those years, in a conversation with E1.RU.
«Pavel was one of many news reporters who came to us for live broadcasts. For us, joking in the morning was commonplace. It was harder for the correspondents, they didn»t come daily, they usually had evening broadcasts, and preparing for morning ones required ceremony: waking up early, tidying themselves up, and so on,« said Alexei Vanchenko.
Archival news segments demonstrate his early on-air style and presentation skills.
At «The Four», Zarubin worked as a correspondent and hosted news broadcasts. One of them is easy to find online. On October 17, 2001, at 7 p.m., 20-year-old Zarubin told viewers about a protest by residents of Kalinovka over impassable mud, the arrest of a drug dealer, a burned-down cinema, and the proper preparation for winter that should be done with pets.
In the studio — a young man in severe glasses with a transparent frame, neatly side-swept hair, a gray jacket and tie, with a blue shirt. He diligently pronounces all sounds — already without any defects, but still sometimes stumbles. A year later, Zarubin would win TEFI (the Russian national TV award) — for reports made for «The Four», and then received an invitation for an internship from VGTRK (the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company). He managed to secure a place on a federal channel — since 2005 he has worked in the presidential pool, meaning he has spent most of his career reporting on Vladimir Putin.
Moscow.Kremlin.Putin
For many years, the president did not have a separate program on a federal channel: the head of state«s work was already covered in all major media, and Pavel Zarubin was just one of many members of the Kremlin pool.
Times changed, Russia hosted the Olympics and annexed Crimea, held the FIFA World Cup and a pension reform. Zarubin made stories not only about the Russian president. Once, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko came to Belarus on a visit. The president arrived at the Palace of Independence when Zarubin shouted a question at him: why are Ukrainian troops bombing the civilian population of Donbas. It was 2015, and Zarubin was then escorted out of the Palace of Independence.
«VGTRK political commentators Olga Skabeyeva and Pavel Zarubin in Minsk encountered inappropriate actions by the Ukrainian security service. Pavel was taken away and locked for a time in some room for his clear but loud question to Poroshenko, and Olga wasn»t even allowed to ask her question for Poroshenko,« the »Russia 1« channel reported.
The four-hour live event required extensive coordination between the hosts and the production crew.
Another three years later, he came closer to his dream — became Putin«s personal chronicler. The program »Moscow. Kremlin. Putin« began airing on the »Russia 1« channel. Initially there were two hosts — Zarubin and Vladimir Solovyov. And if Solovyov had been known to the whole country for many years, Zarubin was little known to the general public. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, it was Pavel who received the right to communicate with Putin — for this he literally had to sit in quarantine for months at a time.
Since then, Pavel has had no problems with exclusives about the life of the head of state. Ten days after the start of the SMO (special military operation), on March 2, 2022, he started a Telegram channel and gave it his name. Three and a half years later, his channel has half a million subscribers. Here Zarubin shows details of the president«s work, honing his courtly wit and announcing upcoming program episodes.
«Putin»s motorcade and a black cat that made the only correct decision,« is how he comments on footage of an animal that changed its mind about running across the road in front of a car from the motorcade.
«Do you never feel like hitting them?» he asked the president in a major interview marking 25 years of work in the Kremlin. And got the answer: «Always!»
«Putin began the night transfer from Tianjin to Beijing. The president»s working day has already lasted 16 hours straight, with another 1.5 hours of travel on China«s highways ahead,» Zarubin keeps his subscribers informed.
«Who and why hugged Putin like this?» Zarubin intrigues, recounting how after the latest presidential direct line, a crew member had to untangle the head of state, who was tangled in microphone wires.
Zarubin uses most of these stories for his main program as well. Its running time has changed from 60 to 30 minutes over the years. The main part of the content is supplied by Zarubin himself or his colleagues. Vladimir Solovyov appears on camera as the studio host, reading intros to stories filmed by Zarubin and his team.
«Good reporters should take the position of an observer. You shouldn»t participate in the event. A reporter is a person who records events as they happen, as they develop. And a reporter shouldn«t participate in them, at least, certainly not in political journalism,» Zarubin asserted in an interview with Yekaterina Shamorova.
It was Pavel who became co-author and interviewer in the film «Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 Years», and he has also communicated many times with the head of state in interviews for various projects — such as the «Direct Line». Perhaps it is Zarubin who is today the journalist closest to the head of state.
Over the program«s existence, the president has grown accustomed to Zarubin»s presence, communicating with him in a friendly, condescending, and even patronizing manner. In the film «Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 Years», the head of state invited Zarubin into his personal gym and asked him in passing what sport the journalist himself does. Pavel admitted there were problems with that. The president even had to remind his interlocutor about the importance of regular training. Later, Pavel confessed to Yekaterina Shamorova that since then he had started going to the gym and does so diligently.
The longer Zarubin works with Putin, the more closely colleagues from foreign media or representatives of emigre press watch him. In a typical piece about him, interviewees of journalists call Zarubin one of the key figures in Russian propaganda, and the tone of some questions is downright «sycophantic.»
We called Pavel Zarubin — he did not pick up. We also sent him questions we would like to get answers to.
After the president«s direct line, Pavel met the nine-year-old Vika, who dreams of sending him into retirement. He agreed to invite her to one of the events with the president»s participation — as Vladimir Putin had promised Vika earlier on live air.
Pavel Zarubin has not avoided international sanctions. By the way, 16 years after leaving Yekaterinburg, Zarubin was invited back to «The Four» — on the days of the TV company«s anniversary.
