With independent journalism in Russia now virtually impossible, a group of exiled journalists has launched a Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA). The collection preserves the legacy of Russian journalism and underscores the current lack of freedom, but also functions as a valuable tool for research and education. Journalist and writer Svetlana Satchkova spoke with RIMA's founders about the project.
Frontpage of Novaya Gazeta, one of the media in RIMA's archives, in May 2022. Photo: ANP / EPA / Toms Kalnins
Over the past twenty-five years, independent Russian journalists have done a tremendous job documenting Putin’s rise to power, the wars he started, the staggering wealth amassed by his minions, and the brutal treatment of the weak and marginalized. Many journalists, like Anna Politkovskaya, have been killed; others have been jailed or forced into exile. Some, like Elena Kostyuchenko, have been poisoned and now live in hiding. The outlets they worked for are disappearing, either shut down by the state or pressured into closure. Their reporting risks being lost, as it’s unclear who will maintain the servers or safeguard the physical copies of the newspapers and magazines they made.
Fortunately, there is a project dedicated to preserving their work – the Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA). Conceived as a resource for researchers and anyone interested in modern Russian history, it collects materials published since 2000 by independent media and was founded by Anna Nemzer, a writer and journalist for TV Rain (also known as Dozhd, a Russian-language TV channel now based in Amsterdam), and Ilya Venyavkin, a historian, journalist, and educational producer. What started as simply a collection of articles is now evolving into something far greater. ‘At first, we built an archive, but now we want to be much more. We want to engage in activism—or at least help others do so,’ Nemzer said during a Zoom interview.
The idea for RIMA emerged in 2021, Nemzer explains. ‘My friends and I started discussing how little was being saved. Initially, we spoke about preserving the documentation of human rights organizations and court records. We realized that unless we did something, all of it could just vanish.’ The Russian state, of course, wasn’t interested in preserving the records of its crimes for posterity. It was, instead, actively persecuting everyone who was trying to document them, be it independent media, NGOs, or political activists. ‘We needed an archive—not a stuffy one, but something functional and accessible to anyone who wants to use it. But it was an abstract conversation at that point, much like the way we talked about the possibility of leaving Russia someday without taking any concrete steps.’
‘When my family and I arrived in Tbilisi, we discovered that nearly all of our friends had moved there too'
Then, on February 24, 2022, Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and on March 1, Rain was shut down in Russia. Nemzer was abroad at the time and never returned home. Venyavkin boarded a plane from Moscow to Tbilisi, Georgia, where he was surprised to find many of his friends. ‘Later, I thought about our departure’, he told me over coffee in a New York City café, ‘and realized it was a collective decision. The move happened synchronously, without any discussions. When my family and I arrived in Tbilisi, we discovered that nearly all of our friends had moved there too. This went beyond individual choices. Clearly, something in our shared experience, in our generation, made us act this way after the invasion. It became a trigger for all of us, pushing us to do what had seemed impossible until then.’
Having left everything behind and facing uncertain job prospects, they had to consider what to do next. Masha Gessen, the prominent American journalist and author, and a friend of both Nemzer and Venyavkin, was working at Bard College and PEN America at the time. Gessen proposed the idea of the archive to both organizations and secured funding from PEN America donors. Bard College provided work visas and stipends for Nemzer, Venyavkin, and Serob Khachatryan, the project’s third founder. By early 2023, all three of them arrived in New York City with their families.
Not 'just an archive'
In the two years since, they have built an archive that operates in both Russian and English, encompassing 131 media outlets and nearly 7.5 million documents. ‘We’re constantly adding new articles’, Nemzer says. ‘Unbelievably, some heroic journalists still continue to work in Russia.’ Several Russian-language platforms continue to operate from outside the country, such as Meduza, which is based in Riga, Latvia.
The homepage of the RIMA archive.
The bulk of the archive has already been established, and the founders are now focused on expanding it in new directions. ‘There is a revolution happening right now in the field of artificial intelligence’, Venyavkin says. ‘We realized that the millions of articles in our archive could be used to train large language models, enabling the creation of new types of products and communications.’ For example, their team has developed a prototype conversational chatbot, trained on the archive’s content, to facilitate discussions about contemporary Russian history.
Another tool they developed and are currently testing is a browser extension designed to identify propaganda in texts. Once installed, it analyzes webpages and highlights individual statements, categorizing them as either judgment-based or as claims that are presented as facts but are not true. ‘This is something I deeply care about and am heavily invested in’, Nemzer says.
‘Our goal is to create technological tools that civil society institutions can use’
All of this aligns with Nemzer and Venyavkin’s vision for RIMA to be more than just an archive. Their extensive collection of data offers a way to explore changes in Russian society over the past 30 years. Researchers, for example, can track the frequency of specific words in independent Russian media, analyze shifts in their context, or study how perceptions of Ukrainians in these outlets have evolved and how objectively the information was presented. RIMA regularly receives inquiries from academics—primarily Russian-speaking scholars now based at American and European universities—requesting specific datasets.
‘Our goal is to create technological tools that civil society institutions can use,’ Venyavkin explains. ‘We aim to be a resource center supporting media, NGOs, and other organizations in their work—tracking information, analyzing it, and combating disinformation. In other words, we don’t engage in activism ourselves, but we assist those who do.’
The project has caught the attention of people from other countries. The plight of Russian journalists is not unique: autocracies and dictatorships are suppressing independent media in many other nations. Some time ago, the team from the Guatemalan newspaper El Periódico approached the founders of RIMA, saying they needed a similar archive and asked for access to RIMA’s infrastructure, as well as their technical and legal protocols. The plan is to launch the archive of independent media from Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala in early 2025.
Like many who work in journalism, Nemzer and Venyavkin often find themselves wondering about the limits of their profession and questioning whether their work truly makes a difference. After all, the efforts of independent Russian journalists over the years didn’t prevent Putin from consolidating an extraordinary amount of power and starting the war with Ukraine.
‘Putin supporters won’t read Meduza because its worldview doesn’t resonate with them. But a world with alternative voices is definitely more open to change than one dominated by a single voice'
Venyavkin believes that the media cannot stop wars or fundamentally influence politics in any country. ‘The New York Times couldn’t ensure Kamala Harris’s victory, for example, nor should the media be tasked with doing so. In democracies, wars are stopped by voters, and in dictatorships, by decision-makers and political elites. Words alone are not a powerful political act.’ He argues that the media are ineffective at changing the beliefs of people who aren’t already part of their audience. ‘Putin supporters won’t read Meduza because its worldview doesn’t resonate with them. But a world with alternative voices is definitely more open to change than one dominated by a single voice, like that of Channel One (Russia’s primary state TV channel).’ Venyavkin also thinks that, in an era when journalists are labeled enemies of the state, the stakes and significance of their work have increased dramatically, as they are the ones preserving the testimonies of victims of injustice. ‘That’s why I personally haven’t lost faith in journalism—it remains an important and noble mission.’
A study conducted by JX Fund in 2023 showed that independent media reach around 5 to 7 million of Russia’s population. According to Nemzer, about 60 to 65 percent of Rain’s audience is in Russia, indicating that their work is needed. What it is needed for, however, is another question. Perhaps its primary function is to help people feel less alone, to realize that others share their views. ‘Hannah Arendt said that one of the key objectives of totalitarianism is to isolate individuals completely, stripping them of any support or alternative perspectives’, Nemzer explains. ‘Independent journalism serves as a crucial support system. We tell people that we are still here, we haven’t lost our minds, and this war is monstrous. Of course, it’s a bit strange for us journalists to realize that our role sometimes amounts to psychotherapy, but it’s a fact.’
Venyavkin agrees. ‘Any media inevitably imposes certain filters to make itself interesting to specific groups, creating a community of readers. This means that people find a common language and a shared worldview within which they can make sense of what’s happening to them. This is a crucial function of the media. Without it, people would have nowhere to discuss the issues that matter to them.’
Documenting current events
Another important function of media is documenting current events, which aligns with Hannah Arendt’s teachings. ‘Navalny asked us to keep working, no matter what happens’, Nemzer says. She doesn’t expect immediate change but hopes that, in the future, other generations will be able to analyze the records independent journalists have meticulously kept and make decisions that shape society. ‘It’s difficult to predict anything regarding Putin, which is why we don’t even ask whether we will see any results in our lifetime. We simply operate on the assumption that we must keep working.’
But Venyavkin–despite believing that journalism is more important than ever–is considering what else he can do with his life. He finds himself having to think about how he’ll make a living in the future. Having long been interested in psychology, so he has decided to pursue a master’s degree in family psychology.
He’s also writing a book, The Temple of War, which is a non-fiction project that examines the lives and ideas of ten individuals who represent various groups within Russian society that made the war in Ukraine possible. Among them are Nikolay Patrushev, former head of Russia’s Security Council; General Sergey Surovikin, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces from 2017 to 2023; chief propagandist Margarita Simonyan, head of the Russia Today channel; and far-right political philosopher Alexander Dugin.
'We simply operate on the assumption that we must keep working'
In November 2023, Venyavkin was labeled a 'foreign agent' by the Russian State, likely after parts of his book were published in Russian-language media outlets. That same year, Nemzer’s employer TV Rain was also designated an 'undesirable organization' in Russia, meaning the government considers it a threat to the state, public order, or national security. Working for such an organization can result in imprisonment.
Given these developments, neither Nemzer nor Venyavkin plan to return to their home country, even for a visit. They continue their work while they can, holding onto the hope that Putin’s regime will collapse. 'We know from history that dictatorships sometimes fall when you least expect it', Venyavkin says.