The unlikely life and sudden death of The Exile, Russia’s angriest newspaper. | Hacker News Reader

The unlikely life and sudden death of The Exile, Russia’s angriest newspaper.

vanityfair.com

75 pointskitcar35 comments

The Exile is freaking brilliant. I can proudly say that I read them since around the beginning, the year 2000. They were brutally honest and never cared about who they might offend or the bridges they may burn or how this might look on their resume. In short, exactly what you want in a journalist.

You can still find them at:www.exiledonline.com but unfortunately they do not write articles as often and are a mere shadow of their former selves.

I think that the one and only truth that they were never able to admit is how much the drugs they were taking non stop would affect their brains, and I feel I see some of the effects in their rather reduced output nowadays.

I think the reason for the reduced output is that they were never able to truly monetize the internet version of the paper, aside from publishing a few books. Ames does freelance journalism now, and Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone, so it seems like they decided to just make a living rather than try and revive what they did in the past.

Yes I am sure that is one of the reasons too. But I do not see that much of Ames's freelance stuff either.

But then again he could have taken an office job to pay the rent.

I, too, was an avid reader of the Exile while it lasted. I caught the tail end of it when I and my wife came to Russia in 2006. I thought it was still ruthless and unapologetic at the time. Thankfully there is always plenty of stuff to be ruthless and unapologetic about in Russia, be it the 90s or the 00s.

My thoughts reading the paper were always "how could they not shoot this down?" The pressure on journalists has grown tremendously under Putin, and the authorities were clamping down on anything remotely resembling subversion. Even if the authorities did not exert direct pressure, most publications would self-censor in the fear that the security services would go after them next.

How the Exile was allowed to continue is beyond me? But judging from my wife's magazine's intrepid reporting (published in Russia under the auspices of Ria Novosti - the State news beast), the English language publications generally pass under radar. She's never felt any pressure direct or otherwise to pull or amend critical stories.

It's important to keep in mind that English language publications are a drop in a bucket in Russia where I would say less 5% of the population can read and understand English. It simply has zero impact on the public opinion domestically, but it does wonders "exposing" the truth to the west, while showing how unfettered the press is in Russia. It's just not the mainstream press we are talking about here.

From the article: "The irony is that The Exile was always far harder on America than Russia and, by the end, was probably more widely read by Russians than Americans."

Perhaps that's part of the reason The Exile was allowed to continue for so long.

That is sad, as they did post some interesting columns (the war nerd was always worth reading).

Take this as a warning: do not do business in Russia.

> Take this as a warning: do not go to Russia

Fixed

But seriously, does Russia have ANY redeeming features right now besides possible tourist spots and pretty countryside?

Well, for one, some of the most brilliant coders I've ever spoken to have been in Russia.

A lot of incredible web technology we in the startup scene don't hear about comes from Russia. Unfortunately, most of it is used for spam/fraud.

I think this is the case in Russia because the odds of the government shaking you down, taking all your stuff and then throwing you in some awful prison are about the same whether what you're doing is perfectly legitimate or totally illegal.

The food, I was really surprised by the quality of restaurants in Moscow last time I went there...

No that is not accurate - Russia is no more dangerous to tourists than many other countries.

It is only when you start having money that it becomes dangerous.

Highly educated populace. Good mathematicians and engineers. Generally nice people. Rich cultural history. A pride in their culture and in being Russian that Americans don't, in my experience, have (disregarding our jingoistic biblethumpers). Tall skinny blonds if that's your thing. A more relaxed culture in terms of laws and rules than the US. Excellent, if heavy, food. Better public transport, at least in Moscow, than anywhere in the US.

Excellent public transport in Moscow??? It's so untrue, I just assume you don't live here.

The Moscow subway is cheap and as of ~ 2005, utterly reliable -- far more reliable than NYC subways. In SF, muni is a bad joke, and bart breaks every other month.

Reliable? On any given year at least one of the major stations is fully or partially closed down. Recently Park Kultury was partially closed for several months, Belorusskaya is probably going to be closed for some time next year. The latter is a very high-traffic station so maybe they will just limit its capacity by 50%. 90% of the time I go via subway, at least one escalator (they are usually in groups of two) is not working, reducing capacity by 50%, with people waiting in a huge line. Sometimes the train will just stop between the stations and stand there for anywhere between 10 minutes and half an hour. Rarely, like once in several months, some shit will happen on Filevskaya line and it will halt for several hours. Underground it's always uncomfortably warm and stuffy – both in summer and in winter. More than enough to get sweaty. The Filevskaya (surface) line, on the contrary, was very cold in the winter (maybe it's better now with the new trains, though). Passenger density of one per square foot in rush hour is also not very comfortable, and when random strangers apply considerable force to push you deeper into the train so that they can get in too, it's also not OK (and it happens in rush hour always, not once a day/week/year). The new trains are simply idiotic. They always smell bad to some extent (they probably chose overly absorbing materials for the floor), they have no place for a map (the few places that could hold it are covered with ads), so the map is posted on the window, and is remarkably unreadable because of the combination of bright white letter outline, an otherwise transparent background, and the fact that you have to lean over a sitting person to see anything unless you have perfect vision and the train is on that rare spot of railroad where the train is not tossed sideways because the tracks are so old.

And it's not cheap. One pass ticket costs nearly $1. It was cheaper to take a bus in LA where median salary is several times higher. The subway is so popular only because it's rather fast with the roads being totally jammed in rush hour (and the buses go with them since there are no dedicated bus lanes). Except for speed, pretty much anything else about Moscow subway is horrid, unless you are a tourist who values the beauty of central stations and was brought there once and in off-peak hour.

Um... if you think that's bad, all I can say is you haven't used public transport in the US. To pick just one thing -- the subway in NYC isn't air conditioned. In a city that regularly sees 80F-95F temperatures with high humidity. In the summer, the subway doesn't make you just sweaty; it makes you pour sweat out of your body. Entering the stations feels like descending the mouth of hell.

And in NYC, the subways break all the time. Like when it rains. Because, you know, that never happens in the city :rolleyes: And again, passenger density in Moscow is no greater than on the green line in NYC. Shoving is worse in NYC. And for the record, I rode the subway I'd at least 600 times.

Or in SF, it's a minor miracle when elevators and escalators work. Or when muni gets you places reasonably quickly. And you see stuff like, well, your halfwit muni driver pulling over to fire up her crack pipe. Or a banger dropping his gun down his pants. Or street trash with an odor noticeable 20 feet away physically assaulting passengers. Etc.

You'll note that in my original post, I compared it favorably to American public transport. The fact that you haven't mentioned, in two exchanges, any comparison except price in LA where Moscow is worse than American transport makes me believe you aren't aware of any. Quoting myself: "Better public transport, at least in Moscow, than anywhere in the US."

I indeed haven't seen much of US transportation, only MTA buses in LA which seemed nice (they can even carry bicycles on the outside). European subways are not perfect but totally reasonable, definitely better than Moscow. Frankly it's hard for me to imagine that most public transit in the US is worse than in Moscow. I'll have to see it to believe it, hope will be able soon :)

I've had problems with Muni, but uh, nothing ever that bad. The bigger beef for me is that on most bus routes, from A to B less than a mile, you can outwalk the bus.

Lots and LOTS of delicious crepes, everywhere you go!

It's par for the course in most of the world that an alien loudly mouthing off about politics will be run out of town. There are probably less than ten countries where that's not the case.

The War Nerd is hit and miss. The article on carriers from a couple years ago is so stupid and uninformed I'm not sure how seriously to take anything else.

I always thought they had incredible longevity, and attributed that to Russia. They were a small English-language rag who made money off advertising bars - they were no threat to the powers-that-be over there (until they were). And the libel law was such that they couldn't be sued for the libelous things they wrote about the rest of the world.

Not that the matters. they were in Russia because they loved living there. Ames is one th record as hating the "beigeocracy" of America. Given a choice between living in Moscow, living the Hungry Duck years, flaming high and living large and publishing from America and lasting a few more years... I know what choice I'd make, and I guess history knows what choice they made.

Anyway - thank the heavens they lasted as long as they did, as alive as they did. Thanks for all the stuff that still trickles out now. It's more than we have any right to expect.

"Every time you come from Russia to America, you feel as if the world has stopped rotating. The feedback wail of corruption, scandal, intrigue, and murder is cranked up so high over there that America sounds like elevator music by comparison. Days go by very slowly in America, and you can waste a lot of time hoping for something to happen."

-- http://exiledonline.com/the-last-puppet-show-an-eyewitness-a...

Amazing (and awesome) to see that several HNers are Exile fans. I always viewed their paper as a kind of startup, except the goal being to piss off the establishment rather than make money.

c'mon, nobody has been impaled or had his head axed (and having an American passport does help immensely in that regard in Russia). In general there is an unbelievably great progress on impalement made during the mere recent five centuries in Russia (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037824/). Just wait a couple thousands years more and the freedom of speech and other human rights may start gradually coming to Russia (my beloved - the farther i'm from it, the more beloved - Fatherland)

It has always stymied me why Russia is so messed up when almost every Russian I meet seems to be great and cynical. Maybe Russia being messed up makes the Russian people great... And maybe unlike Americans Russians can conceive of corruption in government....so. Maybe you couldn't have one without the other.

> ... almost every Russian I meet seems to be great and cynical. Maybe Russia being messed up makes the Russian people great...

No. Russia being messed up makes some of the relatively well educated and open minded Russian people leave the country, and that results in the very skewed representation of Russians.

Um, yeah, right. I know you're kidding, but it's in really bad taste.

Having an American passport didn't help this guy from getting axed in 2004: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Klebnikov

Having an American passport didn't help this guy get threatened repeated times through the 90s and 2000s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder

Re: Klebnikov - even American passport can't stop bullet of TT.

Re: Browder - compare with the Browder's Russian lawyer fate - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky - the 37 years old guy dies after 11 month in pre-trial detention vs. "Bill Browder was expelled from Russia as a national threat"

We need more people like him, just to remind us of the absurdities we pretend or choose not to see every day.

Is The Exile online somewhere, at least partially?

To answer my own question: http://exiledonline.com/the-exile-archive-page/

My favorite eXile article of all time has to be "Embrace the Pain" : http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7347&IBLO...

the exile owned so hard. i wonder what the whole story is on the exchange at the end of the article? i can't really imagine matt taibbi throwing coffee in someone's face.

What a brilliant article. I never heard of The Exile and hardly knew of Taibbi's drug-infused past.

I read war nerd mostly. The rest of the paper didn't interest me so much. The unique thing a out war nerd was that even though he was too much to take for me, and sometimes I believed he was wrong, he presented such a different, enlightening and refreshing perspective.

It is rare to find in America any one who is truly politically incorrect. And the repetition ofvthe party talking points is so dreary.

But war nerd was genuinely politically incorrect.

How can you know what you think might be right if you don't test it against some one who thinks differently, and war nerd was so very challenging for me. Ill always thank the exile for that column.

Big fan of the Exile here too. They had really great writing in a way, one moment they're talking about some business scheme in some remote part of the world, then it's about a point a classic Russian writer once made, then it's onto some other topic. It was a glorious, anarchic splatterball of writing and it was great!

And the the way they built themselves and their motivations to keep it going are so far out as to be mythical. I still wonder if maybe they weren't a classified spook project, because no way could any normal business get away with writing about what they did from inside Russia! Someone had to have pulled some strings on their behalf.

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