Translated material
When you try to describe 2020 by one
2020 in 10 words
When you try to describe 2020 in one word, one thing comes to mind: “Pandemia”. He was called the word of the year the most authoritative dictionaries. We decided to choose ten words-after all, it was a very busy year. And for some events, the pandemic was a catalyst, and for others it was only a background.
Pandemic
WHO announced the Pandemia of Koronavirus on March 11. And even then it was more or less clear that this event would be the main thing in 2020. “Pandemia” is the word “unprecedentedly difficult year” according to the dictionary Merriam-Webster. Interestingly, in the user vote, which arranged a dictionary, another word won: "unprecedented."
Too many felt a load of restrictive measures , a daily threat to catch the virus and for the first time in their life realized the horror of the exponential growth of the number of sick (the first million infected-in four months, the 51st-per day). But the fast development of effective vaccines became the same unprecedented - in six months instead of several years.
In Russia, Lokdown acted from March 30 to May 12. This was officially called the "universal regime of non -working days." All stores were closed (except for food, pharmacies and trading in essential goods), restaurants, educational and cultural institutions. Since then, officials have repeatedly repeated that they do not plan to resume Lokdown, although the incidence in Russia is above spring indicators. In other countries - for example, in Germany and Great Britain - people are sitting locked up again.
Learn more:
- On December 14, vaccination has started in the United States (Pfizer vaccine is used), the 15th-throughout Russia. This means that the most dangerous stage has come in the fight against coronavirus: during partial vaccination, the mechanisms of evolution begin to work for the survival of the virus, which means to reduce the effectiveness of vaccines. We examined possible scenarioshere .
- During the first wave, Russia was suspected of underestimating mortality from Covid-19. The official documents and stories of the doctors confirmed this. As everything was actually, we described here .
- Back in early March, the authorities realized that instead of popularizing national projects, they would have to urgently engage in the PR control of the coronavirus epidemic. We learned who composes poetry for the “ABC of Coronavirus”, fights with fakes about the epidemic and shoots rolleries about washing hands with soap, and also how much this can cost.
- Coronaprises scared the Russian business stronger than crises of 2014 and 2008. About how the pandemic affected the retail, public catering, aviation and banks, in the special issue on the channel "Russian norms!" They told Mikhail Kuchman from Hoff, Boris Dyakonov from the Bank "Point", restaurateur Aleksey Vasilchuk, co -owner of Vnukovo Airport Vitaliy Vantsev, as well as the co -founder of the delivery service "Kitchen in the area" Alexei Kolesnikov and economist Andrei Movchan.
- At the meeting of Vladimir Putin with business at the end of March, the president and not even the deputy prime minister Andrei Belousov, but the founder of the Anderson family cafe, Anastasia Tatulova, was not even among the president. Now Tatulova is a public ombudsman in the field of small and medium -sized businesses. In a large interview with The Bell, she told what she wants to achieve in this capacity.
Navalny cowards
- So, wait, this is important. Now, a second. Who transmitted the information that the gulfy part of the panties should be processed?
- I suppose. They said to work in panties, in the inside.
-Who said something? Makshakov?
- Yes.
- “Internal” ... I write ... “Inner seams of panties” ... Okay, then, in a gray panties? What the color of the panties, don't you remember?
- Well, it was blue.
The absurd circumstances of the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, revealed by Bellingcat and himself, are distracted by the essence: the opposition leader No. 1 in Russia accuses of organizing an attempt on his life of the country's president personally. This political thriller is unlikely to end well.
Find out more
- The poisoning of Alexei Navalny (according to the German government - “novice”) is an event that will determine the political situation in Russia for a long time. What options are possible, at our request, political scientist Kirill Rogov argues .
- Bellingcat evidence looks convincing, and there are obvious answers to the most popular questions to the investigation that he used at his press conference on Thursday and Vladimir Putin.
Zom
Zoom is a symbol of the Lokdown. At the beginning of the year, few knew about this service, and now this is a huge business that grows by hundreds of percent and costs more than $ 100 billion. But to cope with such explosive growth is a non -trivial task: Zoom is regularly shaken by security scandals. What will happen next with the company, whose animators have long been exceeded beyond the borders of the rational, is not quite obvious.
The popularity of Zoom is explained by ease of use (even registration is not required to connect to the conference) and affordable tariffs. At first there were no direct analogues-the Internet giants realized late. By the end of April, Google Meet was available only to corporate users. Then Facebook launched Messenger Rooms.
Find out more
- Zoom is one of the main beneficiaries of the pandemic. But as soon as the news appeared about creating effective vaccines against coronavirus, the service shares immediately began to fall. What are the chances of holding the won positions when its users stop sitting locked up, we appreciated here .
- Not all services for the organization of remote work were able to use the revealed capabilities. Take, for example, Slack, which was recently sold to Salesforce. On the one hand, $ 27.7 billion is a lot - more than Facebook paid for WhatsApp, and Microsoft for LinkedIn. On the other hand, it would not have been if Slack could continue to develop independently. What one of the most fashionable startups in the 2010s was not enough to crush Microsoft Teams and others, read here .
Khuke
The new Constitution allows Vladimir Putin to rule until 2036. Of course, he claims that he had not yet decided whether he would be elected again, but there was almost no doubt about this. If Putin remains for two more terms, he will spend at least 36 years in power.
Throughout the history of the Russian state, only two people ruled longer: Ivan III (43 years) and Ivan IV (37). Both lived in the 16th century. It is quite symbolic that the zero was furnished in the spirit of that distant era.
State Duma deputy Valentina Tereshkova proposed “honestly and publicly foresee or even remove restrictions on the number of presidential terms” - Putin gave himself to persuade. He emphasized that he was going to this only because "the country is experiencing such shocks and such difficulties." In the future, "society must have guarantees that a regular change in power will be ensured."
The rejuvenation was preceded by the resignation of the government of Dmitry Medvedev. The ex-head of the Federal Tax Service Mikhail Mishustin unexpectedly became the new prime minister.
Find out more
- The new Russian constitution is superpowial. It gives the head of state even more authority than he had before. The full list of amendments is collected here , but here we explained how they form a political system.
- Mikhail Mishustin likes the image of a cool professional, an effective technocrat who, over ten years of the Federal Tax Service, made the Russian tax service one of the most technically equipped and progressive in the world. But our interlocutors are in power and among the largest businessmen notes that Mishustin knows how to intrigue best.
- Dmitry Medvedev is a hero of one of the most striking investigations of the Corruption Fund. But even after his appointment, Mikhail Mishustin immediately after his appointment arose. What is wrong with his income, we dismantled here .
Delivery
The pandemic predictably spurred the development of online trade and delivery services, which in Russia did not miss the chance to prove themselves to the maximum. In demand, which had grown up several times, it wasnot always possible to cope, but new players appeared on the market all year, especially in the rapidly developing segment of the express production of products . By the share of E-commerce in retail, Russia approached the level of developed countries (11%); According to the results of the year, the turnover of this market may exceed last year’s indicator by almost 45% and reach 3 trillion rubles.
In the Royal Battle of Leadership in the Russian E-Commerce, Wildberries , Ozon, on top of the IPO, Yandex and Mail.ru Group, are fighting, and of course, Sberus will try to compete with them. The American E-commerce, meanwhile, gave record sales to the demonstrative Black Friday, and its share in retail in the first five months of the pandemic has increased by the same 5%as over the past five years.
Find out more
- It would be much harder to survive quarantine in Moscow and other cities if every day the army of the Curiates Delivery Club, Yandex.epers and other services did not go out onto the streets. Wefound out how their work has changed, as well as how online employers care about employees, whose work these days has become one of the most dangerous.
- The history of Wildberries, the leader of the Russian E-Commerce, and its founders Tatyana Bakalchuk-a ready-made plot for an epic production drama: an English teacher from the Moscow Region became the richest woman of the country (only Elena Baturina). But so far this story lacked important details. We excavated them.
- For much longer Wildberries is trying to build “Russian Amazon” Ozon. For more than 20 years, the company has been playing this game, but so far it has not been able to become the largest and remains unprofitable. In recent years, shareholders have been looking for new investors, met with Jeff Bezos and negotiated the sale of a share of Sberbank. But in the end, Ozon spent the largest Russian technological IPO in the United States for several years. What prospects have opened for the company, read here .
Negative oil
In 2020, the oil market plunged into chaos. The first collapse occurred in March, after the meeting of OPEC participants+. The chapter about it will definitely enter the world oil history, and not the last place in it will take the name of Igor Sechin.
At the meeting, Russia opposed the new limitations of production to maintain prices, and the cartel actually collapsed. Over the next week, oil prices have collapsed by almost 30%, in the area of $ 30 per barrel. Already in early April, after the short price war of Russia, Russia had to go to a “humiliating and heavy” world with Saudis, OPEC+ was revived, the cartel participants agreed on a record in their history reduction in prey. But the time was lost: the whole world was quarantine, the demand for oil collapsed, and the solutions of OPEC+ no longer played any role.
On April 20, the futures on the American WTI lost 300% in price and went to minus almost $ 40: this was not yet in the history of the oil market. The collapse was explained by the coincidence of the technical (the period of execution of the May futures expires on April 21) and fundamental reasons-due to crowded storage facilities, American oil simply had nowhere to store.
The negative price of oil was not long, but the fall was deep. The Russian Urals returned to the level of 1999 and until June remained lower than the cutting price in the budget. In December, oil returned to $ 50 for a barrel, but this year even forced to believe in the end of the oil kingdom. Kartel for the first timeadmitted that the demand for oil in the foreseeable future will pass its peak.
Find out more
- The Demarch of Russia at the OPEC+ meeting in March plunged the oil market in chaos. We learned what role the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin could play in this.
- “Divorce with a beating of dishes” - as OPEC+ Oleg Vyugin, who has been part of the Rosneft board for many years described the collapse of the OPEC+ transactions. Why Russia needed another shock at the moment when the world markets and so collapsed under the onslaught of the pandemic, we told here .
- Oil minus $ 40 per barrel: how did this even become possible? Here is an explanation .
- The end of the oil era, in which the Russian authorities simply refused to believe, it turns out, is not far off: we talked about the latest forecasts on this score in one of the emails .
Ecosystem
They started talking about digital ecosystems in 2019, but in 2020 there were so many conversations that the usual word was packed.
The two largest players in this market-Yandex and Sberbank tried to share joint projects all the first half of the year, and in June, the story finally ended with a loud divorce.
Then, Yandex, who lost his financial service “Yandex.Money”, almost bought a Tinkoff Bank, at the last moment with insults and mutual reproaches with its founder Oleg Tinkov.
In September, Sberbank suddenly announced a large-scale rebranding and changed his name to Sberes-to combine all his non-bank services and new products under one brand: voice assistants, smart speakers and TV settings.
But the bank’s problems in the story with Yandex did not end: now Sberblack has difficulties with the second partner - Mail.ru Group and the parties may even discuss the variation options.
The following year, Sber is preparing for us its own project in E-commerce and super-application, Mail.ru Group slowly translates all his services on VKontakte, and Yandex wants to remake the delivery market for itself. So, it seems, an interesting year awaits us.
Find out more
- What actually happened between Yandex and Oleg Tinkov? Here are official explanations, reproaches and sources.
- The E-Commerce market, which took off during the pandemic, has become the center of autumn events, and its participants are trying to capitalize the unique moment as quickly as possible. Ozon, the oldest player in the market who could not become a leader, holds an IPO, and Sberbank is looking for a new partner. We found out who can become them.
- Yandex has been working on an unmanned car for almost five years, Sberbank for about a year. Can he catch up with a competitor? We tell you what Russian developers have already achieved, in which they are inferior to American and Chinese, what tasks to solve and what is in the way.
"Live Belarus!"
A pure country with good milk and a patient population - something like this until 2020 looked for an outside observer. This summer everything has changed. 
Three independent candidates nominated for the elections that were supposed to end with the next Victory of Lukashenko: the People’s Blogger Tikhanovsky, the head of Belgazprombank Babariko and the head of the “Belarusian“ Skolkovo ”” Tsepkkalo. Not a single one was registered. Babariko and Tikhanovsky since then in a pre -trial detention center, Gloro left. Three women led the protest: the head of the headquarters of BabarikoMaria Kolesnikova , his wife Tskutkalo Veronika and the wife of Svetlana Tikhanovsky, who became a single candidate from opponents of the current government. According to the opposition, Tikhanovskaya won the elections with 95%. According to the official version, Lukashenko won with 80.1%.
Since then, power and people have been living in parallel universes: Belarusians fifth in a row, they have been leaving for mass protests and leave the country in thousands. Lukashenko conducts a secret inauguration, threatens a protesting automatic and publishes the conversation “Nick and T -shirt”. Europe and the USA do not recognize him with a legitimate president, Russia reluctantly gives another loan.
Find out more
- Among the first, the Belarusian protest was usually supported by apolitical founders of technological companies. Alexander Lukashenko was always proud of the Belarusian highlight. Why did he turn against the president? To understand this, we talked with the creators of the most successful IT companies with Belarusian roots in London and New York, protest leaders and economists. Their interviews were included in the special issue of the YouTube channel “Russian norms!”.
- When the regime of Alexander Lukashenko unexpectedly for himself gave a crack after the beginning of mass protests, Russia turned out to be his only salvation. Vladimir Putin, it would seem, received a chance to crush an unyielding partner on which Russia spent up to $ 120 billion for 25 years, but did not receive a single step in return for the real integration of the two countries. But even now, the Union State of Russia and Belarus, which has remained with a paper education with the budget of the Russian district center, has almost no chance of success for 20 years. Why - read here .
BLM
At the end of May, the USA (and then in other countries) began protests caused by the death of George Floyd. White policemen killed a black man while detained in Minneapolis. The core of the protests was the anti -radiral movement of Black Lives Matter (BLM). It appeared in the summer of 2013 (it all started with a hashtag on Twitter #blacklivesMatter), but now it is called the largest in American history. According to the estimates brought by The New York Times, from 15 to 26 million Americans participated at the peak in protests. BLM could not but become a factor in political life. Donald Trump accused the activists of violence and wrecking, and Joe Biden supported them and offered a plan to combat racism. Having defeated Trump, he chose African American Kamal Harris in vice-presidents.
Find out more
- The new president of the United States will soon become Democrat Joe Biden-a man who was considered a new hope of American politics in the early 1970s, and then survived a series of personal tragedies, two failure presidential campaigns, eight years of vice presidential in the shadow of Barack Obama and even several rounds of personal negotiations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Andrei Gromyko. Here is his story .
- Four years ago, Donald Trump promised to make the United States Great AGain, and now talks about Keep Great. What did he achieve? The results of the reign of one of the most ambiguous American presidentswere summed up for us by Oleg Itshoki, a professor of economics at the University of California at Los Angeles.
- In Russia, BLM values do not find a response for a wide audience. But this is only for now. Ксения Собчак и Регина Тодоренко — первые в истории нашего рекламного рынка инфлюэнсеры, примерно наказанные брендами за высказывания, которые не отвечают их ценностям. Логично, что контракты с Собчак и Тодоренко разорвали западные компании. Видимо, именно они будут воспитывать инфлюэнсеров в России. Мы разобрались , почему они сейчас этим озаботились и какие у них для этого есть инструменты.
Госизмена
Это слово имеет большое значение именно для нас. Журналисты в этом году и болели, и заказывали доставку всего на свете, и бесконечно зумились — но слово года у нас свое: госизмена. Наш коллега, а для половины редакции The Bell — знакомый и друг, бывший спецкор «Коммерсанта» и «Ведомостей» по ОПК Иван Сафронов в июле 2020 года стал первым за 20 лет журналистом, арестованным по этой статье. Столько же — до 20 лет — он может по этому обвинению отсидеть. Следствие и судебные слушания по делу ведутся максимально закрыто, а обвинение не разъяснено даже самому Сафронову. Но и документы, и действия следователей пока говорят о том, что дело Сафронова связано с его журналистской работой. Владимир Путин и Дмитрий Песков, отвечая на вопросы об этом, путаются и в деле, и в собственных показаниях — но каждый новый комментарий только добавляет пессимизма.