Alexei Yablokov, Photographer for the TOGLIATTI OBSERVER, tabs through a series of photos on his screen that demonstrate the violence and intimidation common to Togliatti and surrounding areas.

The second issue came out two months behind schedule, because we had many logistical problems. It was a serious journalistic investigation of racketeering wars, which had raged in the city for the last 2-3 years. The authorities preferred to keep quiet about them.

We created a sort of chronicle of the racketeering wars. We even introduced our own terminology — the First Racketeering War (RW I), the Second Racketeering War, etc.

In my opinion, the best thing about those chronicles was their analytical component — we explained to the people the reasons behind these wars. Why, to what purpose, and who the beneficiary was… Based on facts, we drew conclusions about connections between the criminal world and the police, the authorities and business circles.

The paper hit the market and created a boom. Every person of influence in the city was unhappy with us.

The gangsters threatened us. The law enforcement institutions declared everything false. The authorities severely criticized us as well. In short, the second issue of THE TOGLIATTI OBSERVER was acceptable to nobody except our readers, who were buying it like hot cakes. Once again we could see for ourselves that people wanted to know the truth and see the real picture of what was going on in the city. It meant we were needed.

Trust Requires Time

After that, THE TOGLIATTI OBSERVER came out regularly once a month. We published an issue, sold it, and used the money to make the next one, and so on.

It was always very difficult, though. In our earlier issues, articles often had to be fully rewritten. This was one of the main reasons why the paper couldn’t come out more often.

We were ambitious, self-confident, and somewhat na�ve. For example, I was deeply convinced that we would certainly conquer the entire city’s readers market in three months — not just in Togliatti, but the whole region!!! Nothing of the kind actually happened. We had to face the conservative mentality of readers. From the outset, we were accepted and trusted by about ten percent of the citizens. We had to fight for the trust of the rest step by step, year after year. With every issue we won a few more readers.

Financial difficulties and periodic disappointments of that time were compensated by one factor — we knew why we were doing it all. Besides, the difficulties were offset by the fact that in the long run we had nothing to lose: at the time I didn’t have a big staff to support, so there was little responsibility. These days, there are more than 100 people working for THE TOGLIATTI OBSERVER. And I have to be responsible for all of them. Back then I was working with three or four like-minded people whose number also increased every month, thank God.