Retro: Well that's it

How almost 15 years of Lenta.ru passed with Galina Timchenko

On March 12, the most popular socio-political online publication on the Runet, Lente.ru, changed its editor-in-chief. Instead of Galina Timchenko, who worked in the publication almost from the first day of its existence, came Alexei Goreslavsky, the former editor-in-chief of Vzglyad.ru and director of external communications of the united company Afisha-Rambler-SUP.

For the editors of the publication and many readers, March 12 was the last day of the existence of Lenta.ru in the form in which it had been known for the last 15 years. TJournal recalls how Galina Timchenko’s media was born, grew and developed.

Newspaper, Tape and Founding Father

In 1998, the Gleb Pavlovsky Foundation for Effective Politics decided to launch a daily online newspaper. At that time, the only place in RuNet where you could read news was the website of the RosBusinessConsulting agency: having opened a previously closed feed with quotes and business analytics at the height of the crisis, the agency attracted such an audience that it earned “six-figure sums of dollars a month” from advertising "

But Pavlovsky did not have the funds to launch the project, so he turned to YUKOS. Despite the crisis, money was found for a trial launch: as Ilya Ponomarev, who launched the Siberian Internet Company at YUKOS, recalls , “Khodorkovsky believed that the future of business and society lay in the Internet.” However, Anton Nosik, who became the editor-in-chief of Gazeta.ru, launched in December 1998, has a more prosaic explanation : for the oil company’s PR budget, investments in a network project were a drop in the ocean.

Be that as it may, the first online newspaper without a paper version appeared on the Runet. The launch of Gazeta.ru coincided with the crisis in the Balkans. Nosik recalled that “in the first few weeks of the Balkan campaign, the line between the news releases of ORT, RTR, NTV and TVC” was completely erased, presenting news in a one-sided manner. As a result, people who wanted to see the whole picture of events went to Gazeta.ru, and by the summer of 1999 the project’s regular audience already amounted to 150 thousand users.

Realizing the power of the created Internet media, YUKOS decided to take it away from the Effective Policy Foundation. They decided to reorient Gazeta.ru to a more serious audience; they invited the editor-in-chief of Kommersant-Vlast and other “big” journalists to join it. Nosik was also invited there, but it didn’t work out .

I had no experience working in an oil company, so I asked to be shown the inside. And one morning I flew to Nefteyugansk, from where I returned in complete horror: from the inside, YUKOS, more precisely, its non-extractive division, was a classic Soviet ministry, with intrigues and tricks. I told Pavlovsky that we had two options: part with the newspaper and me, or part with only the newspaper and do something else with me. Gleb thought for a moment. Anton Nosik

The editors of the “old” Gazeta.ru remained with FEP and, according to Nosik’s idea, started working on two online publications at once. One of them was the electronic newspaper Vesti. And on the second one he wanted to place a news feed, so they named it accordingly - “Lenta.ru”. Nosik recalled that the latter had simple and clear goals - to win the maximum audience in a short time, so that later on advertising it could become self-sustaining.

Lenta.ru was launched in August 1999 (you can still find old news on the site): the publication was made by nine people. By the end of September, the resource’s audience reached 150 thousand readers. As in the case of Gazeta.ru, sad events contributed to this: on September 8, a house was blown up in Moscow. Dima Werner, the author of “Anecdotes from Russia” - the most popular site on the RuNet at that time - hung a blank on the main page with a link to Lenta.ru.

It was a completely emotional decision. At that time, the bulk of visitors to anekdot.ru lived abroad and may not have known at all what was happening. And I wanted people to know. Dima Werner, creator of “Anecdotes from Russia”

In 2000, dramatic events continued to occur that ensured a sharp increase in interest in online media in general: the terrorist attack in the center of Moscow, Kursk, the fire at the Ostankino Tower. Only thanks to them, Nosik said, the monthly audience of Lenta.ru grew to 650 thousand people.

New chief

Formally, Galina Timchenko, one of the first employees of Lenta.ru, replaced Anton Nosik as editor-in-chief in 2004. In fact, she began to engage in operational management of the editorial office much earlier.

Anton Nosik and Galina Timchenko, 2012

Timchenko recalled that Nosik personally hired her, and did it in three minutes. She herself was then working at Kommersant and was looking for a part-time job in connection with the same crisis, and then an offer turned up for a project unknown to her before. Timchenko got involved, a year later she left Kommersant and worked at Lenta.ru for the next 14 and a half years.

By the time Nosik left, the structure of Lenta had grown significantly: to the first four headings (“In Russia”, “In the World”, “Internet” and “Economy”) were added “Mass Media”, “Progress”, “Sport”, “ From Life”, “About High” and “Cinema”, as well as the “Auto” and “Copper News” applications. Artemy Lebedev's studio, which drew the first design of the site, made a redesign in the summer of 2004, which - with changes and additions - will last almost nine years.

Under Timchenko, Lenta.ru continued to grow. In 2005, the publication began to actively develop a block of analytical and review articles - they are called “Comments” in Lente.ru. More precisely, they existed since 2001 on a separate subdomain VIP.lenta.ru, but in 2006 writing comments became mandatory for all editors.

In 2007, Lentapedia appeared, a project that scrupulously collected information about newsmakers - people and companies, with obligatory, as in Wikipedia, links to the sources of all information.

Since 2008, Lenta.ru began to conduct online text broadcasts - first of football, and then of other sports, Eurovision and other significant events.

Traditions, memes and Pipiskin

But Lenta.ru grew not only professionally: the publication began to develop its own traditions, often tied to interaction with readers. Thus, since 2004, every April 1st, the editors have collected all April Fools' pranks in a single material. The first selection can only be found in the archives, but the second is still available on the website.

In the seventh year of its existence, Lenta.ru began to celebrate its own birthdays, and each time in a different way. First, they released a paper version of the publication, then held press conferences based on reader letters, and a year later they assembled a gallery of employees in the style of the animated series “South Park.”

In 2009, large-scale celebrations took place, called “Decade” - a report about the event even appeared on “ Snob ”. In addition to the solemn and fun offline ceremony (invitations to it looked like this ), the editors launched a special version of the website - x.lenta.ru . With stories, history and a new section: “For Blondes”, “Boys”, “Big Smart” and so on. And the employees received ironic T-shirts as souvenirs.

News on Lenta.ru was never subscribed, but readers still knew the main editors by sight: in addition to the already mentioned South Park-style gallery, there were also simple photo galleries about the life of the editorial office. In addition, when columns began to be published on the site, special avatar portraits were drawn for their authors.

The only exception to the rule was Anna Vrazhina, the author of many witty and topical articles and columns. Vrazhina was quite sociable - she even had her own LiveJournal, but no one knew her personally. Initially, the avatars of the columnists were hand-drawn, and Vrazhina even had a face, but then, when Lenta.ru switched to “photographic” images for authors, this girl was the only one shot from the back. And after 2012 it completely disappeared.

Lenta.ru also had phenomena that became memes throughout the Runet. For example, in 2006, the publication wrote news about a general crisis of confidence in Estonia, which was discovered by a local priest. All for the sake of a comical combination of the surnames of the archbishop and the author of his photograph (as a result, the publication followed the priest until 2013).

In 2007, the night editor of Lenta.ru Fyodor Ponomarev became a star in 30 seconds - exactly the same amount of time, according to his recollections, when the news appeared on the site, where the new Prime Minister of Russia Viktor Zubkov had “Pipiskin” as his last name. Noticing the mistake, the editor deleted the note, but it leaked to the feeds of Yandex.News and other news aggregators. The blogosphere drew attention to the incident, and as a result, “Pipiskin” received an article on “Lurkomorye ”, and Ponomarev lost his job.

Later, he published a detailed explanatory note in Big City, where he said that he was drafting a note and hastily inserted an absurd word because he did not remember the name of the newly appointed prime minister, but accidentally published the text on the website.

Speaking about the memes that Lenta.ru introduced into the lives of Russian Internet users, one cannot help but recall the publication’s behavior on social networks. It all started with Twitter @lentaruofficial, which Igor Belkin, one of the “veterans” of the publication, started for a New Year’s special project in December 2010. For fun, he began to comment on the news in the form in which the editors usually discuss them on ICQ.

This time, the “fuel” for the sharp increase in the popularity of the microblog, which was read only by close friends, again became tragic events: in January 2011, there was a terrorist attack in Domodedovo, and @lentaruofficial staged a live broadcast of what was happening. Subsequently, Lenta.ru’s Twitter continued to automatically switch between a mocking tone on ordinary days and animal seriousness in moments of disaster.

In August 2011, a page appeared on VKontakte, which by the end of the year picked up the mocking tone of the Lenta.ru microblog and was christened by subscribers “Lentach” - by analogy with “Dvach”, the name of the anonymous imageboard 2ch.

Lenta.ru’s style of behavior on social networks caused rejection among many and was the object of constant criticism and frustration from people of varying degrees of fame. But he was also an object of imitation for many media - however, most attempts to repeat “Lentach” failed.

Finish line

The heyday of Lentacha coincided with the most vibrant period in the history of Lenta.ru. In March 2011, journalist Ilya Azar joined the publication and became Lenta’s first special correspondent. A little more than six months later, in December, Azar will write a report on stuffing in the State Duma elections, which will become one of the most read materials in the entire history of the publication.

With the arrival of Azar, a department of special correspondents appeared at Lenta.ru. Its composition changed and expanded in subsequent years, the department got its own head and editor, but the first special correspondent continued to work in the publication until the last. When Galina Timchenko was fired, it turned out that the owner of the merged company Rambler-Afisha-SUP, Alexander Mamut, demanded the dismissal of Ilya Azar personally - and after that, the entire department of special correspondents simultaneously wrote letters of resignation.

Another independent unit within Lenta.ru was the video project Lenta.doc. He began as a project about the protest wave and was called “Srok”, but in January 2013 he joined the online publication and began making video sketches for it on a variety of topics: from rallies and riots to swimming in an ice hole and stories about orphans. Lenta.doc filmed a story about one day in the life of the Lenta.ru editorial staff - the day when the site was relaunched - but it was intended exclusively for internal consumption. On March 13, this story was published on the official Sroka channel.

The relaunch, which occurred in January 2013, became one of the key events in the history of Lenta.ru. The design, which has not been updated since 2004, has been completely replaced by a new one. The structure of the site was changed to accommodate it, merging many sections into larger blocks. The changes caused a mixed reaction: many bloggers, including very eminent ones, expressed their dissatisfaction and threatened to stop reading Lenta.ru. But, as statistics showed, the publication very quickly restored the level of attendance that it had before the relaunch.

In preparation for the relaunch, Lenta.ru has significantly strengthened its photo service. As a result, on March 5, 2013, experts from the Society for News Design organization named the design of Lenta.ru one of the best in the world for news sites. Separately, they noted the high-quality work with photographs in the publication.

After the restart, Lenta.ru began its first serious conflicts with government agencies. If before this the complaints mainly concerned comments from readers, now attention has been paid to the content of the materials. In July 2013, Roskomnadzor forced the publication to remove three materials containing obscene language - its use in the media was banned shortly before. The department was not even embarrassed by the fact that these articles (including an interview with a doctor of philological sciences about the origin of Russian swearing) were published before the prohibition law came into force.

In the second half of 2013, Lenta.ru became involved in another epic: photographer Denis Sinyakov, who was filming on behalf of the editors on board the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise, was detained along with other crew members and accused of piracy. Timchenko publicly stood up for Sinyakov, and Lenta.ru, along with a number of other online publications, staged a protest against the photographer’s detention in September, covering the photographs on the site with stubs for the day.

Sinyakov was released on bail two months later and given an amnesty just before the new year.

On March 12, the third and most serious case of conflict with Roskomnadzor occurred: the agency issued a warning to Lenta.ru because one of its interviews contained a reference to material about the views of Dmitry Yarosh, the leader of the nationalist Ukrainian movement Right Sector. According to the law, two warnings within 12 months provide grounds for filing a lawsuit demanding that a publication be deprived of its media status.

But it was not Roskomnadzor that destroyed Lenta.ru.

Glorious Hunt

In the spring of 2013, two holdings - Afisha-Rambler and SUP Media - merged into a single company, headed by Alexander Mamut. So the two oldest online publications on the Runet ended up in the same harness: Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru. At first, due to careless statements by the company’s new top managers, rumors arose that Afisha, Lenta and Gazeta would be merged into a single publication. Timchenko then denied all these rumors and promised not to leave the editorial office in the wrong hands.

There was no merger of publications. In September, Mamut replaced the editor-in-chief of Gazeta.ru, after which the publication gradually disappeared from the media environment, occasionally attracting attention with very serious errors in the presentation of materials.

“Lenta.ru” continued to grow and break its own (in the absence of others) records. In February 2014, the site was visited by 20 million unique users - and this does not take into account the special project about the Olympic Games in Sochi, which, of course, also attracted the attention of readers.

Despite this, Alexander Mamut fired Galina Timchenko on March 12 and replaced her with Alexei Goreslavsky, the former editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin publication Vzglyad, who was involved in relations with government agencies in the merged company. Mamut did not explain his decision, and Lenta.ru employees promptly issued an appeal to readers, in which they declared the incident a fact of censorship and pressure on the editors. Their letter will be read more than half a million times over the next 24 hours.

The next day, 39 people wrote letters of resignation from the company. In addition, Yulia Minder, the permanent general director of Lenta.ru, was fired.

As a farewell, the publication's employees took a collective selfie - for them, the almost 15-year history of Lenta.ru ends here, no matter what happens to the publication next.

TJournal contacted Anna Vrazhina, who left Lenta.ru long before the dismissal of Galina Timchenko, and found out her opinion about the former leader.

For me, Galya Timchenko is not just a former boss. She is a mentor, a friend, a role model. Sometimes I call her “my second mother” behind my back, and this is only partly a joke. I will go through fire and water for Galya. Galya, thank you for the school of life! And forgive the asshole for everything. Anna Vrazhina, columnist

Anna added that she continues to occasionally engage in journalism, but continues to consider Lenta.ru as her real home. More precisely, I counted until yesterday.

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