Free Media Awards 2013
Yakutsk Vecherniy - Russia

The weekly newspaper Yakutsk Vecherniy has been published since 1994 in the Yakutsk region of northern Siberia.

Under the leadership of Editor-in-chief Maria Ivanova, the bold, voluminous regional newspaper covers both environmental destruction and corruption.

In the winter of 2011/2012, the newspaper sent its own correspondent to Moscow to cover the demonstrations in the capital city. Before that, the newspaper opposed raising a memorial to Stalin.

In 2005, the weekly newspaper sued the city administration for overly hard taxation of the citizenry. The newspaper is embroiled in several court cases, and its journalists are used to State agencies’ attempts to control them.

Yakutsk Vecherniy was nominated by Moritz Gathmann in Moscow.