"Well, the audience is sorry"

Bookmate leaders Alexei Dokuchaev and Andrei Baev released Quir-Bestseller “Summer in the Pioneer Tip”-and were declared “foreign agents”. We talked with them

The Ministry of Justice of Russia on October 28 suddenly announced the Bookmate Book Service (registered in Ireland), as well as Andrei Baeva and Alexei Dokuchaev, by foreign agents. Baev is the director of Bookmate, and Dokuchaev leads the PopCorn Books publishing house, which belonged to Bookmate before the summer of 2022. It was it that released one of the most successful and discussed books of recent times - “Summer in the Pioneer Tie”, where the pioneer falls in love with the counselor. The book was predictably collapsed with criticism by Nikita Mikhalkov and Zakhar Prilepin. Galina Yuzefovich talked with the new (rather unusual) “foreign agents” about their new status - about how he can be connected with a “pioneer tie”. Baev answered questions in writing.

Andrei Baev now leads the “large” BookMate (while his Russian service in the summer of 2022 was bought by Yandex). Dokuchaev is still a general director of two small but popular publishers Popcorn Books and Individuum (both used to belong to Bookmate, but the same summer sold them to the founder of the St. Petersburg bookstore Denis Kotov, related to the EXMO Publishing House).

- Bookmate was the first Russian book project - the “Ino -Agent”. Do you have a hypothesis that is behind this event? Why are you? Why now?

Alexey Dokuchaev: There is a hypothesis. I think all this is somehow connected with the scandal around the "summer in a pioneer tie." Why Bookmate, to be honest, I don’t really imagine: Bookmate is an Irish company , and never hid it. Russia was only one of the markets in which we worked.

As for me and Andrei [Baev, the director of Bookmate], then, on the one hand, we did not particularly publicly shine and mainly engaged in business and artistic leadership. But on the other hand, it is clear that it is still our projects - that’s what we were recognized as [“foreign agents”] for the company.

- It seems that they simply vaguely imagined your organizational structure.

Dokuchaev: Yes, judging by what some patriotic media write, they looked into the register of [legal entities-“foreign agents”], looked at Facebook with Andrei [and declared us “foreign agents”]. In general, they made a large, with permission to say, investigative work.

- This summer, Bookmate sold Yandex the right to use the Bookmate technological platform in the CIS. What does it mean? What exactly did Yandex receive?

Dokuchaev: Firstly, of course, Yandex received the application itself, its technological filling and the entire body kit. Secondly, a subscriber base-I don’t know how valuable it is for them, because, of course, Yandex has the opportunity to significantly increase it, but nevertheless. And finally, thirdly, they acquired copyrights for all our original products .

What will Yandex do with all this? I will not undertake to say, but I think that they will have it a slightly different business - not the way we had.

-The Russian market audiobook, one of the pioneers of which was Bookmate, [still] growing very quickly, new strong players come to it-the Line MTS service has started, Gazprom Media also cooks something like that. In a word, everyone comes, and you stopped working in Russia as an audio service. Why so?

Andrey Baev: Since the beginning of March, Bookmate has gone through a difficult period. After disconnecting payments on cards, the service, in fact, lost all subscribers in Russia. At the same time, financing from Ireland, a “unfriendly” country , became impossible: banks also stopped working with Russia.

In this situation, we tried to find a strategic partner who could save and develop the service further. We are sure that Yandex in this situation is the best possible choice. Yes, the audiobook market is a growing segment in Russia and other countries, we saw and see enormous potential in new Russian authors. But alas, the disclosure of this potential in the current conditions seems to be an arch -wording task.

- What will Bookmate himself do, and not his Russian branch [sold to Yandex]?

Dokuchaev: Now we will focus on our foreign projects. In fact, we have been doing this for many years: Russia has never been the main market for Bookmate, first of all we worked and work in the Balkans, in Latin America, in Europe. There we continue to sell books by subscription, in all countries we produce original content.

Russia was largely a launching pad, an experienced landfill for some formats that we later introduced in other countries. In Russia, at some point, we launched Bookmate Journal , which was wonderful successful, and in different types we use this experience now in other markets. Somewhere this is also a full-fledged magazine, somewhere we make a tricky text newsletter. Well, in fact, we will all develop this, and also plan to enter new markets.

-And there you work with local authors, with local languages-or is it still related to Russian-speaking content?

Dokuchaev: No, no, it has nothing to do with the Russian language and Russian-speaking authors. We work in local languages, we have local offices, we work with local authors and contractors. We do not have full -fledged publishers anywhere - as it was in Russia with Popcorn Books and Individuum [until they sell them in July 2022, Denis Kotov ]; We do not yet understand whether we need it. But at the same time, the production of original content is quite large for us-for example, in Serbia, at some point, we became the first manufacturer of legal audiobooks.

- Why did you sell Popcorn Books and Individuum Russian Holding Eksmo? Have you decided to get rid of a problem asset ?

Dokuchaev: Well, this problem asset has since brought to the new owner a lot of money on the wonderful PR, which we were provided with the so -called champions of morality. We are always accused of the fact that we paid a lot for him [this PR], and we never paid a dime - they [propagandists] did well well. And in this PR, of course, we sold an incredible number of books. Recently, the second part of the “summer in a pioneer tie” was released.

- So why did you still decide to sell the publishers?

Baev: Both publishers felt great before sale and brought a stable profit. So when we received an offer from Denis Kotov ( the official buyer Popcorn Books and Individuum-approx. Medusa ), we decided, first of all, based on business interests. We were arranged by the price and development strategy of the company that the buyer proposed.

-Do you think the new owner of Popcorn Books will preserve the Quirry Tematics of the publisher?

Dokuchaev: Well, so far saves. In fact, I continue to lead both publishers, and so far the new owner in no way in what we do with content is not climbing. So, for example, the second part of the LVPG [“Summer in the Pioneer Tie”] came out after the transaction.

It is clear that everyone is closely monitoring the attempt to adopt antiga law - let's see how this will end. That is, that he will be accepted, it is already clear, but what to do with it and who will determine what books can be determined and which cannot be, no one understands. But so far we have worked and work.

- What do you think, how significant will the damage to the book sphere in general will be from this law?

Dokuchaev: It seems to me that the antigen law is actually only part of a large common problem. From the beginning of the war - after the media was cleaned - [the Russian authorities] guessed that it was now possible to clean the book sphere. There are pressure, and publishers, especially small ones, which all wonderful well done, survived the pandemic, learned to trade digital content, became excellent businesses - they will definitely not withstand this load.

I think that the damage from the aggregate pressure will be very large - and from the antigerian law as well. A huge amount of translated literature will leave, although after the Frankfurt Book Fair it became clear that, in general, almost all foreign publishers are again ready to work with Russia.

- This is really the great news.

Dokuchaev: Yes, but now [after the adoption of the Law on the ban on LGBT Propaganda], I think we will lose them again, because-and what's the point? So the damage will be both straight and indirect. Well, the audience is sorry.

- You are the first book "foreign agents." What do you think will “foreign agents” appear in this area in the future?

Dokuchaev: I really hope not. We are such a demonstrative case, we are already neatly, who will hide in all these [propaganda] media for a year like all these cute people like [the writer, the ultra -conservative policy of Zakhar] Prilepin and [director, the ultra -conservative public figure Nikita] Mikhalkov, but no one else is touched yet. And it is clear that this is due to our circulations . And given that we had a foreign company in co -owners, they composed such as it seems to them, a transparent and harmonious theory at our account. I hope that this will not happen to anyone else.

- And how will the “in agent” affect your directly professional life? Here you are (Yuzefovich addresses Dokuchaev, - approx. Medusa) , for example, a “foreign agent”, which leads two publishers - what will you do personally?

Dokuchaev: Honestly, I have not yet fully figured out this - everything is too fresh so far. But, as I understand it, the “in agent” should not be influenced by my work-there is some more complex financial statements, but there seems to not exist direct prohibitions on what I did before. So I will continue in the same spirit.

- And with BookMate as a company what will happen?

Dokuchaev: Well, given that the Irish Bookmate was recognized as the “ino -agent”, I think that he is deep ... Okay, let's express it carefully: it will not particularly affect it.

Galina Yuzefovich talked