In our small city — Chișinău, there are people you know about, you follow their work/projects, sometimes you exchange emails when your projects cross paths. But when you work on a podcast, you start to meet face to face those people you follow. This one is an example.
In this episode, we will introduce you to Anya Dubeli or, as everyone in Chișinău knows her — Anya Glazkina.
Anya Glazkina is the founder of the media platform locals.md, one of the speakers of Так и живём podcast (That’s how we live podcast) and a former radio anchor and show producer.
Veronica Zubcu in discussion with Anya Glazkina:
I would like to talk about locals.md. This year, the project will celebrate its 10th year anniversary: how did it start and how did the stories it tells evolve? How did the platform change during these years?
At first, locals.md used to write only about things that can be done in Chișinău and where to go. We would write about parties, art parties, art exhibitions. There was not a single place where you would find about these events, so I thought maybe I could write about this.
One news lives only one day.
Anya about one of the recent projects locals.md did:
At some point we had a nice storytelling project: Moldova multiverse. It was about our citizens who left Moldova choosing to live abroad for a while, then coming back and building a life here, at home. We were giving voice to stories that are considered “shameful” to be told. In Moldova, if you emigrated but then decided to return, you are considered a failure. People look at you with pity: well, you tried but you didn’t succeed (obviously). We found people who would tell their stories, who are not ashamed of their experiences, moreover, life brought them back here and they are happy.
As journalists, we take responsibility. As journalists we should do no harm, titles have to represent what is in the article, it is not ethical to try to manipulate someone’s opinion.
Let’s go back in time a little bit. At the 2 year anniversary of locals.md, you had a party at which you gave out newspapers that your team worked on. Tell me more about it: how did the idea occur, why a newspaper for an online media platform and is it still printed?
I actually love the idea of the newspaper as an art object. Then, it was a newspaper made by locals.md, it was about our 2 years anniversary and it contained our best articles that were published in this 2 year period. It also includes some paid articles from our sponsors.
I remember I wanted to have a real newspaper printed on that specific newsprint paper. It was quite expensive because we had to print 1000 copies, the printing house did not work with lower circulation. We gave away about 200 copies and the rest rotted somewhere in the attic of Tipografia 5.
We made this newspaper because we call locals.md an “online city newspaper” and I just thought it is a cool idea. It doesn’t make sense for locals.md to keep producing it, but it was a fun art object at that time.
In general, I like the idea of a printed journal for Chișinău. It would not be an expensive/fancy newspaper but maybe an art magazine/zine, and inside, right in the middle, you would find a poster made by a local illustrator. It would be a zine published in samizdat! And of course it would have to be published at least once a year, which would still be better than nothing.
Zine (/ziːn/ ZEEN; short for magazine or fanzine) is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation. Among the various intentions for creation and publication are developing one’s identity, sharing a niche skill or art, or developing a story, as opposed to seeking profit.
Source: Wikipedia
We had a workshop, here in Chișinău, led by a group of Germans, where the participants had to create a magazine — it was called NOUA. It is an amazing example of how, in two weeks, a group of people can create a very cool magazine with really interesting articles. Their work was done in a short time, but why cannot such work continue? Why can artists no longer gather together to create something after the workshop ended? I don’t know why… I think our problem is that we cannot work together properly. Of course this is not always about team work issues. Money issues also play a big role: who will pay for this, who will be the project manager?
Well, in Chișinău we already have a periodic zine: it’s called MAHALA — a zine made by Nalalia Gârbu, and is also Kolhoz — by Maxim Poleakov & Viktor Vejvoda.
In most of your interviews, you talked about the local products and projects and how important they are. Do you think the publishing industry and local writers can become a national product that we could sell abroad as a cultural product?
If we talk about our local authors, of course we have some interesting personalities and ideas. I don’t really know how this works: why some of them become famous very fast in our country and abroad, as Tatiana Țîbuleac, or Natalia Osoianu who is also a translator and her books are being mentioned on Russian TV, and other don’t, even though they deserve to. There is also Vladimir Lorcenkov who moved to Canada — he published more than 10 books and was translated in numerous languages. Another one is Boris Kletinich and he wrote a book about Chișinău. There are people that are well known abroad, however we don’t know much about them in our own country.
Young authors and artists should talk about themselves if they want to promote their books or art works. They should not ignore the power of marketing and invest in their public image. This means to not get lazy and actually write a pitch, send some interesting materials to media platforms. All artists should do so but, unfortunately, most of the time they don’t do any of these things.
In conclusion, Anya gave us some advice for those who would like to start a project in Moldova.
I think the key to success is to do what you really like without expectations. As soon as you start waiting for immediate gratification, you risk disappointment because when we talk about media projects, it is not about the immediate results, it’s about the process. Don’t wait for three or five years to meet your initial expectations — just live each day and do your best. The important thing is to love what you are doing. Minimum expectations. That is my way of doing things.
We thank Anya for having this lovely talk with us and we hope she managed to inspire you as a local artist or a curious enthusiast who wants to know more.
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