No

Co-founder and publisher at Meduza. Former editor-in-chief at Lenta.ru. Worked at Kommersant newspaper. Winner of several journalistic awards

Soon after the oligarch Alexander Mamut* bought Lenta.ru, he said to me, "Galya, would you be upset if I called your editors and told them what topics are relevant?" I answered, "First of all, anyone who obeys you will be hung out to dry. You may be the ship owner, but you’ve hired a ship with a captain. If the sailors carry out your orders, that’s it, we're done for. You’re telling me where to sail; I already know how to sail. What happens on my ship is none of your damn business." That was the start of our confrontation.

In the beginning the biggest censors weren’t state authorities, but rather the owners, who were afraid their main businesses could take a hit and therefore crippled their media outlets to suit the Kremlin’s wishes. Later, state security services assumed that role.

In the history of Russia there was a period of about five years, from 1996 to 2001, when censorship was actually banned. The Internet remained uncensored for longer. That period shaped me. Before a new, technologically advanced generation of bureaucrats came of age, the Russian state understood nothing about the Internet. So, until Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012, there was practically no censorship online. And even after his return, acts of solidarity with journalists were still possible for a while.

In 2013, my photographer Denis Sinyakov was arrested while taking pictures on a Greenpeace ship**. They wanted to put him away for 10 years. The following day, all major publications replaced their photographers with black and gray squares. We showed what happens when photographers get arrested – and then he was released.

The last case of this kind happened in 2019 when the police planted drugs on Ivan Golunov, a Meduza journalist. The police contrived to pin a drug charge on a journalist who as fas I know had never touched any drugs in his life. My colleagues, especially from business publications, accomplished a professional feat, and a feat of friendship, by supporting him. At the time all of Moscow and the whole country came out to protest. By 2020, when journalist Ivan Safonov was tried for treason, nothing of the sort happened.

Look at how vile this censorship is. Imagine, you put all your strength into an article, you investigate – and then Russia’s state censor bans it. Many outlets now limit access to some of their own articles to prevent the authorities from shutting them down entirely. It’s a particularly cruel form of torture that forces you to destroy your work with your own hands. Based on my experience, people who engage in this are not taking into account the risks. They don’t ask themselves: "What will happen if I spit on the rules?" There’s a chance that absolutely nothing will happen to you. Many who follow absurd rules don’t even understand that their obedience will change nothing for them — you’ll endure numerous humiliations, they’ll eventually break you, and that’s it.

This is the trauma of the Putin era. People have simply forgotten that 20 years ago we could resist censorship. A whole generation of journalists – those who worked in the media in the 2010s – is broken. Maybe those who are growing up right now will not inherit this trauma – they do seem to be, on the whole, a little bit different.

Self-censorship is wildly disrespectful towards the lives of others. Readers of Meduza have, collectively, spent over 3,000 years with us over the past. That’s time they’ve taken out of their lives. And you’re going to use that time to tell them lies and bow down to censorship?

Here’s another example: many publications, including Western ones, blur out disturbing photographs to avoid upsetting the readers’ delicate sensibilities. We don’t blur anything – we put a disclaimer: "you don’t have to look if you don’t want to, but this is what war looks like." Censorship is a lack of respect. It’s a paternalistic approach that I abhor. It signals: "We’re a bunch of intelligent journalists or we’re the all-knowing state, we know how to address you, we know what’s best for you." No, I’ll decide for myself what’s best for me – and that’s what I want to communicate to our readers. Decide for yourself what’s best for you: knowing or not knowing the truth, red pill or blue pill.

When we left the country in 2014, many people told me, "You’re insane, where are you running off to? Nothing’s happened yet." But there was one exception: a former photo director of Lenta.ru. She said, "you guys are leaving to uphold the standards of your profession, to save your skill set. That’s something that will always come in handy because – besides all of the other things it does – censorship in Russia destroys a journalist’s ability to collect and verify information."

One of our colleagues came up with a metaphor: Everything that’s happening to us now is an odyssey. Our task is to survive. Odysseus didn’t know how long his journey would last, but he did know where he wanted to return to. That’s us. We’re not sailing off into the future. We want to return home, but not to Russia, no. Speaking for myself, I’m certain I won’t be going back there – I have nothing left there anymore. We want to return to a world where journalism means something.

*Alexander Mamut became the owner of the online publication Lenta.ru in 2013. A year later, in 2014, he fired editor-in-chief Galina Timchenko after she refused to comply with the Russian authorities censorship requirements. That same year, Timchenko and several former Lenta employees relocated to Latvia and launched Meduza there.

**In 2013, the Russian authorities charged Greenpeace activists with piracy when they tried to board a Barents Sea drilling platform from the ship the Arctic Sunrise. In 2014, the defendants were granted amnesty.