Komsomolskaya Pravda

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 24th of May 1925, Komsomolskaya Pravda printed its first run of 31,000 copies. By 1990, that figure had reached nearly 22 million daily readers. The distance between those two numbers spans a century of Russian history. How did a Soviet youth newspaper grow to that scale, and what was it willing to do once the state that built it collapsed?

  The paper's name carries the word Pravda, meaning "Truth," a deliberate echo of the official Soviet newspaper of the same name. Komsomolskaya Pravda was conceived as a mouthpiece for the Komsomol, the Communist Party's youth organization. How that organization shaped the paper's soul, and how ownership and ideology bent it in later decades, is worth understanding from the beginning.

• 2. Born of the Komsomol

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  The 13th Congress of the Russian Communist Party issued the decision that brought Komsomolskaya Pravda into existence. The paper was structured as the official organ of the Komsomol, aimed at Soviet youth between 14 and 28 years old. Popular science articles and adventure stories filled its pages. Running underneath was a consistent ideological mission: every issue was designed to teach the values of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

  The Order of Lenin arrived in 1930, when the paper was barely five years old. The Order of the Patriotic War came in 1945. The state honored the paper twice with the Order of Red Banner of Labour, first in 1950 and again in 1957. The Order of the October Revolution arrived in 1975. Five decorations across nearly five decades reflected the paper's standing within the Soviet state. When that state fell in 1991, the question of who would fund and direct the newspaper had no obvious answer.

• 3. New Owners, New Numbers

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  In December 2000, the Norwegian media company A-Pressen bought 25 percent plus one share of Komsomolskaya Pravda. Until 2011, the paper's ownership ran through Media Partner, which was itself owned by ESN Group, an energy company led by Grigory Berezkin. After 2011, Sergei Rudnov, the son of the founder of the Baltic Media Group, came to indirectly control 45 percent.

  By 2001, Komsomolskaya Pravda ranked ninth among European newspapers with a daily circulation of 785,000 copies. In 2006, it was the top-selling newspaper in Russia, with daily figures ranging from 700,000 to 3.1 million. In March 2008, the NCS certified a circulation of 660,000 copies. TNS Gallup Media named it the most-read newspaper in Russia that same year. The paper's online edition also ranked as Russia's most-visited news website in 2008.

  The European Commission described the paper as Vladimir Putin's favorite newspaper. That standing would soon be tested by what the paper chose to print on its front pages.

• 4. Front-Page Provocations

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  In January 2015, a front-page article in Komsomolskaya Pravda suggested that the United States had orchestrated the Charlie Hebdo shooting.

  In May 2017, a column by Alisa Titko spread widely. Titko had written that Manchester, the English city, was "full of fat people," and that she found the sight of same-sex love "disgusting."

  In 2021, the paper published accusations by former Kontinental Hockey League coach Andrei Nazarov. Nazarov alleged that New York Rangers winger Artemi Panarin had sexually assaulted an 18-year-old Latvian woman in Riga. The Rangers released a statement condemning the allegations as a "fabrication" and an "intimidation tactic." The team linked the allegations to Panarin's public support for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Navalny had been detained upon returning to Russia from Germany shortly before the article appeared.

  The pressures bearing on the paper from the outside would soon be felt by the journalists working within it.

• 5. Silence at the Masthead

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  Vladimir Sungorkin died in September 2022, ending a 25-year tenure as editor in chief. The official cause was a stroke. His death came during a period in which a series of Russian journalists, businesspeople, and oligarchs died in circumstances drawing sustained public attention.

  In February 2023, news editor Vladimir Romanenko published anti-war articles in the paper. The articles documented Russian war crimes and criticized the alleged torture of Alexei Navalny. They were deleted within ten minutes. Romanenko no longer works for the publication.

  In December 2023, the paper's deputy editor in chief was found dead in her apartment. Olesya Nosova, who took the editor in chief position in 2022, now leads the publication. An affiliated radio network, Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda, carries the paper's name into Russian broadcasting.