December 14, 2023

A QR Crackdown


A QR Crackdown
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny being detained on Tverskaya street in Moscow, 2017. Evgeny Feldman, Wikimedia Commons.

The Moscow Department of Media and Advertising has banned the placement of QR codes on billboards in what appears to be a direct response to recent protest actions by associates of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

On December 6, in prominent locations across the city, Navalny's allies hung banners that featured QR codes redirecting those who scanned them to the website "Russia without Putin."

"I ask all advertisers to exclude the use of QR codes. The placement of a QR code that works as a link to an internet resource containing different and changeable content may contain information that violates the 'On Advertising' law, especially taking into account the increase in hacker attacks and hacking of information systems and sites," wrote Ivan Shubin, head of the Moscow Department of Media and Advertising.

The move is the latest in an escalating campaign to suppress dissent. Navalny's associates have embraced new technologies like QR codes to spread their message without triggering criminal charges for unsanctioned gatherings. Some see it as an innovative means to speak the truth in an increasingly repressive regime. For authorities, that creativity itself is now the target of new laws. With this prohibition on protest billboards, the already narrow space for political speech has become even tighter.

According to Sirena, Vyacheslav Gimadi, a lawyer with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), noted that Moscow authorities do not have the legal right to prohibit QR codes on billboards. At most, city officials can issue non-binding recommendations against placing QR codes, rather than enacting an outright ban. So, while authorities are attempting to discourage the use of this tactic, their threats may have more bark than bite.

You Might Also Like

Repression Impacts Lawyers
  • October 17, 2023

Repression Impacts Lawyers

A court in Moscow has ordered the arrest of lawyers representing Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, charging them with participation in an "extremist community."
Navalny, Lexiconvict
  • September 06, 2023

Navalny, Lexiconvict

The Russian Supreme Court upholds a Kafkaesque ban on Navalny using prison slang.
Navalny Launches Antiwar Campaign
  • June 21, 2023

Navalny Launches Antiwar Campaign

Politician and political prisoner Alexei Navaly is launching a "big propaganda machine" to counter Putin and pro-war propaganda.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955