HOT PROPERTY, DEATHBED CONVERSION….

Embattled oligarch Boris Berezovsky announced in an open letter that he is prepared to take over the $262 million debt that Media Most, the holding company run by Berezovsky’s longtime rival Vladimir Gusinsky, owes to natural-gas monopoly Gazprom. The debt is the biggest chip on the table in the poker game for control of Media Most, whose properties include the NTV television network. Gazprom, which already owns 46 percent of Media Most, hopes to redeem the debt for equity, which would give it majority control. American media mogul Ted Turner, mega-investor George Soros, and Sweden’s Modern Times publishing group have also expressed interest in buying into Media Most…. In Berezovsky’s fat years as a member of former President Boris Yeltsin’s inner circle, he was widely reviled as the living symbol of everything wrong with post-communist Russia. In the lean years under Putin, Berezovsky may face renewed charges related to the diversion of Aeroflot profits to one of his Swiss bank accounts. Despite his ugly reputation, Berezovsky may have hopes of finding allies in the West, or on Russia’s right. His bid to rescue Media Most, he says, aims to protect free speech and save Russia from dictatorship. He has also donated $3 million to the foundation run by human-rights activist Yelena Bonner, the widow of Nobelist Andrei Sakharov.