MOSCOW – Thousands of Russian internet users have been piling up on the Clubhouse audio-based chat app, which has become the ideal place to vent about life in an authoritarian political system everywhere.
This week was full of Clubhouse news. On Saturday, Elon Musk publicly We invite Russian President Vladimir Putin for an in-app chat. Another avid user of the Clubhouse is Luiza Rozova, a 17-year-old girl alleged by the independent Russian media as Putin’s illegitimate daughter. She recently used the platform to share ideas about her university degree, her aspirations for a career in fashion and her apparent affinity for uncontrolled conspiracy theories. And in an unusual public display of opinions on a typically secret topic, 300 Russian journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders joined an open room at the Clubhouse to discuss the espionage case against one of Russia’s top reporters covering military matters, Ivan Safronov, who has been in prison on charges of treason for more than six months.
In July, the Federal Security Service arrested Safronov, placing him in Lefortovo, one of Moscow’s most notorious prisons, where he faces up to 20 years in prison. The agency accused Safronov of working for the Czech secret service and passing on confidential information about the Russian military. Investigators say the U.S. was the final recipient of the secret information provided by Safronov in 2017.
“It has been almost seven months since Ivan was put behind bars; your accusers probably hoped that there would be no public attention to your case by now, ”said Safronov’s friend, Ilya Barabanov, who was one of the top five speakers in the Clubhouse discussion.
Some users of the Russian Clubhouse compare the platform with the 1980s broadcasts – or Television Bridges, as they were known in the USSR – shared between the Russian and American audiences. Soviet and American journalists organized bridges to connect Moscow, Leningrad, San Francisco, Boston and other cities for discussions about history and trends in culture, journalism or lifestyles.
Just as bridges did more than 40 years ago, the Clubhouse now offers a platform for some unexpected speakers, including Putin’s alleged daughter, who used the app to talk about her thoughts about working in New York, Paris or Milan by calling o cities “fashion boiling points”. (The Kremlin has denied that she is related.)
Rozova opened for Andrei Zakharov, author of “Iron Masks”, an investigative report in the Proekt media narrating the life of his mother, the fabulously wealthy Svetlana Krivonogikh. According to Proekt, Krivonogikh has a net worth of $ 101 million. She has been “known” to Putin since the 1990s, and her daughter, Luiza, “has an incredible resemblance” to the Kremlin leader, according to the report. Rozova did not comment on this aspect of Zakharov’s story, but admitted that he liked the popularity it brought to his social media accounts.
Thanks to the Clubhouse, the Russians now know that Rozova does not watch television, receives news from the Telegram app, believes in pandemic conspiracy theories and approves the assassination of political dissidents by the Kremlin. Before Zakharov even joined the discussion, a Clubhouse user asked Rozova what she thought of Putin’s comment on Alexei Navalny’s poisoning, in which he said that if Russian special services wanted to kill Navalny, “they would have ended this. ”.
Rozova replied without hesitation: “The ‘Golden Billion’ society is behind all this trick with the coronavirus. It turns out that they are killing people, ”said the teenager. “If ordinary people can do that, why can’t the government, for reasonable purposes?”
Still, there is no safe place against ubiquitous Russian corruption. The government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta is warning citizens about buying invitations to Clubhouse discussions, urging them to “not give in to the excitement” and “not to pay for invitations from strangers”.
Russian bureaucrats at all levels, from regional officials to the Kremlin administration, are also participating in Clubhouse talks. This includes former deputy prime minister and current president of the International Chess Federation, Arkady Dvorkovich, who used the app on Monday to answer questions about Russia’s plans to host the Chess Olympiad, announcing that it expects ” to hold the Chess Olympics in Moscow next year. ”
The Kremlin’s political opponents are also exploring the possibilities that come with this new social medium. Valery Kostenok, a 21-year-old politician and member of the Yabloko party, downloaded the Clubhouse to his phone on Wednesday. “I was skeptical at first, as it was rumored that someone was recording all the conversations and leaking them. But I realized that I have no secrets from anyone and decided to download the app, ”he told The Daily Beast. “The pandemic, police arrests and harassment have made many of our favorite platforms and spaces unavailable. Russians are big fans of public lectures, debates and discussions, so our young people are invading the Clubhouse rooms. “