The independent radio station Echo of Moscow has long been seen as a paragon of quality journalism in Russia. Now, however, Gazprom is moving to take control of the station's supervisory board. Many fear tough times ahead for press freedoms in the country.

In Soviet times, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once said, a visit to Moscow had to include three stops: the Kremlin, the Bolshoi Theater and Lenin's mausoleum on Red Square. She went on to say that, once the Soviets fell, the first two remained requirements. But the third item on the itinerary had changed. Instead of viewing the dead revolutionary's wax mummy, American delegations preferred to stop by the decidedly lively offices of the radio station Echo of Moscow.

The news broadcaster was founded in 1990 and has since made a name for itself with its independent news and analysis as well as for its pointed critique of the Kremlin. In the morning, star columnist Anton Orech takes aim at the Russian leadership, while in the evening, sharp-tongued journalist Julia Latynina resumes her broadsides against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. And hundreds of thousands of people listen attentively.

Echo of Moscow's offices are located inside a dismal, concrete hulk of a building not far from the Kremlin. In the two decades of its existence, it has become the most important voice of new Russia and reaches some 3 million listeners across the country. Historian Nikolai Svanidze, author of a biography of President Dmitry Medvedev, calls the station a "flagship of quality journalism."

The question is how long it will stay that way. The Kremlin has upped the pressure on Echo of Moscow, with a subsidiary of the partly state-owned natural gas company Gazprom seeking to take over a majority of the station's supervisory board. Echo of Moscow Editor-in-Chief Alexei Venediktov is calling the move "an attempt to correct editorial policy." The move, he says, is not an initiative of Gazprom itself, rather it comes from the "highest echelons of the political establishment."