Unlike its parvenu neighbour, St Petersburg, Novgorod city is of manageable size, and tightly run.

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NATO's best hope is therefore to sideline him, partly by starving him, and other parvenu warlords, of some of their fat contracts.

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He recognized the genius of Rupert Murdoch, while many others felt only disdain for him (and still do), believing him to be a predatory parvenu out to destroy "quality" journalism.

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Certain quarters of the U.K. press have accused him of being a parvenu of obsessing over the upper class, both with "Downton" and in his personal life, to compensate for his own not-especially-aristocratic provenance.

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