‘The whole country will feel it soon’ Meduza’s Russian readers on life inside the Kremlin-approved Internet

This fall, mobile Internet has finally begun to return to Russia’s regions after months of regular shutdowns, allegedly imposed to counter the threat of Ukrainian drone strikes. But what’s coming back isn’t full access to the web — it’s a “whitelist” of Kremlin-approved sites accessible even when the rest of the mobile Internet is cut off. We asked our readers in Russia to share their experiences with the new system. Below are some of the most notable responses, translated into English.

The following responses have been lightly edited and abridged for length and clarity.

A., Voronezh

The “list” first went live here on September 16. Mobile Internet went down again, but unlike before, some services still worked normally: VK, Wildberries, even the eXpress messenger, which is supposed to be our official work chat (though in practice, everyone uses another one that’s blocked).

Objectively, it does feel like having the whitelist is better than nothing. It’s like having a flashlight instead of a candle when the power goes out. But the idea that someone might decide everyone’s satisfied and that no one really needs the other sites is depressing.

As for sites and apps not on the whitelist, I can only access them through home Internet with a VPN, which I constantly have to turn on and off. Some things won’t work without it, others won’t work with it.

M., Nizhny Novgorod

Some of the whitelisted services work. Yandex and VKontakte open, but the rest don’t — including [the Russian government’s public services portal] Gosuslugi and banking.

I’m completely dissatisfied. To access other sites, I have to rely on public Wi-Fi around the city: smart bus stops, shopping malls, and so on.

Our only hope is you. Support Meduza before it’s too late.

N., Krasnoyarsk

I call taxis from home and download podcasts in advance. Everyone in my neighborhood ends up standing around in supermarkets for the free Wi-Fi. Taxi drivers ask, “Where are we headed?” and also try to catch free Wi-Fi.

Anonymous, Volgograd region

I encountered the “whitelist” for the first time a few days ago. From about 10:30 p.m. until six or seven in the morning, MegaFon didn’t work at all (you could still make calls, but there was no Internet). On Beeline, only RuTube, Ozon, Yandex’s search site, and Zen loaded. Try opening google.com in the browser — no Internet. But the Yandex page came right up.

Of course I’m not happy about the whitelist! Honestly, it’s complete crap (sorry, but I’m furious). Reliable sources of information, video games, Wikipedia, ChatGPT, cloud services, Twitch — basically everything I use — stopped working. I try not to use those crappy Russian services. Oh, and Google Play didn’t work either, so I couldn’t update any apps.

I., Tula

At first, during the mobile Internet shutdowns, nothing worked. Now they’ve brought these services back, so things are a little easier. At least I can watch a movie at home in the evenings. I don’t have wired Internet at home. I used to get by with mobile Internet and a router with a SIM card. That stopped working in June. In September, the whitelist appeared. At least now I can order a taxi — before that, it was difficult, so I relied on public transport.

To access sites outside the whitelist, I use free Wi-Fi in cafés, hookah bars, and public places. I also use a VPN for some resources.

Anonymous, Barnaul

For basic needs, it’s enough, but the sense of control and pressure never goes away. It feels like surveillance. I need open access, mostly to Telegram, Instagram, and YouTube — those are my work tools.

If I connect to a VPN over Wi-Fi and then switch back to mobile data in the whitelist zone, the VPN doesn’t always disconnect, and then everything loads. But through the whitelist itself, my VPN services won’t start.

E., Ulyanovsk region

Our company happily took the opportunity to enable the whitelist on the tower near our workplace and basically never turn it off. What’s available: Gosuslugi, Beeline’s customer portal, Wildberries, Ozon, Yandex Music (I don’t use any of them, but those definitely work).

I think most people in the region haven’t even noticed the whitelist. But my colleagues and I are the “lucky” ones. We pay the same subscription fee as everyone else, only now the content we get is “high-quality” and vetted.

In our case, to reach sites outside the whitelist, you have to wander around the grounds with your phone held up to the sky, hoping to catch the neighboring tower, where the whitelist gets disabled once the drone-threat alert is lifted. It feels like being a kid again, when you had to stand on a stool by the window to catch a signal. A strange sort of nostalgia.

Anonymous, Omsk

There is a real need for the rest of the Internet! Banking apps don’t work, by the way — not even Yandex Pay.

As for other sites, there’s no way to access them. At home you can use your Wi-Fi, but otherwise — welcome to the Cheburnet [domestic Internet] era. I get the sense the whole country will feel it soon. First they restrict mobile Internet, then everything else. I can just imagine how much money there is to be made off this whitelist. Want your site visible again? Here are the fees. So yeah, just great.