Real connection with the reader, and i think that this sort of the Creative Exchange between you and you can feel that theres a real creative roes is going on. You feel it, too. Of course. So you feel like youre a part of it. I want to ask elia. We will go to the questions from the audience in a moment, but i want to ask you a question thats something that a lot of people here think about a lot and thats the question about how do we counter russian propaganda and its something that people have been thinking about now for a couple of years and there are thoughts about how do we organize it and i think sometimes people think of medusa as being a force that counteracts the propaganda, the kremlin propaganda. So what are your thoughts on that . We have the syncronizations a lot and it is in europe right now because every russians in European Countries watch television and its an event and its a problem, but i think the propaganda issue is a bad issue and and its bad from the government and this caused pr propagan propaganda, and you can do p. R. If you are a journalist you can make a p. R. Its a main enemy for journalist p. R. Actually, i think it is a bad conversation at all, but if we are thinking about it, and how to make this counter propaganda. Okay. And then we have huge problems. First of all, and we reach an audience and so if you make the propaganda, you need to make it television and you make the television and you need to be better than russian tv channels so you need to have at least so much money and we have russian tv channels and this is really huge money so the russian government really cares about television, and i love things that any other government can pay tv anchors and tv producers so much money as the russian state base and this is a part of russian state. And this is the first problem and the second problem is the russian oaudience, and the russian tv shows about gangsters and love and something and what happens in their life and it was made in russia and this is why it was interesting about russians, played by russians and as they see theyre watching movies and tv shows about themselves and this is why theyre watching this tv and only the second reason why theyre watching this tv is the news so you can just watch the news and you can make it and you asked from a year from now they accept russia. And many of russian tv shows, but still. So the thought is how this was okay. For example, you give this money and you give these people and we will make this television for us and it understands a russian audience and you have russian heroes on these tv channels and i dont know where you will get because theyre in russia, too, so you make this great tv channel where expensive, fantastic, great picture like channel 1 or channel 2. So heres the question how you will reach the audience . So, okay, you can read the audience on Brighton Beach and berlin. You can reach an audience in latv latvia, and i think thats really good because this audience needs a russian tv channel. For example, im from latvia right now and there is a big problem with information for latvian citizens or noncitizens and this is the status for russian language people in latvia, but they watch television and they dont have an option to watch any other television. Russian people are bad in Foreign Languages. Everybody know that. Theyre really bad. I dont know why, but thats not the reason not to talk with them in their own language. If you want to reach it you need to do it. So yeah, you can make it for some jasper in europe or in israel or in u. S. , but you cant reach a russian audience in russia. You need to be one of the button on your remote and this buttons are not available for anybody in europe. So there are so much progress and i dont know how to make it is the long answer. Yeah, i will have a quick. The propaganda is a lie. Its a fake. Its something that never happens and something that never meant to be. So the only way you can do real counter propaganda is to tell facts and not opinions as elia said. So we have a former called fact check and sometimes politics talk like putin had an open line with the russians and we put a lot of notes and we proved all that he said and we did a fact check like you do in all media and america and we just put it like a feature and we always do this with the word. We just try to stay we just try to tell you facts. Was it or it was not happen . So i think there is our only way to to to deal with it. Absolutely. And the important point also is that, you know, this truthful information needs to come in a form that it competes and is basically competes with entertainment formats so people need to be entertained and thats what you guys are doing. Lets go to audience questions and we have microphones who okay. Please. Right here in the front. Okay. Thats fine. Thats fine. Well come to you. Hi. Yevgen. Thank you for a very interesting presentation. How do medusa or journalists have trouble covering russia, because i know you recently went to gros nia and chechnya and did an interesting piece. Has that gotten harder and whats the process of covering on the ground reporting from russia . Thank you. We have three special correspondents in russia right now and i can say they have some problems with it because the main problems for Russian Media is there are different situations in different countries. For example, with your journalist in russia and it is a big problem for journalist. If you are a journalist in russia you have a problem about the media or the owner of the media and there are different ways to deal with media by state authorities. So the main russian way is to deal through an editor, through owners for editor in chief. If youre a journalist you can make your work, except a couple of things. So if you make it about chechnya. Its a huge possibility that youll get huge problems until your death, and there is not so much, so, so dangerous themes in russia. I think if you write something about putins family or putins wealth, yeah. I think chechnya is the main dangerous thing. Our journalists didnt have right now problems in chechnya. You know journalists which had two weeks ago huge problems and he was beaten and their cars were destroyed so they had problems and yeah, it can happens. But our special reporters recover some issues in moscow and they go to the former soviet Union Countries and, yeah, they do their work. There is two thing, a bravery thing and you need it when you go to chechnya or Something Like that, somewhere dangerous and the second thing is information. In russia, officials and people, they dont use to talk to the journalists. They dont like it. You dont have statistics or adoption waiting or you dont have statistic and officials, they can just refuse your interests and refuse your questions and they say oh, i dont want to talk to you and the people dont use it. The people likes to go to tv shows when youre going to be popular or something and they dont like to tell their stories, because they dont know what will go out of it. Maybe their neighbors would look at them strange or something and there is two things. If you are brave or you dont need it and there is the theme when you dont need a lot of officials cooperation and you can make people talk to you, that it will be okay, but there is a lot of things you can do. Because nobody talks. And there is a great example. I think it was a month ago and it was a very good russian newspaper and there was some sentence and it goes like the source who wanted to remain anonymously, declined to answer, and this is how Russian Media works. You have people who they want to be anonymous and and they dont talk even anonymous. Its crazy about how it works in russia. Its great. Okay. Lets go to the front right here. Thank you. Im with bloomberg. You spoke about wanting to make your service bulletproof. Weve heard a lot in this country about the chinese great fire wall against the internet and with regard to putins russia, the impression is that as long as 80 , 90 of the people watch television sorry. He couldnt care less what foreign correspondents write and he couldnt care less about the handful of people and 4 million being a handful of russian terms and watching what you say. So, will you explain what obstacles may exist for dissemination in the manner that you use via the internet and so on. Most of the people have it, and i dont know the exact numbers and the russian statistics is awful. So the internet right now is huge. The internet right now is an interesting situation and russian internet. So we had one of the freest internets of the world and now we are in transition from the Free Internet to the regulated internet by the state, very regulated. This is a unique transition. I dont know if we had another country in such situation because we had Free Internet five years ago and now we have laws against internet and their authority have easy options to block any setting on the internet, but the internet is huge and it grows fast, and the big Russian Media, the biggest Russian Media right now is albaca and this is a good internet and its 20 million people. Its a big audience and if you want something to change you actually dont need the majority. You dont need an extremely big mass of people to change something and then im sorry. And then and i want to just to be to talk about the blocking problem and this is a problem and we can be blocked any time and they dont need to call a decision to block us. They can do it by click, but we have many plan bs for it. We had some precedent and it was actually a month before and the authority blocked the tracker in russia and it was huge. Tens and millions of people visited day by day because they get the content by it and the audience after the national blocking drops for 10 . So its a good precedent for us because the people now knows how to unblock a blocked site. This is why we dont have a chinese wall. Chinese wall is serious. The russian block is much more easier mechanism. They we think that theyre trying to build a chinese wall right now and we see some signs and they talk with chinese where make something documents with them and they bank some stufr, but im not sure that russians can just build it. You need to to have much more estate to have such thing. Maybe they build it. I dont know, but we havent yet. If there will be a wall there will be quite another situation. Where do you get your money from . Who are your main competitors . And where do you get your sources . Do you have a network of journalists . Do you use agencies . We dont talk about money. Sorry. Its very dangerous stuff for us to talk about money because as i said the mean options to deal with media from the state. So the money is the most dangerous part of the media and we try to be 100 transparent, but in this situation its impossible. Second question about where we get news and we have the we build some which are working for select and were monitoring twitter, for example and we are seeing which tweets by agencies and the media are more popular than we just see it so we have some just from internet and this. We are not a news agency and we are not a newspaper and it is for us to get our own news and we adjusted filters and were trying to give the people of the day and provide it to the audience and the last question our competitors . Yeah. And they are sometimes endorsed. They are sometimes [ indiscernible prep [ but we have the capital of russia. If were talking about monetization and the media market and the media which were not thinking about, but we dont think about the editorial and if we are talking about money and so there are competitor, too, with everybody. [ speaking Foreign Language ] okay. Right there in the middle. Hi. My name is yuri. I am one of the editors of our website rafabola. I want to know about the challenges running independent media in russia. I appreciate your work really. Thank you. But i have one question. Earlier this month they freed russia and it was a unique event which bathered and the Russian Media and bbc and the voice of america and many others and there were participants like scholars and politicians and from the Cato Institute from the carnegie. Yes, yes. And i was extremely surprised that the russian mainstream liberal media ignored this like tv reign and medusa. I can guess the explanation for im sorry, if you could ask the question. Why we ignore this event is this your question . Yes. Because its really boring. Some people who knows each other for tens of years and everybody will say about free russia. Well say it one more time. Okay. Why we need to hear it one more time . It is not interesting at all and thats why what i said. You can say one thing for tens of year and you say it and say it and say it, okay, we know that you think so. Thank you gary. Thank you its just not interesting. Sorry. Okay. That was interesting, but not in such way. Okay. Okay. Hi, retired International Health care worker and first to compliment you on your visual and you have the principle of kiss, keep it simple, stupid so thank you for that. I believe oligarch left to london and tried to reach back into russia with internet and so on, but isnt internet very much limited that only 20 say the city populations have any access to internet . Does that limit you that much . To have the big cities access to internet . Yes, of course. And i dont know the exact numbers to reach internet in russia, but it is huge, and i know that the main social networks and we can prove this on these numbers and its tens of millions of audience each month and its 60 or 70 million and its not only rush abu i think 90 of i think. I dont have exact number, but i think 90 of young citizens from big cities use internet and use the mobile internet, too and everybody uses it. Its fast and its easier to access and its cheap. So its over the question i asked if it was over 20 of the reach. Whats the of internet . I dont know about the reach, and i dont know the exact number and we can talk about different audience and if we talk about seniors and it is bad and it is not about technology education, first of all and my debt is 86 and he used face book because he has grandsons who can show you how to use it and it is interesting in his life, but im not sure that this is representative and if were talking about audiences under 40, so its total. Thank you. Any other okay. Right there. Ana dabinski, bbg. Nice to meet you again. What is your policy regarding trolling. No. When your site, when your platforms are trolled. What do you do about that . I dont know, but what trolling youre talking about . We have not comments. No trolling . We have not comments. Nobody can troll us. We have some trolls like russian tv channel which visit on a regular basis so i think they need to make it which is not far away. Just lock the doors. We just lock our doors and i think this is a real troll. So we are saw one report right now and some journalist came from moscow and the main part of his job wases to find our office and we saw it was important. We dont know why because we have an adjustment on our website, but here, try to find us anywhere and at the end of this report, he found us and if you just ring the bell and you fi finally open the door. So now we are waiting for the second report and it is not yet life. We train our quota editor to make the troll again. So i said some suspicious guys on the side work. Please lock the door and he locks the door. Yeah. We are based in sevenroom apartment and we are just this is our trolls. So i want to ask you, can you sort of give us a general comment on the state of journ journalism in russia or russian language journalism in russia because sometimes you hear people bemoaning that the russian journalists are dead and there is so much censorship and pressure and the best people are leaving and theyre going abroad. Think the russian journalist is still alive and actually, ink the russian journalist isnt in good shape right now. We have tons of great journalists which are which are good which make good report ing and not in a good situation and they can work and we have no problems with hire people and we have money problems, but if we want to the hire someone we have no such problem. There are tons of great journalists and there are not good editorials because i think this is a money problem, too, and the new media launched in russia and day by day. Every year we see five to seek new media and this is sometimes sometimes they are not very interesting, but sometimes theyre really cool and so theyre their last 20 years, they gave us a couple of schools and the schools are not in universities and theyre in the editorials and they give the media market the tons of good journalists and this is a problem because this media are changed or closed or something. We have right now the problems with schools inside the medias. So you are talking about this moment and everything and i can say it is bad. We have bad around us and we have we have people. We can hire and we have good people in the editorial and we have some competitors, but if were talking about the next five years, i dont know what happens next, but we dont know what happens tomorrow so maybe its not a problem. So im curious how medusa is published in russian and also english and you have audiences in the u. S. And probably other englishspeaking countries and how important is it for you and what are you trying to communicate to that audience . Our audience in the english website is much, much, much smaller. Actually, its pretty small, but its more like media and theres not as much people that are interested in what happens in russia or former ussr right now and only students from these buildings and such buildings around the world and normal readers say they will use the New York Times and what happens in the world right now and around them right now and if there is stuff in russia theyll read it there and were making this media for to explain the professional community would have in russia, first of all and to give the u. S. And uk media, first of all the options to republish the content because its just its just the thing that sometimes its cool and and its good for us and we will publish on the guardian and close it. So, yes, thats why. Okay. So i want to ask you this. What would you say is the biggest story out of russia that foreign media gets wrong and what is or maybe underestimates and what would be the biggest story, say coming out of the u. S. That the Russian Media, good Russian Media does not get or underreports . The Russian Media doesnt get it at all. Its not its not a question so russian news agenda is very isolated, as i said. So the main