Slon

The Slon.ru website was launched on 18 May 2009. The website's name Slon (Russian: Слон, lit. 'Elephant') is a reference to the blind men and an elephant parable, in which blind people disagreed about what the elephant looked like.^[3][4] Slon authors stated that its mission is to show "the whole elephant" to its readers.^[4] The website mainly publishes materials about politics, economics and business.^[5]

The first editor-in-chief and executive director of Slon.ru was the Russian journalist and publisher Leonid Bershidsky.^[6][3] Among the first employees of Slon.ru were Russian journalists Alexander Gordeev [ru], Olga Romanova, former deputy editor-in-chief of SmartMoney magazine Yuri Granovsky and former editor-in-chief of Russky Newsweek magazine Dmitry Kuznets.^[3][7] The main shareholders are Russian media managers Natalya Sindeyeva and Alexander Vinokurov [ru].^[7]

In 2010, the website changed its format; the main goal was to move towards the creation of an expert platform. The move was inspired by the concept of the Slate online magazine.^[4] On 18 February 2011, Bershidsky announced that he had left Slon.^[5][8] Since the summer of 2014, the website has been working on a paid subscription basis.^[9][10]

Republic

On 6 November 2016, it was announced that the website had changed its name to Republic. The change also included a new design and three additional sections; the sphere of interest of the magazine has expanded to the topics of science and technology.^[5][11] In August 2016, Irina Malkova [ru], a Russian journalist and former deputy editor-in-chief of RBC, became the editor-in-chief of the magazine.^[5][9] In 2018, Republic was transformed into a platform for a group of online magazines.^[10]

In June 2021, Russian journalist Dmitry Kolezev became the chief editor.^[12] On 15 October 2021, Moscow Digital Media was labelled as a 'foreign agent' in Russia.^[1][13] In response, Kolezev said that he did not know why the Russian authorities decided to do it.^[14] He also said that Republic does not have foreign financing: "... it only exists thanks to subscribers' money".^[15]

Awards

In 2010, the website won first place in the Information Site of the Year category in the ROTOP [ru] (Russian Online TOP) competition.^[16][17][18]

In 2010, the Butyrka-blog [ru; uk] diary published on the Slon.ru website won the online voting in the Best Blog nomination in The Best of Blogs (BOBs) competition.^[19][20]

In January 2017, Republic journalist Siranush Sharoyan received the Redkollegia media award for her article "Black Cash. How a Trillion Dollars Was Withdrawn from the Country in 25 Years. The History of the Russian Banking System - Based on Criminal Cases".^[21][22]