“Bi-bi-si” was found c the most popular Telegram-blogger Russia – the owner of the channel “Stalingrad”, which until recently was anonymous. For the first time, please introduce yourself Alexander Gorbunov said: “I am the author of “Stringology””.
“If I can’t get to 12:00, then it was not according to my will,” wrote Alexander Gorbunov correspondent “bi-Bi-si”.
Nevertheless, by 11:00, according to the agreement, the newspaper has a large van. The driver dropped to the ground folding metal ramp; the office helped Alexander to reach his wife – he can’t walk.
On the way the van was being pursued by a white “Ford,” says Gorbunov. Surveillance, he connects with the events of the last days — mysterious law enforcement visits to his parents and relatives.
Gorbunov 27 years, but he says in a low voice of a man accustomed that listen to him. Well-read, educated, dressed up as a Professor at the European University, Gorbunov produces the impression of a confident and discreet man.
However, in his Telegram channel it creates the opposite way. So, the most popular three-letter obscene word in his post at least 69 times, five-letter – of 44. In conversation with “bi-Bi-si” – never.
“Stalingrad” with 300 thousand subscribers is consistently in the top three most popular Telegram-channels in the country. He sarcastically criticizes the current Russian reality, and politician Alexei Navalny in 2017 called him the chief political columnist of the country.
Before to admit that he is the author of one of the most popular and controversial Telegram channels, Gorbunov long collected his thoughts.
A. G.: my name is Alexander Gorbunov, I am the author of “Stringology”.
Bi-bi-si: You after this sentence easier? A. G.: it is still unclear. Possible, Yes. Bi-bi-si: what are your feelings?
A. G.: the Feeling that all behind. Bi-bi-si: How did “Stalingrad”?
A. G.: Random. It evolved as I evolved personally, have changed along with my Outlook.
Bi-bi-si: Why did you do it? The lack of communication?
A. G.: I Just wanted to write. Maybe there were some personal experiences. Maybe there was some kind of innuendo a lot, because I was working, almost never left the computer, because the walk was particularly nowhere. I lived in Makhachkala, a city of the maximum of the unfit for life people in a wheelchair. The computer, the Internet allowed you to look at what is happening in the world. And I grew up watching all sorts of political programs, politics has always attracted me.
“There are situations where it is impossible to be silent”
Alexander Gorbunov was born in January 1992 in an ordinary family in Makhachkala. Trained as a lawyer. At school he started to look for ways to make money online. A student wrote a blog on network marketing and personal growth, playing online poker. Carried away with trading it became for him the necessary source of high and stable earnings.
Bi-bi-si: You have been hard growing up in Makhachkala?
A. G.: If you were there then you know what sort of roads, stairs, sidewalks.
Bi-bi-si: what about the people?
A. G.: People are good. In Russia people are generally good. As I have been in different cities, I have not seen to his dislike.
Bi-bi-si: you lived there?
A. G.: I started working at age 13, when his father, who was the sole breadwinner in the family got sick. Mother could not work. As a child I was taken to the doctors, for all sorts of physiotherapy, where I was told repeatedly how important it is to work on yourself.
Bi-bi-si: What do doctors mean?
A. G.: My disease (Alexander Gorbunov from childhood suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, which leads to the death of cells of the spinal cord – Bi-bi-si) progresses, but as a child I could raise their hands, and doctors thought (maybe it was more for self-complacency or ignorance), what should I do any physical exercise for several hours a day.
When you are five or six years, as you can tell, you have hours to pull some gum, if you want to walk?! But my father always said you have in this life to rely only on themselves. You have to do, because you have now all there is while we live with my mom. When we are gone (I am a late child in the family), you’ll be all alone. To me, these words never came: a house full of people, how can we be one?!
Bi-bi-si: And then?
A. G.: And then I watched a film about children with disabilities living in a boarding school. It turned out that after 18 years they are transferred to a nursing home. I looked up, I saw all these horrors, see how they barely move around the floor, all this bitter hell and a nightmare.
I was shocked. And I realized that this cannot be allowed. Never. So, I have become independent, and independence give only money. Only paid work. My father said, “You’re going to pay the person who will help you”. I knew I needed the money. And began to think, as I earn them.
In order to live, and I’m not talking about some luxury I need a few hundred thousand rubles a month. Every month, each of the first number. To live simply, to stay in the apartment, to live in a convenient location. Because in Russia there are practically no homes that would be conveniently equipped not just at the level of the entrance. And even ramps – I don’t know who and who builds them.
Bi-bi-si: What was your first job?
A. G.: I turned up the company, which was engaged in network marketing and distribution of dietary supplements. For those times I quite well it went – I was earning 150-200 $ per month, good money for Makhachkala.
Fifteen years I fulfilled a definite plan and the company invited me to Moscow. I went the first time and was shocked by this city: have stayed at my mother’s classmate in Marino, not even in the center of Moscow, but I realized that this is a very cool city. I was amazed that the streets have ramps, albeit uncomfortable. It turns out, it happens. It turns out that the sidewalk is not a two-foot potholes, it is possible to move. I realized that I need to move to Moscow.
Bi-bi-si: just moved?
A. G.: Then to move to Moscow was not possible, but I thought on average, how much do I need in life. He has also played in online poker and gradually started to trade on the stock market. When formed a certain financial cushion, when I realized that everything is stable, I moved to Moscow.
Bi-bi-si: You consider yourself a wealthy person?
A. G.: Yes, in General I am a wealthy man. Especially if you compare with the life I had in childhood and adolescence. Now I’m middle class in Moscow who can afford to go somewhere and to go to the theatre and restaurant.
Bi-bi-si: Poker and trading is a risky surgery. The whole Empire collapsed on it. You are afraid to take such a risk?
A. G.: Yes, I have no choice, you know? Even many friends say: teach me how to become a trader, I want to be a trader. I sincerely answer (all think it’s some kind of flirtatiousness): it is fiercely hard, fiercely emotional, it’s hard because you’re trading in addition specific risks are constantly experiencing moral stress. I just had no other choice. It was out of despair that played a key role: if it were not for despair, I would have the whole thing scored.
Bi-bi-si: As you continue to engage in trading?
A. G.: Yes, of course. This is my main source of income. Telegram-channel brings not so much money as it seems. And the costs I have in Moscow is very large – it costs not to have a luxurious life, but just to simply get out of the apartment to the house I was able to get a drink of water to my day completely helped qualified people.
Peak of career of any trader – creating your own Fund. A year ago I came close to this topic, there were some talks about this. But after the release notes [RBC about the alleged authorship of the channel] me ceased any contact on this topic: “what are You – stupid? No institutional investor will never trust you with a penny”. I was a private trader.
Bi-bi-si: Why the trader can not lead Telegram-channel?
A. G.: the Russian business is trying to stand back from the policy that do not like the current government. You understand that in our country, if people say something wrong, it immediately becomes a foreign agent, “a hireling of the state Department”, a spy. And the whole financial world strives to minimize the risks.
Bi-bi-si: Why go to the risk of being a financial trader, especially creating your own Fund?
A. G.: the Blog did not come about as some thoughtful design. All of this happened completely by accident. There are situations where it is simply impossible to keep silent when it is impossible to say that crazy things happen.
Bi-bi-si: readers might get the impression that you are somebody worth it. Here you may have some business partners. Or does anyone advise you.
A. G.: No, I have no partners. Because I have no business in the sense you’re talking about. I am absolutely in this respect alone, all alone all the time, whatever it touched.
“I don’t want to identify themselves only with their disability”
Bi-bi-si: Why do you about the problems of the accessible environment do not write in your Telegram channel?
AG: I write about them when there is a reason. Let’s speak frankly, no one’s interested in our country. It is uninteresting, unreadable. The difficulties with movement would read two and a half men – and that wouldn’t do any good.
Then, I do not want to identify themselves only with their disability, I don’t think it’s some kind of disease, I’m just born with it. That there are people – someone knows how to play the piano, and someone does not know how to play the piano. Someone has blonde hair, someone dark. Someone knows how to walk, and someone is not able to walk. It’s not a feature, it’s a given, I don’t do some kind of tragedy. Does not emphasize it. It’s only a matter of practical action, the movements of which are performed with assistance.
Bi-bi-si: no help in any way.
A. G.: I would love to design ramps would sit in the stroller and drove to the underpass. One time I rented an apartment in the center of Moscow, lived on Cook street. I had no car, the house behind the cinema “October”, I lived there for over three months and never was on the opposite side of the New Arbat. The entire center of Moscow for me ended there, where it ended in the cinema “October”.
Bi-bi-si: And how do you live now?
A. G.: In conscious age, I decided not to go to the doctors for any help, except the ambulance. Last time I was in the hospital when I had an acute attack. It’s my choice.
Bi-bi-si: what was it like?
A. G.: life in the principle is pleasure. Someone will look at me and say that I’m disingenuous. And this little segment of my life I don’t want to waste, turn it into all kinds of treatment limitations. As they say, before it is too late.
“Stalingrad” writes about how things really are”
A few days ago in the house where the parents live Gorbunova in Makhachkala, the police came. “On Friday I called my mother and said to her came the officers, I was asked to give the phone to one of policemen. I said, “What happened? Why did you come?” He said, “From your phone received a call about a mining of objects in Moscow.” I said: “the phone I talk now?” He says, “No,” says Gorbunov.
“More for me no questions asked. Still don’t know if it was searched,” he recalls in a conversation with Bi-bi-si. In a press-service of the Department of information and public relations of the interior Ministry of the Republic of Dagestan has not commented on the screening of relatives of Gorbunova.
According to Gorbunov, one of the first who supported him were Pavel Durov. “Paul wrote a personal message that supports me,” – said Gorbunov.
After the arrival of law enforcement in the Baza project has published a video conversation with her mother, in which she admits that Gorbunov – her son. He Gorbunov said that his mother was not interviewed. “It wasn’t ask. To her home in the evening, came the lawyer. With him came a girl, but did not present what she edition. It was a hidden camera. You have to understand that my mother couldn’t understand that people can record it all and upload. She is still in complete shock from what happened,” he says.
People in power want us to think they are terrible enkavedeshniki with a warm heart and a cool head, but in reality they are traders.
Co-founder of the Baza Nikita Mogutin said bi-Bi-si, that the rules for its revision prohibit a hidden recording of the interview: what mother Gorbunova knew about the shooting, he said, can be seen by how straight the frame. Mogutin recognizes that a freelance journalist is not reported by the interviewee which media presents: “This girl is also working with several publications, both local and Federal, so she had just a journalist”.
Mogutin says that tried several times to contact Gorbunov after the interview, however, he ignored the message. “If Alexander or his representatives asked us not to publish this information, we likely would have refused to publish”, concluded Mogutin.
Bi-bi-si: Why, in your opinion, the authorities are so annoyed by your Telegram channel?
A. G.: I don’t know. In Telegram created this atmosphere that it is mainly the discourse is dominated by Pro-Kremlin orientation channels that serve and cover the news with certain positions. In fact, “Stalingrad” is the only popular Telegram channel, who writes about how things really are.
To me personally, attention was drawn to an article by RBC, where I was named the author of the Telegram-channel “Stalingrad”. In my opinion, since the authorities can’t prove my personal involvement as the author, they were forced to come up with some idiotic idea with the telephone terrorism. Because any technical way to prove my involvement or non-involvement of any Telegram is the channel. It can only say Pavel Durov Telegram himself.
Bi-bi-si: are you Afraid for your family?
A. G.: it Will be very sad if one of them gets hurt, and not only from government, but from some patients, activists and crazy fanatics that can cause my discomfort as far as possible from this story to relatives. This is one of the biggest factors why I’m hiding his identity and did not want to disclose it. When the network got some details about me, suffered such torrents of mud, to me anyway, but friends of people, if they read this, will be at least unpleasant.
“Stalingrad” is trolling”
In 2013, Alexander Gorbunov has renamed his personal Twitter account to “Stalingrad” There he published humorous posts on the theme of Russian life and politics.
In the spring of 2016, when he had already 400 thousand followers, he registered the channel in the Telegram. At that time it was a completely new platform – for example, the channel “Nesigur” appeared just a few months before.
Part of the audience of the project moved from Twitter to the Telegram, which is one of the reasons for the popularity of “Stringology,” says founder of the service Combot Fedor Skuratov. Becoming one of the first author’s political “Stalingrad” works with a popular agenda of “everything is bad”, he adds.
Now the “Talinghaga” more than 1 million followers on Twitter and 300 thousand subscribers in a Telegram. In March, he took second place in accessibility among all the political channels.
From September 2017 in the channel is published, the cost per post was started with 150 thousand rubles, after three days, it is removed from the tape.
Bi-bi-si: Why is “Stalingrad” and not, for example, “Solzhenicyn.proschanie”?
A. G.: It’s a Troll – the person comes to the channel with the avatar of Stalin, sees the name “Stalingrad” thinks will praise a time and see quite the opposite. Then, many now draw a parallel with what is happening in Russia today, 1937. I think this is not so: the people in power want us to think that they are terrible and horrible enkavedeshniki with a warm heart and a cool head, but in reality they are businessmen at their core, love of luxury and money. It’s just the tools turn into tools of plunder and banditry of some and personal accounts, nothing more.
Bi-bi-si: However, your political views it was quite a transformation a few years ago very calmly wrote on Twitter about the annexation of Crimea, and now you have the posts in the channel is much more oppositional. Why did this happen?
A. G.: They were always the opposition: if you look at my timeline of Twitter in a chronological order, at the time of the annexation of Crimea was and criticism of the government. But I always believed that people are more important than borders, it is most important that occurs. They can say what they want to be part of a state. And when it became known about the methods by which it all happened, my position on this issue has also changed. But now, if you ask me the question what Crimea I would say that the Crimea belongs to people who live in the Crimea.
Bi-bi-si: did you feel that “Stalingrad” at some point he started to live his own life? And that you have somehow adapted to it?
A. G.: Yes, of course, is the eternal question, at some point you can’t tell if you’re writing because you think so, or you write it because you are waiting for this people? They write, praise, at some point you begin to understand how much you depend on public opinion, from the figures, praise you.
Bi-bi-si: you were asked by the advertisers?
A. G.: Yes, I have commercial advertising, it all comes under the tag “advertising”, it’s all economic, I didn’t have any political accommodation. I received such suggestions – someone aiming to write someone “wet”, but I always refused.
Bi-bi-si: You just suggested someone “watering”?
A. G.: Yes, wrote. Indicated price explained that this is a post that you want to post, just text.
Bi-bi-si: what if you came and said that there is such a Governor, he does something bad, we have enough dirt on him – take?
A. G.: You understand that if people come, then it is why you need something. I don’t want to participate in any other games, I am absolutely in this plan is independent from all.
Bi-bi-si: will you Continue and continue to write in the “Stalingrad” after revealing your identity? And whether you do it with more caution?
A. G.: I will continue to write, in this respect, nothing has changed. As he wrote, and will.
Bi-bi-si: what if tomorrow you will be asked to Express your position on any channel with an audience of millions, will you agree?
A. G.: No. I don’t want to become, relatively speaking, some Michael Bohm, an expert who goes to all political show. I don’t want my face said I was shit, so what I sense to go there? I every day hear it.
Bi-bi-si: do you Fear additional troubles due to the fact that your name became known?
A. G.: I never done nobody no harm, I am innocent. I’m not afraid for myself, I can not do anything to apply me some methods of limiting, given that I have them from birth, it is impossible. To cause me bodily or physical harm is also impossible, because the pain with me, she is always present.
I have no illusions, no hope for some old age, I know what it’s about – roughly a year earlier, a year later – what does that mean in the scale of the universe? We will not change anything. Life is temporary and death is permanent, why worry about something temporary? Not three days to sleep, and then not want to sleep in principle, it is impossible to eat to never be hungry. As we lived, we would still want to live longer.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed the scandalous law “About a safe Runet”. Now the Kremlin has the right to disconnect Russians from the Internet.