Euroradio Chief Editor Yauhen Kazartsau Revealed How He Worked at Sputnik for Five Years and How Much He Earned

Yauhen Kazartsau

Euroradio's chief editor Yauhen Kazartsau told in the "Mediazhabba" podcast how he worked at Sputnik from 2015 to 2020.

According to Kazartsau, he got into the editorial office of Sputnik.Belarus quite by chance in 2015, when he was finishing his studies at the Faculty of Journalism. By that time, he had already worked in the editorial office of 'Bolshoy' magazine. As Kazartsau explains, he didn't feel sufficiently prepared for 'big' media and was even afraid to try: "I made a lot of mistakes, and it seemed to me that because of this, no one would take me anywhere."

He lists that he didn't go to Onliner ("because Onliner is for bearded men"), didn't consider Tut.by ("for personal reasons"), didn't dare to apply to 'Nasha Niva', and "you can't get into Svaboda [Radio Liberty] for love or money." However, the young journalist still had a desire to work specifically in a non-state publication.

He tried to get a job at the newspaper 'Belarusy i Rynak' [Belarusians and Market], but received a rather harsh refusal:

"The chief editor was like: 'Do you have experience writing articles about the financial sector? And what do you even know about economics, boy? Go away, boy.'"

As a result, according to Kazartsau, he noticed a vacancy in a media outlet about which "at that moment, nothing could really be Googled." An additional factor was convenience:

"The main plus was that the editorial office was in my building (before moving to the House of Moscow – NN). You literally just walk out, turn the corner – and it's there."

According to Kazartsau, he responded to the vacancy and got the job quite quickly.

The young journalist didn't immediately realize that it wasn't an entirely independent media outlet, but approximately a month after starting work, when he received his first salary:

"Like, from a Belarusian legal entity, but the salary amount at that moment suggested that it was something... something... (...) At that time, for a junior correspondent starting out, 800 dollars at the exchange rate in 2015 was quite good."

The editorial management itself did not hide that the publication was "very much state-owned" and Russian. At the same time, Kazartsau explains that he didn't attach much importance to it at that moment. He describes his logic quite simply:

"The management said it. I thought: so what? I read the website. I don't see any sedition. Like, am I being forced to do any sedition? No. Are there materials on the website about Nazis who... and so on? No. I was like: well, okay. Plus, I knew it was RIA, 'RIA Novosti'. And I looked at RIA – there was nothing like that. And RIA at that moment (...) – it was a major player. (...)

And there wasn't really a full understanding of what it was. And honestly, up to that point, I wasn't particularly, how should I put it, an aware guy. And I didn't particularly keep myself informed. That is, I knew some very basic things. Regarding Kiselyov, I knew the meme about nuclear ashes, but I was convinced he was just a strange, meme-worthy uncle."

The Path to Becoming the 'Dean of Journalists'

Recalling his five years of work, Kazartsau notes that in the Sputnik editorial office, "everything was about Belarus." And he himself was engaged in classic news journalism.

Recalling the editorial policy, the former journalist of "Sputnik Belarus" emphasizes that there were no direct instructions to "slander" or "sling mud." But there was a clear formal framework:

"The only thing they said was – be careful, be careful. It must be a dry news report. No quotes from anyone, just, like, several hundred people gathered there, expressed dissatisfaction with, for example, the conditional decree on 'parasitism', stated that the elections were illegitimate. The protest was unsanctioned, and it passed without arrests."

To the question of why they wrote without quotes, he replies that it was explained by caution towards the Belarusian authorities:

"Because they didn't want to get a scolding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from Eismant. (...) And they even introduced some of their own blacklists, 'whom we really don't want to see in your reports'. For example, Balkunets was on it. (...) There was dissatisfaction, among other things, with 'why you are covering protests'."

In addition, Moscow curators also expressed dissatisfaction:

"In Moscow, they became very displeased that we were writing 'в Украине' [in Ukraine]. They were like: 'No, you must write 'на Украине' [on Ukraine]". But we came up with a workaround – to write 'on the territory of Ukraine'."

The journalist also recalls that he had to push for the removal of antisemitic and homophobic materials from the website, which appeared on the initiative of certain colleagues:

"Sometimes a colleague, who is still a Sputnik radio host – it was his initiative, because he's precisely such a 'Russkiy Mir' [Russian World] proponent – liked to invite some crazy guy who called himself both a rabbi (he wasn't a rabbi) and an expert and so on, and we would publish about sodomites punishing Europe, because 'God punishes Europe through sodomites'. But by that time I already had some influence, I would start shouting – and they would remove it from the website."

At the same time, Kazartsau admits that he generally regarded many things as secondary, which did not concern his direct work: "I think: well, how does this concern me? I'm not the one doing it."

According to the journalist, over five years his role in the editorial office changed. Formally, he became an internet resource editor, but he himself describes it as an organizational function:

"Formally, it was called an internet resource editor. Essentially, I was, like, the dean of journalists. (...) I decided who would go where. I kept records for the chief editor – that was her job, but she delegated it to me, and that's how I got the position of internet resource editor. I recorded what each journalist was doing to report back to her. I monitored, assigned shifts, kept track of vacations."

At the time of his dismissal in August 2020, according to Kazartsau, he was earning 1200 dollars.

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