After a long break, the journal Novoe Vremya began to appear again. Issues 9-24 (this numbering is given in the imprint, including all unpublished issues) contains materials related to the main events in public life during the period of the magazine's forced absence from the public stage. Naturally, one of these events was the discussion about the crisis of liberalism, initiated by the letters of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

In St. Petersburg, one of the nationalist organizations claimed responsibility for the murder of a scientist, an expert on national minorities, Nikolai Girenko. On June 24, 2004, one of the Internet sites published the text of the execution "verdict" passed by Girenko by the "Russian Republic". The message explained that Girenko "carried out about two dozen examinations on the instructions of the punitive bodies of the illegal regime in the city of Moscow and St. side of foreigners" .