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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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On March 8, 2022, the global magazine publisher Condé Nast announced it was suspending its operations in Russia in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, leaving the country’s elites with no prestigious glossy mags in which to read about themselves. After more than a year with no indication that Vogue or Glamour will return any time soon, a group of former pro-Kremlin youth activists decided that enough is enough: they would create their own culture and society magazine. The result is Moskvichka, a publication whose first issue covers topics ranging from fashion in the village of Suzdal to resorts in the Seychelles, all in service of the argument that “loving Russia is not a bad thing.” Meduza’s special correspondent Svetlana Reiter and iStories journalist Maria Zholobova took a look at who’s behind the new project and how exactly it came to be.

In mid-November, a release party for a new glossy magazine called Moskvichka (“Moscow woman”) was held at the Vladey Gallery in Moscow. Its publisher, Rare Books Publishing (IRK), was founded by propagandist Kristina Potupchik, the former press secretary of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi and the owner of a wide network of pro-government Telegram channels.

The magazine’s editor-in-chief is Darina Alexeyeva, a friend of Potupchik and the author of Bakhchysarai Carnations, a popular Telegram channel about Russian culture and high society. “Kristina helped me launch the channel,” Alexeyeva told the authors of this article.

She said the idea for Moskvichka came from Potupchik, as well as from Nikita Tomilin, a former member of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Molodaya Gvardiya (“Young Guard”) and the director of the briefly viral propaganda video “Time to Move to Russia.”

Moskvichka’s creators refer to the project as a “post-sanctions magazine,” and several media outlets have dubbed it “the Russian Tatler” for its focus on the lives of Russia’s elites. The real Russian edition of the British society magazine Tatler was discontinued after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, as were Condé Nast’s other Russian magazines likeVogue, GQ, and Glamour.

According to two sources familiar with Moskvichka’s publication process, Kristina Potupchik discussed the idea for the new magazine with members of the Putin administration. As a rule, she also usually coordinates her initiatives with Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Sergey Kiriyenko, as well as his subordinate, Sergey Novikov, who heads the Presidential Directorate for Social Projects. (Sources who spoke to the authors of this piece referred to Novikov as the “main censor of Russian culture.”) Novikov did not respond to requests for comment.

According to two acquaintances of Potupchik, the Kremlin approved of the idea. “We don’t have a glossy magazine [in Russia] right now; they all left. We need to show what import substitution really looks like. And that we’re also fashionable, cool, and rich,” joked a former editor of a Russian fashion magazine who’s familiar with the details of Moskvichka’s launch.

“Why do you assume I have to coordinate with the presidential administration? That’s a very strange question,” Potupchik told the authors of this story.

Moskvichka is not registered with Russia’s federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, as a mass media outlet (and as a result, it’s prohibited by law from releasing more than 99 copies). According to one knowledgable source, the Putin administration’s first deputy chief of staff, Alexey Gromov, who oversees print and television media for the Kremlin, was opposed to the idea of letting the magazine register.

“Gromov is old school. He’s used to working with traditional media. Unlike Kiriyenko and Novikov, he doesn’t understand anything about Telegram channels, which are a big part of Potupchik’s work. And in general, he’s long thought Potupchik is strange,” one source said. An acquaintance of Darina Alexeyeva agreed: Moskvichka’s chief editor, she said, has complained that “Gromov isn’t giving them a media license because he hates Kristina.” Gromov did not respond to requests for comment.

When asked why Moskvichka wasn’t given a media license, and whether Alexey Gromov was involved in this decision, Kristina Potupchik responded:

Both the magazine’s licensing and its release to the public in general were opposed by many unpatriotic people who don’t like the fact that Russia is getting its own brands to replace the international publications that left and the “foreign agent” publications, of which yours is one.

I sincerely hope everyone who opposes the release of this magazine will pick it up, read its high-quality articles, look at its beautiful photographs, and understand that loving Russia is not a bad thing.

At the same time, Sergey Novikov personally attended the magazine’s release event at the Vladey Gallery. Other attendees included Alexey Goreslavsky, the head of the Internet Development Institute; Vladimir Tabak, the head of the Dialog autonomous nonprofit organization; Sergey Kapkov, the former head of Moscow's Culture Department; and Grigory Berezkin, who owns the RBC media holding.

In addition to a dance routine by women in traditional Russian headdresses, the presentation included a video in which prominent figures in the city praise “beautified Moscow” and its mayor, Sergey Sobyanin.

“We love Sergey Sobyanin and praise him without reservations. However, we’re open to proposals [for other collaborations],” Alexeyeva said in an interview with fashion blogger Madonna Mur. According to three acquaintances of Potupchik, her publishing company, IRK, funded the first issue of Moskvichka (its creators have gifted issues to their friends and sell them on online retailers Ozon and Wildberries for 450 rubles — around $5). A source from the Moscow Mayor’s Office said that Potupchik has not asked Sobyanin or his deputies for financial support.

‘Just name your price’

Kristina Potupchik registered her publishing company, IRK, in 2019, though rather than listing its address as that of her own office in central Moscow, she registered it at a five-story building in the northern part of the city that also serves as the legal headquarters of nearly 200 other companies. In November 2023, shortly before the first issue of Moskvichka was printed, Potupchik was replaced as the publisher’s director by someone named Yulia Barsanova, according to legal records.

A woman with the same name and birth date as this person previously worked in the Vladimir region’s Department of Organizational and Large-scale Work and Personnel (Potupchik is also originally from the Vladimir region). Additionally, Yandex data leaks show that Barsanova has had meals delivered to Potupchik’s office in Moscow. Potupchik redirected journalists’ question about the transfer of the company’s ownership to its lawyers, and Barsanov did not respond to questions.

One other figure who works with IRK is Vadim Veterkov, a former Nashi leader who runs the Bakhchysarai Carnations Telegram channel along with Darina Alexeyeva. He’s written for Moskvichka, where his author bio reads: “Cultural critic, political analyst, man of wit, and bon vivant.” “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he told the authors of this story when asked for comment.

Alexeyeva herself was not a member of any pro-Kremlin youth movements (at least the authors of this investigation were unable to find any records of her membership). However, the website of her alma mater, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), mentions a poem she wrote to celebrate the “reunification of Crimea with Russia.” Additionally, on Potupchik’s birthday in 2019, Alexeyeva showed up in a t-shirt with Vladimir Putin’s face on the front.

In an article for Moskvichka about her favorite “places in the capital and its outskirts,” Alexeyeva wrote: “On the veranda of Kristina Potupchik’s office, where I work, […] Vadim Veterkov whips up a delightful Aperol spritz at lunch time and an excellent Bloody Mary for dinner. And in general, we get no shortage of guests […] from governors to socialites.”

However, according to a former Russian fashion and lifestyle magazine editor, assembling a team of stylists and photographers willing to work for Potupchik’s new magazine was no Aperol spritz: “They invited people from abroad [who left Russia after the start of the full-scale war], and when these people said they were afraid to return to Russia, they were told, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll guarantee your complete safety, we’ll arrange everything,’” the person said. As for salaries, according to the source, the potential employees were told: “Just name your price.”

An acquaintance of Alexeyeva confirmed that the magazine’s creators had difficulty finding employees; according to this person, many people declined because they didn’t want to be involved in “that Kremlin fuckery.” Alexeyeva herself insisted to this story’s authors that they had “no issues finding employees.”

The magazine’s masthead includes, among other names, Viktoria Davydov, the former editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Vogue; Albert Galeyev, the former editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Tatler; Andrey Karagodin, a former member of Russia’s now-banned National Bolshevik party; and Eduard Limonov, who previously worked at the Russian editions of GQ and Glamour and studied under Eurasianist philosopher Alexander Dugin.

‘I was born near Odesa, but my country is Russia’

The editor’s letter by Darina Alexeyeva in Moskvichka’s first issue reads as follows:

In the pages of Moskvichka, Moscow men wear jackets made by Russian designers, while Moscow women adorned with Siberian gemstones saunter through the Cosmoscow art fair, Suzdal, and the restaurants at Patriarch Ponds. All of these jackets, jewelry, wines, beauty salons, cars, restaurants, and hotels had to be made, opened, designed, built, sewed, or organized by somebody. These people were not intimidated by sanctions or global cancel culture; they chose Russia, deciding to stay and contribute to their country’s development. The glitter of lights in Moscow’s restaurants, the displays of the city’s boutiques, and the jewels on wrists are the brilliance of precisely these people.

The magazine’s first issue has three different covers. One of them shows Ksenia Shipilova, a former member of Molodaya Gvardiya who now owns a Moscow beauty salon. “I was born near Odesa, and my mom is Bulgarian. But I always say my country is Russia,” the magazine quotes her as saying.

The second cover shows Snezhanna Georgieva, the owner of the Crimean winery Zolotaya Balka. On the third cover is Sati Spivakova, a TV host whose husband, conductor and violinist Vladimir Spivakov, supported the annexation of Crimea in 2014 but signed a statement calling for an end to the war in Ukraine in 2022. According to producer Yana Rudkovskaya, who attended the new magazine’s release party, Spivakova was photographed for Moskvichka in Paris.

The magazine’s Culture section includes an interview with Elizaveta Likhacheva, the new director of the Pushkin museum. Likhacheva, a former participant in the Walking Together pro-Kremlin movement, replaced the museum’s former director, Marina Loshak, in the spring of this year after Loshak left abruptly following the dismissal of Tretyakov Gallery Director Zelfira Tregulova.

Meanwhile, in the issue’s Travel section, writers weigh the pros and cons of two resorts: the Maldives and the Seychelles. In the article, Victoria Shelyagova, whose husband, Oleg Shelyagov, owns a funeral business closely associated with billionaire and close Putin associate Arkady Rotenberg, laments the lack of “cool hotels” in the Seychelles, explaining that she and her husband “had to buy” their own apartment there. Elsewhere in the section, the writers praise Suzdal, a historic town in Russia’s Vladimir region, adding that it’s been on the “cutting edge of fashion” for 1,000 years.

The magazine has also found its first advertisers: the Moskvich automobile plant in Moscow; the company Bosco di Ciliegi, which belongs to the owner of Moscow’s GUM shopping center; and several beauty salons and jewelry stores.

It’s unclear how much it cost to produce the first issue of Moskvichka, which will be released every three months. “As far as I know, the cost of producing an issue is a trade secret in any publishing house,” said Alexeyeva. An editor from another Moscow magazine estimated the cost of Moskvichka’s first issue at around two million rubles ($21,700).

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