LONDON — When a SWAT team appeared at Pavel Durov’s door in St. Petersburg, he started thinking about his future in Russia.
伦敦——当一支特警队出现在帕维尔·杜罗夫(Pavel Durov)位于圣彼得堡的住所前时，他开始考虑自己在俄罗斯的前途。
He was home alone, and he peered at them through a monitor.
当时杜罗夫独自一人在家，通过监视器看着他们。“They had guns and they looked very serious,” said Mr. Durov, once Russia’s biggest celebrity entrepreneur. “They seemed to want to break the door.”
“他们端着枪，看起来非常严肃，”杜罗夫说。“像是准备破门而入。”他曾是俄罗斯最受欢迎的知名企业家。
Not long ago, Mr. Durov, 30, was seen as Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg. He founded a social network, VKontakte, which is more popular in Russia than Facebook, and made a splash by publicly offering Edward Snowden a job.
不久之前，30岁的杜罗夫还被视作俄罗斯的马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)。他创建了社交网站VKontakte，在俄罗斯比Facebook更受欢迎。他还因为公开为爱德华·斯诺登(Edward Snowden)提供工作机会而引起轰动。Then the Kremlin tightened its grip over the Internet and President Vladimir V. Putin’s allies took control of VKontakte. Mr. Durov eventually sold his remaining stake for millions and fled Russia in April, after resisting government pressure to release the data of Ukrainian protest leaders.
后来，克里姆林宫加大了对网络的管控力度，总统弗拉基米尔·V·普京(Vladimir V. Putin)的盟友掌控了VKontakte。杜罗夫最终以数以百万美元计的价格出售了自己剩余的股份，并于今年4月离开俄罗斯。在此之前，他顶住了来自政府的压力，拒绝透露乌克兰抗议活动领袖的相关信息。Mr. Durov, known for his subversive wit and an all-black wardrobe that evokes Neo from the “Matrix” movies, is now a little-seen nomad, moving from country to country every few weeks with a small band of computer programmers. One day he is in Paris, another in Singapore.
杜罗夫以智力超群、喜欢穿一袭黑衣而闻名。这种打扮让人想起《黑客帝国》(Matrix)里的尼奥(Neo)。他现在已经成了神出鬼没的流浪者，每隔几周就会带领一小组计算机编程人员从一个国家转移到另一个国家。某一天，他会待在巴黎，另一天又会现身新加坡。“Me myself, I’m not a big fan of the idea of countries,” Mr. Durov said, wearing a custom-made cross between a hoodie and a sport coat.
身穿兼具帽衫与休闲西服特色的定制服装的杜罗夫说，“我本人不大赞同国家的概念。”When he arrived with little warning in London for his first interview outside cyberspace since leaving Russia, he was en route to San Francisco, where he appeared at a technology conference on Tuesday. He is surfacing to showcase his new messaging app, Telegram, for people craving privacy and security.
他突然造访伦敦，在离开俄罗斯后首次现身接受面对面采访。当时他正在前往旧金山的途中，准备在接下来的周二出席在那里举行的科技大会。他之所以露面，是为了展示为注重隐私与安全的用户设计的新即时通讯应用Telegram。His odyssey reflects the changing nature of the Internet in Russia.
杜罗夫的传奇经历反映了俄罗斯互联网性质的变迁。The Internet was once seen as a way to diversify Russia’s economy beyond oil. When VKontakte started in 2006, Mr. Durov says, he envisioned his country as a tax-free and libertarian utopia for technologists.
互联网曾被视作推动俄罗斯经济摆脱对石油的依赖而向多样化发展的一种途径。杜罗夫在2006年推出VKontakte时表示，他理想中的俄罗斯是一个让科技从业者如鱼得水的自由意志主义免税乌托邦。“The best thing about Russia at that time was the Internet sphere was completely not regulated,” he said. “In some ways, it was more liberal than the United States.”
“那时的俄罗斯最棒的一点在于，互联网领域完全不受约束，”他说。“在某些方面，俄罗斯比美国还要自由。”Now the Internet is viewed with suspicion by Mr. Putin, who has called it a “C.I.A. project” and has taken steps to insulate Russia from the rest of the digital world. One leading Russian activist recently said the government was on a “campaign to shut down the Internet.”
到了今天，普京对互联网持怀疑态度，称这是“中情局(CIA)的项目”，并在采取措施将俄罗斯与数字世界的其他部分隔离开来。俄罗斯一位著名活动人士最近表示，政府正在“开展行动压制网络”。“Since I’m obviously a believer in free markets,” Mr. Durov said, “it’s hard for me to understand the current direction of the country.”
“我坚信自由市场，”杜罗夫说，“所以我很难理解这个国家目前的发展方向。”Russia’s economy is also increasingly isolated, with its currency plummeting amid Western sanctions. The government is now predicting a recession for next year. Mr. Putin’s big challenge is falling oil prices, which Mr. Durov calls “the only chance” for economic and political reform.
俄罗斯经济日益遭到孤立，在西方国家的制裁之下，货币大幅贬值。俄罗斯政府目前预测本国经济明年将陷入衰退。油价不断下跌是普京面临的巨大挑战，而杜罗夫称这是进行经济及政治改革的“唯一机会”。“When the petrol prices are high, there is no incentive for those reforms,” he said. “It can stay like this forever; nobody really cares.”
“汽油价格很高时，没有改革的动机，”他说。“过去的状态会一直延续下去，没人真的在乎。”As the tensions in Russia play out, Mr. Durov says he is focused on Telegram, which he started last year.
随着俄罗斯国内出现紧张气氛，杜罗夫表示，他目前关注的是去年启动的Telegram。There will be no outside investors, he says, no ads and no marketing, and it is available free, though he is likely to eventually charge for additional services. He says he has about 50 million users, almost entirely outside Russia.
他表示，他们不会有外部投资者，没有广告，也没有市场营销。这款应用眼下可以免费获得，但他可能最终会为附加服务收取费用。他表示，Telegram现在大约有5000万用户，几乎全部来自俄罗斯之外的地方。Mr. Durov learned programming from his brother, Nikolai, a mathematician and Mr. Durov’s right-hand man at VKontakte and Telegram. By 11, the younger Mr. Durov was coding his own versions of games like Tetris. The two developed a strategy game set in ancient China, which they called Lao Unit.
杜罗夫向哥哥尼古拉(Nikolai)学会了编程。尼古拉是一名数学家，也是杜罗夫在VKontakte和Telegram的得力助手。11岁的时候，杜罗夫就会编写自己版本的游戏，比如俄罗斯方块。兄弟二人研发了一款背景设定在古代中国的策略游戏，名为“老子军团”(Lao Unit)。At St. Petersburg State University, Mr. Durov studied linguistics. In lieu of military service, he trained in propaganda, studying Sun Tzu, Genghis Khan and Napoleon, and he learned to make posters aimed at influencing foreign soldiers.
在圣彼得堡国立大学(St. Petersburg State University)就读期间，杜罗夫学习语言学。他没有服兵役，而是选择接受宣传方面的训练，研究孙子、成吉思汗和拿破仑。他还学习了如何制作旨在动摇外国部队军心的海报。The posters said things like “You are surrounded, surrender, there’s no hope,” or they would suggest to foreign soldiers that “some other guy is entertaining himself with your wife,” he recalled.
这些海报上印着“你们已被包围，除了投降，别无出路，”或者告诉敌军“其他男人在和你们的妻子厮混”，他回忆道。His main interest was developing a social network. A friend who studied in America showed him Facebook, then in its infancy, and he learned from it.
他主要的兴趣是开发社交网络。在美国学习的一个朋友向他介绍了当时还处于起步阶段的Facebook，他从中借鉴了一些东西。“Some things like the layout of the early VKontakte was very influenced by Facebook,” Mr. Durov said. “Otherwise it could take ages for me to build, and I was not a professional designer.”
“有些东西，比如Vkontakte早期的页面布局，受Facebook的影响就很大，”杜罗夫说。“否则，我可能会花很长的时间才能完成，毕竟我不是专业的设计师。”He also recruited fellow linguistics students to build a database catering to the post-Soviet university system, a step he said gave VKontakte “a tremendous competitive advantage.”
他还找来语言学专业的同学，针对苏联解体后的大学体系建立了一个数据库。此举给Vkontakte带来了“巨大的竞争优势”，他说。In 2007, he decided to allow users to upload audio and video files, without regard to copyright. Such policies have drawn criticism from the United States Trade Representative and lawsuits from major record labels.
2007年，他决定不考虑版权问题，允许用户上传音频和视频文件。这个做法已经遭到了美国贸易代表的指责和主要唱片公司的起诉。“Some people told me when I was implementing it that I would go to jail the next day,” he said. “I was very careless.”
“我这么做的时候，有人警告，我第二天就会蹲进大牢，”他说。“我当时根本不在乎。”Demonstrations in 2011 over parliamentary elections resulted in a government showdown. During the SWAT standoff at his home that followed, he called his brother.
2011年针对议会选举的示威活动，导致了政府向他摊牌。之后，当他的家被特警围住时，他给哥哥打了一个电话。“I realized I don’t have a safe means of communications with him,” he said, adding, “That’s how Telegram started.”
“我意识到，我和他之间的所有通讯手段都不安全，”他说，“这就是Telegram的缘起。”Telegram is competing in a crowded field of messaging apps that promise varying degrees of security. Telegram has its fans and detractors, but it was rated respectably in a recent evaluation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The Telegram company, based in Berlin, has a deliberately complex structure of scattered global shell companies intended to keep it a step ahead of subpoenas from any one government.
Telegram所在的领域竞争很激烈，有大量即时通讯应用承诺为用户提供程度各异的安全保障。Telegram有粉丝也有反对者，但在电子前沿基金会(Electronic Frontier Foundation)最近的一项评估中，它的排名比较靠前。Telegram公司总部设在柏林，刻意设计了一个复杂的结构，由全球各地的空壳公司组成，力图做到比任何国家的政府发出的传票都领先一步。“This is very unusual for Russian entrepreneurs, to succeed outside of Russia,” said Sergei Guriev, a prominent economist who fled Russia last year. “He may not be a usual person in many ways, but he is definitely a very talented entrepreneur.”
“俄罗斯创业者在本国以外的地方获得成功，是很不寻常的一件事，”去年逃离俄罗斯的著名经济学家谢尔盖·古里耶夫(Sergei Guriev)说。“从很多方面而言，他可能都不是一个平常人，但他绝对是一个才华横溢的创业者。”When Mr. Durov sold his stake in VKontakte last December, there was speculation it was worth a few hundred million dollars. Mr. Durov would not give a specific figure, citing a nondisclosure agreement.
去年12月，杜罗夫出售了他在Vkontakte的股份。有人猜测这部分股份价值数亿美元。杜罗夫说他签订了保密协议，不能透露具体的数字。“In my days in Russia, I visited some very rich guys,” he said. “I visited big ships, private airplanes, houses — and I know for sure I don’t want this for myself.”
“在俄罗斯的时候，我见过一些非常有钱的人，”他说。“我参观了他们的大型游艇、私人飞机和豪宅——我清楚地知道，我不希望自己变成这样。”“I’m very happy right now without any property anywhere,” he added. “I consider myself a legal citizen of the world.”
“现在我在任何地方都没有任何资产，对此我感到很开心，”他说。“我把自己想成是这个世界的合法公民。”