From exile in Riga, Michail and some colleagues started a new project. The site “New tab” publishes journalistic texts about life in Russian regions. Several articles deal with things that can be sensitive to write about in a Russian context, such as how Russians try in various ways to avoid being mobilized for the war. The site has a network of freelance journalists who still live in Russia and they do not sign the articles with their real names, as a security measure.
New tab’s site can still be read completely freely in Russia and is thus not blocked like many other Russian exile media sites. One explanation could be that the readership is still relatively small. According to Michail Danilovich, the readers are primarily found in larger cities and not in the countryside.
– But we see that we have readers and that there are more and more of them. Many people in Russian cities of millions are interested in what we write about.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine last year, freelance journalist Mikhail Danilovich lived in the city of Perm. There he participated in demonstrations in support of other journalists arrested by Russian authorities.
Martial Laws
– It happened that before demonstrations planned in Perm, the police came to my house and warned me to take what they called illegal actions. So I knew that I was on a kind of blacklist and that it could be dangerous to continue living in such circumstances under increasing repression, says Michail.
Shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion was a fact, the Russian Duma introduced martial law that basically made it impossible to work as an independent journalist in the country. Many Russian journalists therefore went into exile and an estimated 250 have taken refuge in Riga, which has become a kind of journalistic haven.