The blog knows them – Newspaper Kommersant No. 30 (7475) dated 02/17/2023

On Thursday, Russia — the Land of Opportunities (RSV) held a presentation of the third season of the TopBLOG project. At the presentation, representatives of various structures associated with the Russian government actually explained what kind of content they would like to receive from bloggers: they should bring people knowledge, confidence in the future and help highlight the best in Russia.

Presentations of the new season of the TopBLOG project were held in the multiplatform space Youth of Moscow. For some reason, arriving bloggers and guests were greeted by a machine with a loud inscription: “Idea Generator”. However, the handles of the machine dangled freely, and an attempt to use them to generate anything could only lead to the fact that one of them would remain in the hands of the experimenter. This did not bother the bloggers who came – nevertheless, their product is more of a virtual character. RSV launched a blogging project in 2020. By the third season, the goals of the project remained roughly the same as at the beginning: in a press release for the event, it was stated that the new season of the project was intended to form an “environmentally friendly blogosphere in Russia”.

What is meant by this, the main guests of the event explained. With this, the general director of the RSV, and more recently the rector of the RANEPA, Alexei Komissarov, actually began. He himself was actually introduced as a blogger, mentioning that his personal Telegram channel has more than 6 thousand subscribers. “My channel is live. I really write what I think,” Mr. Komissarov simply stated, but immediately added that one should always “think about how your posts and channels bring maximum benefit to those who see, listen, read them” and help carry knowledge.

Among the partners of the competition this year, among others, are the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the All-Russian People’s Front, ANO National Priorities and ANO Dialog. It is assumed that following the results of the competition, the bloggers participating in it will be able to work with these organizations and departments. For example, Sofya Malyavina, director general of the National Priorities ANO, promised that her organization would provide bloggers with “lots of opportunities” and invited them to “shine the best” in the country together. She also stated that her organization itself has a large number of subscribers and is ready to share the audience with the contestants. “Some areas of work are very technological and useful, but people don’t know about them yet, and in this regard, we really need blogging help so that as many Russians as possible can take advantage of these opportunities,” Ms. Malyavina added.

Andrey Tsepelev, Deputy General Director of ANO Dialog, noted that any politician in our time must be a blogger: “We agreed with the RSV that within the framework of the TopBLOG project we will develop a standard for a politician to work in social networks,” he said. The head of the executive committee of the ONF, Mikhail Kuznetsov, spoke to bloggers in a military T-shirt. “A people’s blogger is a person who is not indifferent to what is happening in our country, who supports it in difficult times, who is involved in the life of his region,” he explained. From the discussions that accompanied the presentation of the new season, it became clear that a real blogger should sow confidence in his subscribers and convince them that when they wake up tomorrow, “everything will be wonderful.”

As living examples of correct and convincing blogging, the participants were presented with pranksters Vovan and Lexus, who became famous for calling foreign politicians, whom they managed to call to unpleasant revelations.

Most RSV projects are supervised in one way or another by the presidential administration. The presentation of the project was attended by the head of the Presidential Department of Public Projects Sergei Novikov. He paid a lot of attention to the topic of audience coverage. According to polls, 80% of people say they read bloggers – half for entertainment and half for information, a presidential administration official shared. “Everything with a coverage of more than a million is already politics,” Mr. Novikov either motivated or warned the project participants. At the exit of all the participants of the presentation, the general producer of the Russian Fashion TV (also a partner of the project) Maria Ost caught and, in fact, demonstrated by personal example what a positive agenda is and how to convey it to others. “You are simply the top fashion business style,” she told Mr. Novikov.

Andrey Vinokurov