— Parma-Novosti was founded in 1996. Prior to that, Sergei Meshavkin, its first founder and publisher, worked for the Parma newspaper. One day he had a big fight with the editor, as he wanted to do his job honestly and independently, while the editorial policy was imposed by the party in power and the authorities. Sergei wrote a letter of resignation and said that he would open his own newspaper.

He used his last salary to publish an announcement in Parma: "Subscribe to Parma-Novosti and win a million" (it took place before the monetary reform, one million rubles back then could pay half the price of a TV — note by the project team). He received several million rubles on his account, as people subscribed to the non-existent newspaper. Sergey was very worried about what he got himself into, but nevertheless, he started publishing the newspaper. The lottery with the one million prize did finally take place — an elderly lady won it.

I joined the Parma-Novosti team in early 2000s as an advertising manager and gradually progressed in my career. In 2005, Sergei Meshavkin was invited to work for the Saint Petersburg newspaper Moi Rajon, and he moved. I became director (of Pechatny Dom LLC, Parma-Novosti's publisher — note by the project team), then in 2013, I bought the newspaper from Sergei Meshavkin, became its owner and founder, and then editor-in-chief.

We are often labelled as opposition. I wouldn’t say that myself or the editorial staff are opposed to the local or federal authorities. We just want to make honest news, be engaged in honest journalism, speak about what’s going on in an objective way.

For me, there is a rule in journalism that can be explained using the metaphor of a glass. Optimists say that the glass is half full, pessimists say that it’s half empty. For me, journalism is not about assessing the content of the glass. This is a fact: there is a glass and it is half filled with water. Journalism is not propaganda of the current government and not opposition to it either. It is fact-checking, accuracy, objectivity.

— On February 24, we didn’t understand what was happening, there was complete uncertainty. At first, I was in denial, I asked myself: How is it possible? We are all sane people, who needs a war? Then I got scared, of course — for myself, for my family, for the people, for the Earth as a whole.

On that day, we had a team meeting. We discussed the main news, we realized that we had to cover the beginning of the "special operation" in Donbass, but we didn’t understand how. Back then, there were no laws [limiting the freedom of speech] yet. Finally, we decided to use information from the Internet, mainly from Novaya Gazeta.

At first, the hostilities had no effect on our editorial policy. But on March 4, the laws [on "fakes"] were passed, and then I was charged with two administrative offences on discrediting the army. I got the first one as an individual for a VKontakte post, where I expressed my anti-war position, and the second one as an office holder for a column in the "Personal opinion" section. It was an expression of my personal position on what was happening. I was fined 50,000 rubles for that column.

After that, we realized that our hands were tied and that we had to live and work in that new legislative environment, whether we like it or not. From that point on, we started sending all our materials, including for the "Personal opinion" section, to our lawyer Svetlana Kuzevanova prior to publication. I now sleep badly on the night from Tuesday to Wednesday — when the newspaper is printed — as I keep checking the texts over and over in my mind.

Among our audience there are many people who support the "special operation". But they too were confused that I was fined, as there was no [army] discreditation at all in my statements. Those who support Ukraine were also perplexed.

I received a lot of messages after I was fined. People wrote that they understood and supported me, but one elderly woman wrote: "It's a shame! Why are you behaving like this"? She said that I didn’t understand what I was doing, that I stuck a knife in the back of our guys who were dying so that we could live in peace. I invited her to meet and talk, asked if she knew at all what I was fined for. After that, she quickly deleted her messages.

We are not on the front line. We don’t know the details of the offensive or retreat. We focus more on local news and partially cover the federal agenda as well. One of our first materials on the events in Ukraine was the text "Economic Echo", which analyzed the consequences for Kudymkar. We wrote about what was happening in our town due to newly imposed sanctions and what we should expect.

We have been writing, for example, when a native of our district dies. The soldiers' relatives react to this in different ways. Some are ready to tell everything so that the whole world knows what their boy was like. Others want to close themselves off, spend some time alone, so that no one digs into the details of their personal lives. I respect people’s feelings, and if close relatives say "no, thanks", we don’t write anything.

— Recently, media have faced all sorts of obstacles: there is basically no access to information, to sources, all officials are so pressured and scared that they usually only give formal replies to all written requests. Now there are also newsmakers who agree to leak some information if we write about it without referring to the source, but they are few. It’s difficult to find out what’s going on behind the scenes, even on an anonymous basis. We are still trying to do this, as well as to identify the attitudes and plans of the local authorities, but it’s only getting worse.

We live in a safe region — nothing is falling on us from the sky. And yet, what’s happening in our country is somehow related to the war in Ukraine. For example, I’ve learned about a woman in Kudymkar who is trying to find her son, a soldier fighting in Ukraine. She doesn’t know where he is, whether he is alive, dead, or taken prisoner — she has no news, no sources of information. Every time she makes a request, she receives formal replies saying that he is not on the lists of those missing or killed. In terms of journalism, that mother is a primary source, but from the point of view of the current legislation, her story is a fake, and I will be jailed if I write about it.

Here is another story indirectly related to what is happening: a woman with no thyroid gland who ran out of imported pills back in February. Her endocrinologist told her that if she did not take the pills, she would develop heart failure and die. I don’t know whether that woman found the pills she needed, or whether analogues became available, but I understand that if I write such stories, I take a big risk myself and expose the newspaper too.

We can’t cover events related to Ukraine, there is basically no way to do so. It’s a taboo, a veto, a risk to immediately end up in the dock and go to jail. Censorship is not declared, but it’s right here.

— I will write requests to the Ministry of Defense and to the ombudsman to help the woman from Kudymkar find her son, so that they understand that at least media are interested in this. This is all I can do right now. If I help this mother, it will take a load off her mind, but publishing it in the newspaper… No. No one will gain if I do it.

I’m trying to help as a media representative, but often journalists can’t really make a difference. By such inquiries, we can only simulate that an issue is being discussed publicly. Journalists can be ignored in the same way as that mother’s requests are being ignored. It scares me even to imagine how she is living and what she is feeling. I have a son myself, but he is at home. He is 19, maybe that’s why I am reacting to what is happening in such a way.

Our newspaper has struggled economically for a long time: we earn our living from direct sales and advertising. Last year we made it by covering the elections. Since the beginning of the hostilities, everything has become even more difficult for us, like for all media in Russia. Some small newspapers the size of ours have already closed. We are barely making both ends meet too and are trying to survive by all means. We have a small advertising market and modest income. Our goal now is to survive, to live through it. I hope that we will live to see better times.