22 Years of The Moscow Times

Today, The Moscow Times celebrates 22 years as a daily newspaper. The paper has seen quite a few crazy writers and editors, survived some crazy times and overall managed to do a very decent job.



For 22 years it has been the main source of English-language Russia news for Moscow expats, and in the past few years it has become the main online source of Russia-related news in English: Just type "Russian news" into Google.



Our online audience has grown more than 2 1/2 times during the past year, and our Facebook following has quadrupled since February, hitting the 200,000 mark yesterday.



The Moscow Times has spawned dozens of great reporters and editors, many of whom now work for major international news organizations. Four of them, working for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, have been awarded Pulitzer Prizes for journalism.



As a senior Reuters reporter once said about The Moscow Times: "You guys were doing the same that we were all doing at the newswires, but you managed to move many good stories further than we could."



Now the Russian media, of which The Moscow Times is a part, faces what is perhaps one of its most serious challenges, in the shape of an economic slowdown combined with mounting pressure on the independent press.



Still, as The Moscow Times celebrates its 22nd birthday, there is nobody sane enough among us to get out of combat duty.