Mikhail Aleksandrovich Iosilevich (born December 23, 1976, Gorky) — a Nizhny Novgorod entrepreneur and public figure. Together with Ilya Osipov, he co-founded the portal NN.RU in 1999 and served as its director and forum moderator; he is also the creator of a group-buying service and Russia's first Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster[1]. In 2022 he was convicted on charges of cooperating with an undesirable organization and left the country that same year[2][3].

Education and early career

He graduated from Nizhny Novgorod School No. 42 in 1993 and from the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics at Lobachevsky University in 1998[1]. While studying, he worked at the Lazer retail sections — selling cassettes and CDs — then moved into cars and internet projects; it was the latter that captured his interest[4].

He met Ilya Osipov in 1999 and they immediately decided to build something of their own. Their first employees were Andrey Shaposhnikov and Aleksey Pavlov; they set up office in Osipov's father's space, and the first loan for development — a thousand dollars — came from Iosilevich's father, repaid at a hundred dollars a month[4].

NN.RU

Responsibilities were divided: Iosilevich took charge of advertisers, external contacts, and brand promotion, while Osipov handled development and content; their shares in the business were equal[5]. For the first five to seven years, all revenue was ploughed back into advertising — starting with flyers on lampposts and pitching the project to technology companies[5].

By the early 2010s the portal hosted around three hundred forums, employed twenty staff, and had three hundred volunteer moderators; its active user base stood at twenty-five thousand people[4]. The brand spread through the city on its own: the auto-forum logo was stuck on roughly ten thousand cars, and the Group Purchase was conceived and run by the users themselves[5].

In February 2013 Iosilevich announced his departure as director and transition to honorary moderator; the portal was later acquired by the Hearst Shkulev Media holding company[1]. He remained an adviser to the president of InterMediaGroup and a member of the board of directors, while continuing to moderate the forums personally.

He valued the business at 140 million rubles in 2011, noting that nine-tenths of that figure was attributable to the brand[5]. An attempt to transplant the format to Moscow cost two years and came to nothing, though the region spawned its own spin-off projects — Dzerzhinsk.ru and Vladimir.ru; his conclusion was that every city has its own character, and what works well in one holds no interest for another[5]. In the early years all profits were reinvested; it was not until 2004 that they began drawing any personal income from the business[4].

A separate venture was the FedSP group-buying service, which operated in the Nizhny Novgorod and Sverdlovsk regions[1].

Internet business is an open game where everyone sees everything. Like chess: you cannot hide aces up your sleeve — you play on intellect alone

— Mikhail Iosilevich, Delovoy Kvartal, October 10, 2011[5]

I have more respect for people who spend at least five to ten years doing one thing

— Mikhail Iosilevich, Birzha, February 7, 2012[4]

On the city brand

When the portal ran a competition for a brand for Nizhny Novgorod, Iosilevich articulated what that brand should not be: Khokhloma and Kremlin towers point to the past, whereas the city stands for something else[5].

Nizhny Novgorod is above all a city of intelligent people. We have many universities and research enterprises; we build aircraft, submarines, ships. I propose creating a brand that will not send us and our visitors back to the distant past, but will inspire pride in our present and future achievements

— Mikhail Iosilevich, Delovoy Kvartal, 2011[5]

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

In March 2016 he converted to Pastafarianism and received the title of visionary — pastor[1]. On April 14, 2017, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was entered into the official register under number 5218010006: it is Russia's first Pastafarian church[1].

On April 5, 2018, he canonized journalist Aleksandr Nevzorov and musician Sergey Shnurov, and on May 22, 2019, he obtained a driving license bearing a photograph of himself wearing a colander — the Pastafarian headgear[1].

Public activities

He took part in truckers' protests against the Platon toll system, and in 2017 was among those detained at an anti-corruption rally in Nizhny Novgorod[1].

Earlier, he had handed the head of the Nizhny Novgorod police a camera lens smashed by an OMON officer at a rally and presented him with a pair of headphones. He described the six-thousand-ruble sum as negligible, but said the officer who broke the lens had demonstrated professional incompetence — and that, he argued, mattered far more.

In the 2004 State Duma elections he ran as a candidate for the Yabloko party.

Departure from the forums

In early April 2017, Iosilevich was banned on NN.RU "for discussing a moderator's actions" — after he questioned a decision by the forum's editorial team to change a user's password. This ended his nearly twenty-year presence on the portal he had created.

A curious end to the project. This is perhaps a fitting milestone for the NN.RU we know and that knows us. One founder is in San Francisco, the other has been banned

Criminal case

On September 29, 2020, a criminal case was opened against Iosilevich under Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code — conducting the activities of an undesirable organization — on the grounds that he had provided the premises of his café for the training of election observers run by coordinators of the Golos movement (listed as a foreign agent)[1][6].

On October 1, 2020, searches were carried out in connection with the case, including at the home of Nizhny Novgorod journalist Slavina Irina, who was a witness in the proceedings; that same day she set herself on fire outside the regional headquarters of the Interior Ministry[1].

On January 19, 2021, a second case was opened — under Article 330.2 for failure to report a second citizenship; on January 30 Iosilevich was arrested, and on April 23 a charge under Article 119 for threatening to kill was added. On August 17, 2021, he was released from custody upon expiry of the maximum permitted detention period[1]. On May 10, 2022, he was removed from a flight on which he had planned to travel to Israel[1].

On April 26, 2022, the prosecutor requested four and a half years in a penal settlement colony and a fine of 150,000 rubles. On May 27, 2022, the Sovetsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod sentenced him to one year and eight months in a penal settlement colony — finding him guilty of cooperating with the Open Russia movement (declared an undesirable organization on Russian territory) and of threatening witness Yaroslav Grach, but acquitting him on the charge of concealing Israeli citizenship[2]. The defense presented independent expert analyses concluding that the voice on the recording did not belong to the defendant, along with documents disproving the concealment of citizenship[2]. With credit for time served in pre-trial detention, less than six months remained to be served[2].

Departure from Russia

In autumn 2022 Iosilevich was released having served his sentence in full[7]. On October 10, 2022, he wrote in his Telegram channel that he had thanked everyone who had supported him during that time and had left the country together with his family: returning to Russia, he said, would mean returning to prison. He did not disclose his destination[3].

Required notices

Open Russia is an organization whose activities have been declared undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation by a decision of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia dated April 26, 2017[8].

The Golos movement was entered by the Russian Ministry of Justice into the register of unregistered public associations performing the functions of a foreign agent on August 18, 2021[6].

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (ru) — "Iosilevich, Mikhail Aleksandrovich": biographical entry
  2. Kommersant (Volga Region) — "Mikhail Iosilevich sentenced to one year and eight months in a penal settlement colony", May 27, 2022 (archive)
  3. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — "Nizhny Novgorod businessman Mikhail Iosilevich has left Russia", October 10, 2022 (archive)
  4. Birzha — Tatyana Kokina-Slavina. "I have more respect for people who spend at least five to ten years doing one thing": interview with Mikhail Iosilevich. Birzha, No. 4, February 7, 2012
  5. Delovoy Kvartal — "Mikhail Iosilevich: Internet business is an open game", October 10, 2011
  6. iz.ru — "Russian Ministry of Justice adds Golos movement to register of unregistered foreign agents", August 18, 2021 (archive)
  7. KP — Nizhny Novgorod — "Nizhny Novgorod businessman Mikhail Iosilevich released", September 2022 (archive)
  8. RIA Novosti — "Prosecutor General's Office declares Open Russia an undesirable organization", April 26, 2017 (archive)