The New York Times has attributed Iran's sponsorship of the series "The Word of a Boy"

The American newspaper New York Times published a detailed analysis of "The Word of a Boy" and announced that the money for the production of the Russian series was allocated by the Iranian authorities. The author of the publication cited the publication "Meduza" as the source of information. In fact, the TV project was financed by the "Institute for Internet Development", and the error could have occurred due to the automatic translation of the abbreviation IRI.

NYT columnist Alexander Nazaryan describes "The Word of a Boy: Blood on the Asphalt" as a film about youth gangs (gruppirovki) of the last years of the Soviet Union. The author analyzes the semantics of the word patsan ("that's what gangsters call each other") and its opposite chushpan ("loser, dumbass, hard worker"). He also explains the popularity of the project in Russia - and Ukraine , where in winter the Ministry of Culture issued a recommendation not to watch this "hostile propaganda."

The creators of the series, the NYT columnist writes, wanted to show that since the events of "The Word of a Boy" positive changes have taken place in the country: "narrow apartments, battered Soviet cars, cold classrooms and exhausted members of the Marxist-Leninist avant-garde" are gone forever. In the same fragment of the text, the columnist claims that the project was financed by propaganda structures - the Russian presidential administration, the Dialogue NGO responsible for fakes about Ukraine, and Iran.

The NYT columnist made a mistake because he used Google Translate to translate the Meduza article, said activist and author of the Reception project Mikhail Pletnev.

In fact, Slovo Patsana was financed by the Internet Development Institute (IRI), which generously sponsors the production of “patriotic content” in Russia. The online translator transliterates the abbreviation mentioned by Meduza as IRI and translates it as Iran. At the same time, the NYT text also mentioned IRI CEO Alexei Goreslavsky alongside Iran.

A few hours after publication, the error in the text was corrected, and a note acknowledging the error appeared at the bottom of the article.

Meduza and Vazhnye Istorii were the first to report that the series “The Boy’s Word,” released on the Wink and START platforms, was used for propaganda purposes ahead of the March presidential elections. At the same time, Roskomnadzor was forced to respond to complaints about the project — and found no violations in the series.

To get the main news faster, subscribe to our telegram and twitter .