Mediastrike is a Nizhny Novgorod media holding company founded in early 2012 on the basis of the media assets of businessman Dmitry Arzhanov. It is encountered under three names — Mediastrike, Media Strike, and MS Holding; the press simply referred to it as Arzhanov's media holding[1]. It brought together several city publications and platforms with the aim, according to its management, of preserving and developing the traditions of Nizhny Novgorod journalism[2].

Formation and Composition

For roughly two years before the holding company was founded, Dmitry Arzhanov's structures had been systematically acquiring Nizhny Novgorod media assets.[3] In December 2011, Dmitry Raskopin — who had previously served as director of the Department of Public Relations and Information of the Nizhny Novgorod city administration — was invited to lead the new entity; on 12 December 2011 he left his municipal post and took charge of the structure being formed.[4][3]

By May 2012, MS Holding comprised: the Volga television company, the Rendezvous and Business FM radio stations, the NTA-Privolzhye news agency, the Birzha publishing house with the Birzha.ru portal, the premium press center Media Strike Hall, and the multipurpose information and consulting center Media Strike.[2][5] The holding's headquarters and key editorial offices were located at the International Trade Center Varvarskaya Street.[4]

The first public events at the new venue were scheduled for January 2012: the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the newspaper Birzha and the presentation of the Birzha Plus publishing house.[4]

Media Strike Hall Press Center

The Media Strike Hall press center was positioned as the most modern and technically equipped venue for public events in Nizhny Novgorod.[4] In May 2012, it hosted a presentation of Nizhny Novgorod Mass Media as part of the International Conference "Russian Journalism of the 21st Century: Content and Formats of Contemporary Media." The event drew around 200 journalists, political scientists, and public figures from more than 50 regions of Russia, as well as representatives from abroad; among the guests were Vsevolod Bogdanov, Chairman of the Union of Journalists of Russia, Yuri Polyakov, Editor-in-Chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta, and Aleksey Kara-Murza, Head of Department at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.[2]

The hall occupied the tenth floor of the International Trade Center, a block away from the Kremlin and the regional government. The venue offered a large conference room for one hundred people, a small one for twenty-three, a VIP room for ten, an informal networking area, and a business café; the press center had its own web address — ms-hall.ru[6].

The permanent resident of the hall was the Nizhny Novgorod Expert Club — a roundtable that the holding established together with the Agency of Political News — Nizhny Novgorod, NIA Nizhny Novgorod," and the portal NewsNN.ru. Sessions were held here for several years; the club's coordinator was Raskopin[7].

Personnel changes

In June 2012, Dmitry Raskopin was appointed General Director of the Volga television company, stepping back from day-to-day management of the holding; Denis Moskvin was simultaneously appointed head of the MS Holding information and analytics center.[5] Raskopin served as General Director of Volga from June 2012 to May 2013, after which he was expected to return to the holding's structures.[1]

What Remained

The holding did not survive long as a unified structure: its assets were dispersed among different owners, and the Volga television company has changed hands more than once since then. The information and consulting agency that started it all held on the longest — but it, too, has long since moved on to other business.

Media Strike LLC was registered in Nizhny Novgorod on 12 February 2010: Dmitry Raskopin holds 80 percent of the shares, with the remaining twenty percent and the position of director belonging to Andrey Kaplan, who has held that post since January 2011. The company's primary activity is listed as software development, and its staff has been shrinking: 54 employees in 2020, 12 in 2025[8].

On 13 May 2015, the company gained a successor — MS-Kontakt LLC, registered at an address on Motalny Lane; Media Strike itself continued to exist alongside it. The new firm took up telephone call processing: Kaplan holds 90 percent of its shares, Yuri Finagin has been its director from the first day, and by 2025 the staff numbered around seventy — six times more than in the predecessor entity[9]. Of the media group, two technology companies remain: a software developer and a call center.

Sources

  1. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Media holding belonging to Dmitry Arzhanov will be headed by Dmitry Raskopin
  2. KP — Nizhny Novgorod — Dmitry Raskopin appointed General Director of TV company "Volga"
  3. Vremya N — Raskopin heads the largest media holding (archive)
  4. Newsroom24 — Representatives of the Union of Journalists of Russia became acquainted with Nizhny Novgorod Mass Media (archive)
  5. global52.ru — Raskopin Dmitry — Global52.ru
  6. web.archive.org — Web Archive — website of the press center "Media Strike Hall", snapshot of June 23, 2013 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — APN — Nizhny Novgorod — Transcript of the Nizhny Novgorod Expert Club session, March 20, 2013: list of the club's founders (archived copy) (archive)
  8. rusprofile.ru — LLC "Media Strike", Nizhny Novgorod: founders, director, type of activity (archive)
  9. rusprofile.ru — LLC "MS-Kontakt", Nizhny Novgorod: predecessor entity, founders, type of activity (archive)