Masha Gessen is a Russian and American journalist and author. Her most recent book is The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. She is editor in chief of Vokrug Sveta, a publishing house that includes Russia’s oldest continuously published magazine, which she also edits, and a range of innovative multimedia publications. She is the founder of The Protest Workshop (Masterskaya Protestnykh Desystviy), an offline/online organizing effort that has played a key role in the Russian protests starting in December. She writes a weekly column on Russia for the New York Times/International Herald Tribune web site.