By Cat Carroll
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has cracked down on news and free speech, blocking access to online social media websites and major foreign news outlets. The move has left the country’s independent outlets stripped of media licenses and forced to shut down.
Among the newsrooms forced to suspend operations is Novaya Gazeta, where journalist Elena Kostyuchenko spent years producing nuanced reporting on the people and systems that make up her homeland. Kostyuchenko went into exile in 2022, and has become part of a network of Russian journalists reporting from outside their home country. Novaya Gazeta has continued to cover Russian affairs on digital platforms from European countries. Kostyuchenko is currently a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Kostyuchenko’s October 2023 book, “I Love Russia,” puts together 15 years of her work in the field, bringing readers to places they have not been and uplifting the voices of everyday people. The book was written in Russian and translated to English by Bella Shayevich and Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse. We spoke with Kostyuchenko about her book, press freedom and the challenges of reporting from exile.
This article has been edited for clarity and brevity.
In “I Love Russia,” you explore lesser-known aspects of Russian society, highlighting voices affected by inequality and injustice. What do you hope readers, especially in the West, will learn about contemporary Russia from your book?
First, I want them to know Russia, to love Russia as much as I do. But I also want to pass my anxiety forward. In this book I’m describing how my country slowly descended into fascism. I believe it’s important to know, to learn the early signs of fascism, to be ready to protect the country and the people you love.
I also want readers to know it’s possible in your country, because here [in the U.S.], I see that people sometimes take things for granted. I basically want my readers to not be me, not to find themselves in my position.
Your book was written in Russian and translated to English. Have people in Russia been able to access a copy of the book in its original language? What do you hope people in Russia, and the Russian diaspora, take away from your book?
It was really difficult to publish my book in Russia. I approached the major publishing houses with my book, they read it and said they loved it, but that there was no way they were going to publish it because of current laws. Right now, my book violates approximately three articles of legislation, and the publishers didn’t want to go to jail.
But I got extremely lucky, because Meduza, the largest Russian independent media in exile, said they wanted to publish my book and open publishing houses for other books that cannot be published in Russia right now. So they published my book outside of Russia, but we also found a way to deliver it inside Russia digitally.
This was very important to me. I wanted my book to be read in Russian by Russians in Russia.
Throughout your career, you and your colleagues have faced various forms of state-sponsored pressure on press freedom in Russia, ranging from legal restrictions to physical threats. Can you describe how you navigate these challenges?
It’s difficult to explain, because this is a complicated system of censorship, depressions, oppressions and violence. It took time to figure it out. But at my newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, we were able to publish for 28 years. We owned our own newspaper, and because of this we were, in a way, invincible against the main way the state controlled the media before — through the owners. For example, some state official could make a call to the owner of a media company and say ‘You need to find that person,’ or ‘Don’t write about that,’ and the owners need to follow.
The state tried to interfere with us in other ways, though. We were under constant observation — they’d check our accounting department, our legal department, it was constant. We were completely cut off from any advertisement, so we were really poor, our budget was small. Our journalists also got killed, many of us were beaten, some of us had to leave the country — even before the invasion. It was a struggle, but we always had energy to keep going.
When the full-scale invasion started, I was sent into the field in Ukraine. In the second week of the invasion, the state applied a new law that criminalized our work. We decided to continue anyway. We couldn’t write ‘war,’ but we wanted people to know what we were talking about, so we had to invent a system of signs so readers knew what we meant. We removed words, changed sentences. The government didn’t like that much, and soon enough they took media licenses away.
Some journalists left Russia and established themselves in Europe, but we have teams who remain in Russia. They cannot call themselves journalists anymore because they don’t have licenses and they cannot publish the newspaper, but they still publish articles. We’ve found ways to deliver information to people — on YouTube, Telegram, using PDF versions. Really, you can’t plan your future if you are working in Russia right now. You have to take precautions, and there are still lots of questions.
American journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva were released from Russian detainment in August through a multinational prisoner exchange. But we know too many journalists still remain in Russian prisons. In light of this, what does the future of reporting on Russia look like — both for foreign and domestic journalists? How can the international community effectively support press freedom and protect journalists working on Russian issues?
It would be nice if, here [in the U.S.], people would read the stuff we write. I keep hearing ‘the majority of Russians voted for Putin,’ but this is based on data provided by the state, controlled by the state. It would be nice if people would be a bit more intentional about adding work by Russian journalists to their lives.
The main struggle we [Russian journalists] have right now is how we deliver information to our readers. We participate in this technological race against the state, and I believe we could have some help here. It’s in the interest of everybody for Russian people to have access to the true information.
For example, the use of VPNs is an ongoing problem, because they need to be used by people in Russia, but you shouldn’t put your credit card information in to pay for the VPN because of sanctions. It’s an ongoing collaboration between people who are in Russia and outside of Russia.
And please, don’t forget our journalists who are currently in prison.
Since leaving Russia, how has your approach to journalism shifted? What unique challenges and opportunities have you encountered while reporting on Russian affairs from exile?
I feel very lost because I’m a field reporter, and I have reported all my life on Russia, for Russians, in the Russian language. Now it’s impossible, and I cannot even access the Russian field anymore, I’m not there. Some of my colleagues have started to do ‘at-home journalism’ where you call people via Telegram and ask them to tell you what’s happening, but it’s a completely different approach and specialization.
For other people who do investigations, they are less confused with exile because they get to keep working using the same approaches. But they also have an issue with sources. When you are in the country, you are constantly finding sources, but now everybody just has the sources they had before. Security issues become a challenge and you are trying to protect people who have little knowledge about digital security. It’s also difficult to maintain relationships when you are outside of the country.
This is not the first time, or the only example, of journalists having to leave their country and work from outside. What history says is that many times exile media die out soon, because our reality becomes different from the reality of people there. We feel a lot of guilt and shame. No one felt like they could rest the first two years or that they have the right to rest now as our country continues to invade. It leads to burnout, or people become traumatized psychologically and can’t work anymore.
Other people have stepped into our shoes, and usually they are very young people who have never worked as journalists before, but who want stuff to be described. They work anonymously from Russia doing our work. This is what we are called to do.
As the war in Ukraine continues, how can reporters effectively illuminate its impact amid restricted access and state control of information?
Journalism always has a future when there are people who are curious to know what’s happening around them. We can continue our work only because we still have readers who are interested in it.
Journalism is a flame. Sometimes it’s super wide and super bright, almost like a wildfire. And sometimes it’s just a small candle and your goal is to bring it through a thunderstorm from Point A to Point B. Right now, we are in the latter situation, but people want to know what’s happening — that’s the main reason why we are still alive and still strong.
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