Afisha
Afisha was a Russian entertainment and lifestyle magazine published from April 1999 to December 2015 in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and 12 other Russia's major cities. In its peak years Afisha
History
Founded in April 1999 by Moscow journalist Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper, American entrepreneur Andrew Paulson and businessman Anton Kudryashov Afisha was intended as Moscow's version of Time Out which Oskolkov-Tsentsiper and Paulson tried and failed to license. It quickly outgrew its initial purpose as a bi-weekly listing magazine and ended up having a profound effect on Moscow’s cultural and nightlife scene. In the next 10 years Afisha turned into a Russia's leading publishing house by launching an array of spin-off publications such as monthly travel magazine Afisha-Mir, alternative weekly Bolshoy Gorod, food magazine Afisha-Yeda and a series of Afisha-branded travel guide books.A team of young journalists, designers and photographers brought together by Oskolkov-Tsentsiper created a unique Afisha style which had a major impact on Russian media. Many high-profile Russian artists made their first public appearances on Afisha's front cover and the magazine popularised several new fashion trends – even introducing numerous new words into the Russian lexicon, from “deadline” to “hipster”. A number of Russia's now prominent cultural figures started their careers writing for Afisha including film directors Avdotya Smirnova, Mikhail Brashinskiy and Roman Volobuev, award-winning writers Lev Danilkin and Yulia Yakovleva and Elena Kovalskaya who went on to become artistic director of Moscow’s Meyerhold Theater.
Afisha played an active part in 2011–2013 Russian protests with its senior stuff helping to organise rallies in Moscow, publishing manifestos demanding fair election and at some point putting the opposition leader Alexei Navalny on the print edition's cover. A 2013 issue with a rainbow flag on its cover and the story "27 stories from the lives of Russian gays" played an important role in the LGBT movement in Russia.
In 2014 Afisha's parent company ProfMedia was bought by a Russian state-owned energy corporation Gazprom. Soon after the new owners have shuttered magazine's struggling print edition and fired most of the editorial staff. Plans to relaunch the Afisha as a quarterly were announced but never realized.