Mikhail Svetov

Mikhail Vladimirovich Svetov (Михаи́л Влади́мирович Све́тов; born January 4, 1985) is a Russian politician and public figure, chairman of the civil society movement "Civil Society", political scientist, blogger, one of the main ideologists and popularizers of libertarianism in Russia, and the organizer of major rallies on various political and public topics.

Svetov hosts his own YouTube channel and an online newspaper both entitled "SVTV".

Svetov was born in Moscow to medical students.

Svetov describes his family as being classical liberals when he was growing up.

From the third grade on, he was homeschooled by his family, with the exception of one year spent at Appleby College in Canada at the age of 15.

In 2004, when he was 19 years old, Svetov almost joined the National Bolshevik Party.

From 2004 to 2006, Svetov studied at the Russian State University for the Humanities.

The first mention of libertarianism appeared on his blog in 2005 when Svetov was 20 years old.

Although, as the politician claims, he has always been an "ardent libertarian."

Shortly before leaving for Japan, while in Moscow, Svetov joined the Libertarian Party.

From there, he transferred to the University of Nottingham and graduated in 2009 with a degree in Political Science.

According to his own statement, Svetov is fluent in English, French and Japanese.

In the UK, Svetov began blogging in LiveJournal.

In 2010, Svetov left for Japan where he learned Japanese and also sold souvenirs on the Internet.

It was there that Svetov first invested in Bitcoin, which became the key to his material well-being.

In 2011 Svetov was interviewed as an eyewitness by Russia-1 about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

In 2016, he graduated from the New Zealand Film Academy.

A short film, “Jackpot”, was written by Svetov and released in New Zealand, winning first place in the state script competition and receiving sponsorship for a feature length adaptation.

For some time, Svetov worked in the film industry.

He has participated in the production of the unreleased film Icaria.

In 2016, after returning to Russia from Japan, Svetov began his socio-political activities.

He helped in the election campaign of Vera Kichanova and Andrei Shalnev.

Helped with the organization of the eighth readings of Adam Smith.

He organized the visit of Director of the Cato Institute Peter Goetler to read.

He organized meetings and helped with the translation of the speeches of foreign guests.

Svetov was the organizer of opposition rallies: “For Free Internet” on August 26, 2017, a rally against the blocking of Telegram in Russia on April 30, 2018, a rally against pension reform on July 29, 2018.

He initiated a public campaign against the "law of Klishas" on the “sovereign Internet” and launched a petition against the adoption of this law, which collected 122 thousand signatures.

In May 2018, Svetov presented the flag of Russian libertarianism – the Gadsden snake against the background of the Russian national tricolor of 1914.

According to Svetov’s idea, this flag was to become a universal symbol for all libertarians of Russia, combining the political and philosophical convictions of the supporters of freedom with patriotism and Russian national culture.

From time to time, Svetov acts as the organizer of “Conservative Anime Parties”, where in an informal atmosphere visitors can watch anime, fry burgers, listen to music, discuss politics and listen to a lecture by an invited lecturer.

On January 18, 2018, Svetov debated with Vladimir Milov on the topic of the presidential campaign of Alexei Navalny and came out as the winner according to the results of the ballot.

In August, Svetov met and talked with U.S. Republican Senator Rand Paul.

After the adviser to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ruslan Stefanchuk, stated that the ideology of the "Servant of the People" party was libertarianism, Svetov issued a text questioning the party’s commitment to libertarian values and, at the request of RTVI, made a small test for understanding libertarianism for Zelenskyy himself.

Svetov acted as the inviting organizer of the lecture of Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Svetov also became one of the organizers of the rally in defense of the Internet in Moscow on March 10, 2019, and also spoke at it.

Similar rallies also took place in Khabarovsk and Voronezh.

After that, the Kremlin’s Telegram channels began to spread an “investigation” about the fact that the real customer of the rally was the video blogger PewDiePie.

The lecture was held on October 6, 2019, in Moscow, where Hoppe described the destructive power of democracy, its incompatibility with individual freedom and the natural union between Western conservatism and libertarianism.

Svetov also spoke at the event.

Svetov calls himself an ideological anarcho-capitalist.