Closedspace for "political reasons"

The online publication Openspace is closing. This became known on Friday evening. “There were no signals, so this is a pure surprise,” Openspace editor-in-chief Maxim Kovalsky commented on the news in an interview with Colta . As Kovalsky told PublicPost, on his way to work on Friday, he received a message from the owner of the resource, Vadim Belyaev, in which he said that he would come to the editorial office for a personal conversation. Around noon, according to Kovalsky, the editors held a traditional planning meeting: “Belyaev arrived at half past seven. We sat down and talked for about an hour and a half. After that, we posted all the materials on the site, which we had in a high degree of readiness, and a stub, in which they said that - that's it."

Kovalsky did not name specific reasons for closing the resource, adding that he was still waiting for the official position of Openspace owner Vadim Belyaev to be announced. However, Kovalsky suggests that the reasons may be political: “I am inclined to the “Kremlin” version, because I have some experience of how publications close - they don’t close suddenly for economic reasons. What is important in Openspace is the combination of odious, let’s say, figures for the Kremlin. These people left Kommersant a year ago with a scandal and have already proven themselves to be unreliable.” According to Kovalsky, the editorial staff were also surprised by the sudden decision of the owner: “It is clear that everyone took it without joy. We have people who came quite recently. Polina Eremenko (until the end of December - PublicPost correspondent - editor's note), who Olga Tsipenyuk, whom I had been trying to persuade to move from Kommersant for a long time, walked purposefully towards me. I didn’t have very pleasant feelings. When I was hired, I was unemployed, and these people and others left their previous places, where everything was fine for them. , and now it's lost."

The editorial staff of the portal, which changed its concept in July 2012 (the publication about modern culture became socio-political), included former employees of the Kommersant publishing house - Maxim Kovalsky, Veronika Kutsillo, Dmitry Kamyshev and Oleg Kashin. At the end of 2011, Kovalsky was fired on the initiative of Alisher Usmanov from the post of editor-in-chief of the Kommersant-Vlast magazine, which he held for more than 10 years, for publishing a photograph of a newsletter with an obscene inscription addressed to Vladimir Putin.

“We were told that the reasons were economic, but we assume that they are not economic, but it’s clear what they are. The editorial office has been disbanded. Openspace is closed, WOS (Openspace Youth Project - editor’s note) is not,” Masha Zalivanskaya, managing editor of Openspace, told LookAtMe . The economic version is also rejected by startup manager Anton Nosik, who participated in the launch of online news publications Vesti.ru, Lenta.ru, Gazeta.ru and NEWSru.com: “Openspace is not the cheapest resource, judging by the team of authors, and when is such a project is launched, then a business plan is written - and not for three months, and with a control point of loss not “in 15 minutes.” The founders were not born yesterday and are not the poorest people in Russia. I do not rule out, of course, that Otkrytie’s (Vadim Belyaev is a co-owner of the Otkritie financial corporation - editor's note) the money could have suddenly run out, but then this would have been more significant news than the closure of Openspace. Most likely, I assume, they hinted to him what the ownership of such a resource could entail. political risks." However, Nosik is quite skeptical about the quality of the project: “For a long time I didn’t understand why they opened it, until Kovalsky said that they wanted to make a second Slon.ru (in an interview with Colta, Kovalsky mentioned that in statistics they were guided by Slon indicators - approx. . ed.) The latest edition contained a huge number of texts by authors who could be found on other resources, and Openspace failed to reveal them from a new, unexpected side. The resource is pleasant, nice, but we don’t need the second Slon, Slon is already there. There is".

However, unlike a narrow circle of journalists, bloggers do not believe in the political version, since they were not satisfied with the quality of the product: on average, only 2 to 5 texts were posted on the resource per day. Openspace visitor statistics are not publicly available.

The Openspace website is accessible, and when it is loaded, the “Dear Readers, as they say” window pops up. Former Openspace authors Arina Borodina and Oleg Kashin, as well as editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine Elizaveta Osetinskaya and the Ukrainian online version of Forbes Leonid Bershidsky also expressed their assumptions about the reasons for the closure of the portal.

Arina Borodina, Openspace correspondent : “ Veronica Kutsillo , Maxim Kovalsky , Dmitry Kamyshev - we will all be without work now for various reasons. This is not the first time for some. I sympathize with all of us and colleagues who do not have work yet. We will get through. Although I'm not very enthusiastic at all, guys, to be honest.

Everyone writes that they have closed and that they have run out of money. And it’s clear, probably, that it’s all at once.”

Oleg Kashin, Openspace correspondent : “Right now, at this minute - in chats, text messages, open threads, somewhere else - a consensus version of how things really are is being born. In the morning it will be finally formed. Rumor will decide that politics, - there will be politics. He will decide that there will be tyranny - we are waiting, we are worried.”

Photo: Maria Zalivanskaya

Elizaveta Osetinskaya, editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine : “ Vadim Belyaev , please explain to citizens why Openspace was closed? You didn’t close a store or a stall, but a socio-political project. So society wants to know why and what policies are to blame. No one forced you to hire Kovalsky? Or did they torture you with a soldering iron? You knew who he was, where he was from, what he had done before, and what he would probably do? ? (although I'm damn bad at it)))"

Leonid Bershidsky, editor-in-chief of the Forbes.ua website, editor-in-chief of Slon.ru in 2009-2011 : “The story of Kovalsky with Openspace is a story about a rake. Here is one of my old texts, there is a comment under it by Vadim Belyaev. You need him explained about Openspace? And he already explained with that comment .