Meduza’s readers in Russia describe life under the Kremlin’s internet restrictions

Russian authorities have long blocked websites, apps, and services that have become a routine part of daily life. But this spring, the restrictions grew truly sweeping. We asked our readers in Russia to describe how their everyday lives have changed over the past few months and what new habits they have developed. Here are the most interesting responses.

Nikita

Yekaterinburg

My phone and computer have started to feel like airplanes with enormous instrument panels — switches to flip at every turn. Every service and app requires its own workaround. On my phone I use the ByeByeDPI for YouTube and Discord, and two VPNs for Telegram and everything else, which I have to switch off whenever I need to visit something like the Russian e-commerce platform Ozon or the Russian online retailer Wildberries.

On my computer I use Zapret for YouTube and Discord, and the same two VPNs for everything else. On top of that, I hunt for working Telegram proxies every day just to get a few hours off from poking at the VPN. And I have to keep the VPN’s exclusion list updated so that sites in the .ru zone load properly.

I managed to convince all my relatives to install Signal — it’s our backup channel if the VPNs go down and Telegram becomes unreachable. When the “white lists” kick in, we just call each other on mobile and send texts. We don’t discuss sensitive topics over those channels.

I’m getting used to the constant need to switch on a VPN and other tools. What I can’t get used to is the helplessness — the inability to do the most ordinary things normally. In other respects I’ve been luckier than people in some other regions: in Yekaterinburg the “white lists” run every day from midnight until morning, and a couple of times a week during the day as well, during “drone threat” alerts.

Maria

Moscow

I have an online store selling craft supplies. My target audience is women of all ages, and my main sales platform was Telegram. Was. After the blocks started, my sales fell by roughly half, and now I can barely make ends meet.

A lot of people say, “Just set up a proxy.” I did. But women over 40 have no idea what a VPN or a proxy even is. Many have no idea that anything is being blocked at all — they just chalk it up to “oh, something’s not working again” and go offline.

Some people suggest moving to another platform, like the Max messenger. Great advice. My store, which fed me for three years, is slowly dying, and I sit here watching it happen because there is nothing I can do.

I keep in touch with family and friends by phone now. No one in my close circle will download Max on principle.

I’m in a very depressed state and have no idea where to go from here. What will happen to my store, to my future? I feel like a blind kitten with no idea which way to turn. My store is the most precious thing I have — I built it brick by brick from nothing. It’s as if someone took my child away. And there is simply nothing I can do about it.

Olga

Penza

Before leaving the house I figure out how much money I need on my card and top it up. I look up routes and transit numbers in advance and take screenshots; I’ve installed offline maps. I download YouTube videos to watch during walks and trips around the city. Nothing on the “white list” opens outdoors without Wi-Fi.

I call family on mobile now, and friends living abroad via Telegram with a VPN on. I installed Max to communicate with my child’s daycare teachers — I didn’t want to make a stand. And now the dance club has moved there too, and parents I know from the daycare, and my massage therapist, and the speech therapist.

When mobile internet was cut off in our part of the city, the urge to emigrate flared up with new force. But since 2022 I’ve settled in and gotten stuck in this swamp.

Dmitry

Ural region

I’ve stopped using mobile internet altogether and rely only on a fixed connection. I read more news. I pay cash in the same places I always did: public transit, taxis, small stores.

I make calls on mobile. I still have a landline from Soviet times and use that too. I haven’t installed Max.

In smaller cities the blocks are barely felt. Cash payments are the norm here anyway, and most people use fixed internet. Many households still have not only landlines but also wired radio receivers.

Amelia

Moscow

I understood immediately: if everyone is talking about a spyware module in Max, then all Russian apps will have one. I uninstalled them from my main phone and put them on a second device with GPS, cameras, and microphones disabled — one I almost never use. As a result I’ve been spending far less money on [online marketplaces], which has in some ways made life easier for a student in an economic crisis. But the endless fiddling with circumvention tools and splitting my virtual life into two parts — personal and “Russian” — complicates everything.

But I won’t give up. I’ll keep bypassing the blocks to the very end.

In college we were essentially forced to install the damn Max. Class representatives were required to fill group chats until the number of people in each chat matched the actual number of students in the group. We somehow stuffed those chats, and the administration left us alone. In reality, though, nobody uses Max except a few uptight members of the dean’s office — and even they are gradually realizing that nobody needs Max and nobody is going to maintain contact with them there, so they write on Telegram.

This whole situation with the blocks is just awful. I’m constantly afraid things will get worse and we’ll lose touch with the real world for good.

Yevgenia

Moscow

I resisted installing Max for a long time, but when the blocks started I realized we were going to be herded like cattle into a pen. I can’t even describe the sense of hopelessness I felt at that moment.

I have several children, all in school or daycare. So you’re faced with a choice: information about your child, or your principles. I found a workaround and use only the web version of Max. That’s my small act of protest — essentially the protest of a condemned man who, at the last moment, refuses to put the noose around his own neck.

Even people who support this government ended up installing a VPN, saying “this is already too much.” I have a wide circle of acquaintances with very different views. Not one of them thinks this is right. I want to say: “What did you expect? You should have thought about it sooner.” The system doesn’t distinguish between its own people and others — it steamrolls everyone.

Yulia

Omsk

It’s incredibly annoying that every time I open an app I have to think about whether the VPN is on. If I need to visit Ozon, for example, it will throw an error with the VPN active, and after a few errors the VPN stops working properly and I have to switch servers. The whole family shares the same VPN, so I keep having to explain to my elderly mothers how to update things so everything works again.

We installed the Turkish BiP and call each other on it, or on cellular, or via Telegram with a VPN. Neither I nor the people closest to me have installed Max.

During large-scale outages I feel like a helpless little bug. If they want to, they’ll crush, ban, and shut down everything.

Oleg

Moscow

I no longer listen to music on the way anywhere and have generally started using my phone less. The apps I use to communicate don’t work. The Russian social media company VK does work, and I use it only for work.

I recently traveled to another city by train — no internet, no cellular signal. I arrived at the station and couldn’t find the person who was supposed to meet me. Then Yandex Taxi took us to the wrong place because Yandex Maps had the wrong address. The other maps didn’t work either.

But the most humiliating thing is when a customer’s payment fails at work — they can’t check their banking app to see whether the money was charged, nothing has gone through on my register, and I have to explain that I can’t hand over the purchase. People usually get very angry at me, even though I’m not at fault.

To stay in touch with relatives I have to wait until everyone gets to Wi-Fi, or call on mobile. My parents downloaded Max, but I haven’t.

There’s a feeling of isolation. The blocks don’t protect us from scammers or spies — they cut us off from each other and from the outside world. They narrow your picture of reality. If something doesn’t happen right in front of you and nobody can tell you about it, you’ll never find out. Gaps appear that you don’t even notice.

Anonymous reader

Moscow region

I’ve started staying home more. When mobile internet goes down, I can’t listen to music outside or quickly let my family know where I am, whether I’ll be late, whether everything is fine. I have health problems, and if something happens I won’t be able to reach anyone for help or even just let them know where I am. Texts and calls sometimes have outages too, at least in the capital.

I always hated cash and avoided it as much as possible, but now I have to carry at least 5,000 rubles on me — just in case.

I have no trouble keeping up with the news; I read Meduza’s Telegram channel and app. Outside of Telegram, people are in an information vacuum — they don’t know what’s happening even in their own region. I’m talking about the Ural region, where a friend of mine lives and where mobile internet has been off for several weeks now, with “white lists” in effect.

Calls are almost no problem. Mostly I just need to call my mom. We chat by phone, or she writes to me on VK. Whatever people say about it, under “white lists” it’s unfortunately the most reliable thing going.

Yevgeny

Moscow

My hatred of Putin and the government has so thoroughly saturated me that, paradoxically, I’m glad about the blocks. They infuriate the loyalists, they upset the electorate of our incompetent president — and his ratings are falling. I can put up with it, and besides, two paid VPNs are somehow still working for now.

Vasily

Volga region

I don’t keep more money on my cards than I need for the next month’s utilities. As soon as I have more, I try to immediately convert it into tools, materials, or food at the very least.

I’ve gotten out of the habit of relying on connectivity. I plan routes at home, arrange everything in advance, and switched to a per-minute phone plan. The phone itself has become a sophisticated address book that I occasionally sync with my PC. Instead of a banking app I use the browser-based personal account — it loads better and spies less.

Overall I’ve become less economically and socially active. Working with my hands on my own projects brings me more satisfaction than working with people, because the feedback is more direct. It’s much easier to predict where a workpiece will fly when a saw kicks it back than to figure out what the people around you will do next.

I stay in touch with my closest people by walking over to see them. Most of my family and friends live nearby. I’ve come to love this protocol: if someone really needs me, they’ll come to me. And if they don’t need me that badly, they’ll be too lazy to come — and they won’t bother me. Wonderful.

It’s hard to say what I think about the situation with the blocks. You should think about what you can change. Thinking about what’s beyond your control just wastes your energy for nothing.

I know how to flash routers and set up circumvention tools on them, on PCs, and on phones. When — or if — that stops working, I’ll probably stop thinking about it. One fewer activity.

My strike isn’t on the street; it’s in stopping doing what they want from me. Do they want me to work more and pay taxes? No. Do they want me to reproduce? No. Do they want me to use Runet? I won’t.

Tatyana

Moscow

I’ve started carrying cash regularly, try to save important documents and information offline, and take paper books on the subway or download something in advance. My VPN is always on — without it I’d already have gone dull and lost my mind.

I’ve come to understand more clearly that this is not the country I knew as a child, one I could go on living in. It probably won’t return to what it was anytime soon. Unfortunately, many people are only realizing this now, when we’re being deprived of basic things. I don’t see the point in leaving right this moment, but I’m slowly and steadily preparing to emigrate — that decision is made. I’m looking for jobs abroad and developing skills that might be in demand outside the country.

I’m angry at myself for not noticing the downward trends earlier, before 2022. I feel like I’m in a horror film: sitting in a sealed room that’s shrinking to the size of a box. There’s a sense of being suffocated, of someone trying to shut me up and strip away any possibility of growth: watch TV, watch stupid content, buy clothes on Wildberries, get dumber, get angry, don’t think, have children, don’t stick your head out, stay quiet, be grateful.

I’ll agree with many people that you don’t abandon your own — but for this country, we are no longer its own.

Valeria

Moscow

To call relatives in distant regions I had to install Max, because nothing else gets through there — everything else has been jammed.

I’ve started reading the news more. The harder they try to cut me off from media, the stronger my desire to consume information by the ton, as if stocking up. It feels like they’re trying to hide something — and now I’m constantly searching for that something.

Nothing can be restricted if a person doesn’t hand it over to the blockers themselves. The only ones who stopped using all the blocked resources are those who didn’t really need them much to begin with. Things got harder, there’s an added expense for a decent VPN, but in practice all resources are accessible.