14 Facts About Paul Klebnikov

Paul Klebnikov was an American journalist and historian of Russia.

Paul Klebnikov worked for Forbes magazine for more than 10 years and at the time of his death was chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes.

Paul Klebnikov was born in New York to an aristocratic family of Russian American White emigres with a long military and political tradition: his great-great-great-grandfather Ivan Pushchin participated in the Decembrist revolt in 1825 and was exiled to Siberia, and his great-grandfather, an admiral in the White Russian fleet, was assassinated by Bolsheviks.

Paul Klebnikov attended St Bernard's School and Phillips Exeter Academy, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a BA in political science in 1984.

Paul Klebnikov then enrolled in the Officer Candidates School of the US Marine Corps as a way to test himself, but upon completing the course, declined to take the offered commission.

Paul Klebnikov wrote his doctoral thesis on agrarian reform in Russia following the Stolypin Reforms that sought to build an independent, progressive, and prosperous peasantry.

Paul Klebnikov joined Forbes in 1989 and gained a reputation for investigating murky post-Soviet business dealings and corruption.

Paul Klebnikov soon received death threats, and took a break from reporting in Russia to live with his family in Paris.

Meanwhile, Paul Klebnikov expanded the article into the 2000 book Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia.

Paul Klebnikov released a second book, Conversation with a Barbarian: Interviews with a Chechen Field Commander on Banditry and Islam, in 2003.

On July 9,2004, while leaving the Forbes office, Paul Klebnikov was attacked on a Moscow street late at night by unknown assailants who fired at him from a slowly moving car.

Paul Klebnikov was shot four times and initially survived, but he died at the hospital after being transported in an ambulance that had no oxygen bottle, and delays when a hospital elevator broke down.

An organization named the Paul Klebnikov Fund was established in his memory to award an annual courage prize to journalists as well as granting internships to young Russian journalists to work in Western media.

The first Paul Klebnikov Lecture was held on May 12,2006, at the 25th reunion of Paul Klebnikov's Exeter class, and featured remarks by The Wall Street Journal correspondent and Exeter alumnus Jon Karp.