Time is Fleeting

We are now (2024) as distant in time from Russians' last serious demonstrations (2011-2012) against Kremlin autocracy as those demonstrations were from when Vladimir Putin took power (1999).

The first quarter of the twenty-first century has nearly passed us by and, for Russians, every day of it has been ruled over by Putin and his cronies – the KGB/GRU/FSB goon squad that took advantage of in the disorder of Russia’s lurch toward democracy to seize assets and, eventually, the levers of power.

The whirlwind they have sown darkens our daily news with bombings of Ukrainian children’s hospitals, imprisonment of journalists, dissidents, and pensioners , not to mention declining birth rates and standards of living. Over half a million of the country’s best and brightest have fled in fear for a better life abroad.

Amid all of this, a nation of people we love – nearly 150 million souls – has all but gone dark to the English-speaking world. Most all foreign correspondents have fled Russia, rightly fearful of becoming a Kremlin bargaining chip, used to pry free a Russian murderer or spy from a US or German prison. ^[1]

Which makes it all the more important for us to continue telling the stories of those living out their days in Russia, whether it is a story about how women find meaning in fishing, how a community reknits itself after a flood, how fearful emigres are returning, or how those who will not return from war are being commemorated – their loved ones surely wishing they had their boys back and not some street named in their honor.

It is worth noting here that the cost of capturing, translating, designing, publishing, and distributing these stories is not insignificant, and while we remain committed to keeping them coming, we are exploring if there are ways we can deliver our stories faster, more cost-efficiently, and more in line with our environmental values, all while maintaining the reading experience our subscribers love. But more on that later.

Meanwhile, we hold fast to our belief that the long arc of history inevitably bends toward justice. And we hope we all live long enough to see a healthy taste of it.