A co-publication with Oliver Carroll, co-editor of openDemocracy Russia. Over the course of 2010, the Russian Internet confirmed itself as a semi-free and vibrant political environment, possible to manipulate but impossible to control. Overall Internet penetration in Russia continued to grow: June’s figures reported 42% of Russians now have access to the web, which translates into near-total coverage of certain sectors (e.g. the metropolitan youth). More crucially, a series of high-profile web successes transformed how the web was perceived. Long before the events in Egypt, online Russians understood the potential of cyberspace as a tool for social and democratic advancement; though few, of course, harboured any illusions about the threat of censorship or the web's ability to transform the political system completely. There were several voices that stood out from the growing digital crowd. Political without necessarily being affiliated to political parties, they included photographer diarists reporting on the ebbs and flows of Russian political reality, internet veterans looking to contextualize new developments, citizen activists using new tools to assemble crowds of the willing, and investigative journalists combining a new language of cyber-democracy with older tricks such as sliv (“leaks”). The profiles that follow cover some of the most influential players. Alexey Navalny, photo by Sergey Yushenko Alexey Navalny (LJ user navalny [RUS]) Moscow lawyer, former Yabloko party activist, journalist and self-styled “protector of minority shareholder rights”, 33-year old Navalny was a star of the 2010 online. Throughout the year Navalny’s blog published a number of brave and unusually informed investigations of government corruption. Undoubtedly, however, his most significant work was the one that focused on Transneft, the state company responsible for managing the country’s oil pipelines. In this one investigation alone, Navalny’s blog highlighted $4 billion worth of alleged theft, fixed tenders and dubious accounting. Not without reason, Time magazine referred to him as “Russia's Erin Brockovich”. While opponents pointed to an alleged nationalist past, and his own admission that he would accept money from businessmen to investigate rival companies, Navalny’s stock has never been higher. In October, he was elected “virtual mayor of Moscow” by readers of the influential news sites gazeta.ru and Kommersant Daily. The e-zine OpenSpace.ru declared him their “Hero of 2010.” [RUS] As the year turned, Navalny opened his own anti-corruption portal rospil.info [RUS], designed, in Wikileaks fashion, to highlight suspicious civil service tenders. “Government has lost the moral and intellectual competition on the Internet. There’s no online platform where it is trusted.” Read GV interview with Alexey Navalny here. Marina Litvinovich, photo by Gregory Asmolov Marina Litvinovich (LJ user abstract2001 [RUS]) 36-year old political spin-doctor and online activist, Marina Litvinovich is a veteran of the blogosphere, having written her own journal for some ten years. Such experience no doubt explains Litvinovich’s unusual ability to spot the big story, able to turn an obscure posting from a little-known blogger into the story everyone is talking about. Last year saw Litvinovich launch BestToday.ru, a web aggregator monitoring the Russian blogosphere. The site has since popularised and supported a number of successful online campaigns: turning a car accident on Leningradsky Prospect into a trial of oligarch impunity; forcing a second trial in the outrageous case of Anna Shavenkova, who caused another car accident yet escaped punishment because of political ties; and exposing the scandal of police who used people as a “live barrier” to catch a speeding motorist. In the short time of its existence, BestToday.ru has become a popular resource among Russian internet users. Litvinovich was also one of the leading figures behind “Help Map”, a crowdsourcing platform developed during last summer’s wildfires. This resource, based on Ushahidi, connected volunteers with villages and regions that needed urgent assistance. Help Map demonstrated the growing power and solidarity of the Russian online community, in stark contrast with the bankruptcy and passivity of large parts of the state. “If people see something as threatening enough to them personally, and the government also demonstrates ineffectiveness, the next step is for people to self-organize” Read GV interview with Marina Litvinovich here. Ilya Varlamov, LiveJournal userpic Ilya Varlamov (LJ user zyalt [RUS]) The youngest blogger in our selection, 26-year old photojournalist Ilya Varlamov has become a cult figure of the Russian online.