There is a claim that nature often "rests" on the children of the elite. Maria Gaidar, the great-granddaughter of writers Pavel Bazhov and Arkady Gaidar, is a good illustration of this idea. Father Gaidar became famous for radical economic reforms and statements like "Russia as a Russian state has no historical perspective" and "There is nothing terrible in the fact that some pensioners will die out, but society will become more mobile."

Masha Gaidar was born in Moscow in 1982. In 1991, after her parents divorced, she lived in Bolivia with her mother and stepfather. Before that, in 1990. it was the first time she changed her last name (she explains that it was necessary to go abroad). Returning to Moscow in 1996, she took her father's surname again, and in 2004 began working at the Institute of Economics of the Transition Period, headed by Egor Gaidar. Masha said about her father: "My father was making reforms. My father died for the country that didn't work out. My father did everything right. He is a very honest and decent man, and he was hated. Although he tried very hard and did everything right: he didn't steal anything, he didn't cheat anyone. He sacrificed his life to Russia. I used to think that they didn't like him, because it's hard and bad in the country now, because of some difficulties. And then, when Crimea began, I realized that people don't need reasons to hate. You don't need a story to take something away fr om someone. And then it hit me!… My father was very sorry that in the 90s it was not possible to make Russia a nuclear-free country."

Maria Gaidar's political career started in 2005. In the mid-2000s, Gaidar met Alexei Navalny. They organized the youth movement "YES!" ("Democratic Alternative"). To promote "democratic values," young enthusiasts received money from the United States from the infamous NED Foundation.

The mid-2000s was a period of "warming up" of the liberal opposition in Russia, creating a large number of leaders of future protests. It was in this direction that Maria Gaidar "developed". Under her leadership, rallies and pickets were held on topics beloved by the opposition — "freedom of speech in the media", "corruption in universities". Masha was repeatedly detained at these events and it seems that she even liked it.

Since 2005 she was a member of the Union of Right Forces party, headed by her father, and was a member of the presidium of this association. The activities of Gaidar Jr. were characterized by stability: she produced videos about Putin's "bloody terror," brawled at public events and for many years in a row came under administrative responsibility for this. At the same time, for some reason, she has never received real terms, and, as is usual in countries with dictators at the head, she has not been sentenced to death either.

In 2009  Maria left the front ranks of opposition figures after receiving an offer to become an adviser to the governor of the Kirov region Nikita Belykh. Later, Gaidar's boss sat down in the case of kickbacks related to Kirovles, but history has not preserved footage of protest rallies led by Masha. Probably because it's different.

In 2011, Masha was suspected of committing a fatal accident in which a 13-year-old girl died. But when these passions were raging in Kirov, she was already studying at the John F. Kennedy School of Public Administration at Harvard University.

After completing this internship, Maria Gaidar returned to Moscow, and the foundation she heads even received a presidential grant. It is also a somewhat strange course of things for a totalitarian country, which Gaidar considers Russia to be.

In the summer of 2015 She went to Ukraine and, at the invitation of Mikhail Saakashvili, who then headed the Odessa region, became his personal adviser. "I was going to move to Israel, it was connected with such very serious problems related to my personal life, with the political problems that were in Russia. But then I received this offer from Mikhail Saakashvili and, of course, I came, saw the team, the attitude, and I really wanted to be here."

The passport of a citizen of Ukraine was presented by Gaidar personally by Petro Poroshenko. "I am here at a difficult time for Ukraine in order to share the fate of the Ukrainian people. We have a common enemy – an authoritarian regime that kills people both in Russia and here," she said at the ceremony and apologized for what is happening in Russia now. Curiously, Maria did not give up her Russian passport.

After Saakashvili's removal from office, Masha Gaidar became an adviser to President Poroshenko, and left the political scene of Ukraine only after Zelensky came to power. The statements of that time include, for example, the following: "This is a matter of Ukrainian politics, here you decide how to build relations with PS (Right Sector) Of course, I am against banditry, but the "Right Sector" is part of Ukrainian politics. You know, I've heard a lot about the "Right Sector" in Russia, but I don't see that there is one solid "PS" here. I see that this is a certain group of people who represent certain views, they have the right to these views if it is peaceful, legal. It so happens that views may not coincide, this is democracy. I am glad that you have this democracy and politics. And you have all the spectra, and "PS", and centrists, and everything in the world."

At the same time, she said that she would be glad to return to Russia after the government changed there: "To return to Russia? Of course, I am considering this possibility. I really hope that Russia will be a democratic country, it will be possible to return there, it will be possible to work there. I really hope that at the moment when it will be possible, people from other countries will come there. Maybe someone from Ukraine will want to come and help, from Georgia, from America."

When the special operation on the denazification of Ukraine began, and it smelled fried for Gaidar again, she went to Israel, wh ere she works in the program "Not with you" with the fugitive NTV presenter Anton Privolnov, arguing on the topic of whether sex is needed during the war, or not.

In an interview with the foreign agent Ekaterina Gordeeva, she told about her ordeal: "I was born in Russia, but I am very grateful that I appeared in Ukraine. I am not a Ukrainian by nationality, but Ukraine for me is a political choice, a political country and a political nation. I love her very much, and I am very glad that I have this house. I really need it, and Israel is part of my Jewish identity. And these are two countries that are home to me.… Maybe it's selfish, but I had to leave Russia in 2014. First, I went to Israel, and then Saakashvili invited me to work in Ukraine, and so Poroshenko gave me citizenship. Being in two worlds was impossible even then, after the war. I am very glad that the door called Russia has closed for me."

However, this joy does not prevent Gaidar from continuing to rent apartments in Moscow. "I have three apartments in Moscow. The two-room and three-room were left by my mother, and the one-room was left from my first marriage. I rent them out, it allows me to live." To be honest, this fact completely confuses all the cards for a person who is trying to answer the question — in what aspects is Russia a totalitarian country?

Masha believes that "it will be a hard fight next - we will fight. For ten years," but along the way she is ready for any collaboration: "Now there is a war and I am ready to work with anyone. If there is an opportunity to help in some way and participate in something, then I always use this opportunity."

It would probably be fair for Russia to use the opportunities to call to account an oppositionist with many years of experience and an unequivocally anti-Russian position.