Pavel Durov, the Russian enfant terrible who created Telegram, the notorious messaging app, is not easily pegged. French authorities arrested him last week, claiming that he allowed Telegram to be used in myriad alleged cyber-crimes, including child sex abuse. Is he a Russian Mark Zuckerberg or a criminal with a flair for tech? His encrypted app made him a hero of the anti-Putin opposition in Russia, but he might also be a collaborator with the Kremlin, since Putin hasn’t yet put him in jail, although the Kremlin has denied making any deals with him. It’s possible Pavel Durov is all of the above.
Pavel, whom I knew as “Pasha” when he was a classmate at St. Petersburg State University, is the son of Valery Durov, who was the charismatic head of the Classical Philology Department. His father’s lectures on Roman literature and Latin case syntax have produced some of the most insufferable students at St. Petersburg University, much like the characters in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
