SovBel Passion, Or How Berezhkov Wanted to Beat "Charter"

But even the blocked "Charter" is six times more popular than "Sovetskay Belorussia" (SovBel).

Former general manager of "Dinamo" ice hockey club and former head of marketing department of ABFF Vladimir Berezhkov remained without work again. On February 6 editor-in-chief of SovBel Pavel Yakubovich was removed from office. Berezhkov who ran Alfa-Radio - the website and Internet-television - also lost his position after only three months at work.

In his interview to Tribuna Berezhkov told how "Sovetskaya Belorussia" tried to beat the traffic of "Charter97.org:

- Once I told them one simple thing: "Someday we will beat the Charter". It was a hasgtag, which later made fun of me. No one could believe it. As the result, we managed to do it, because the Charter was blocked. It was a bad joke. But our rating started growing. It's true. I would not say that we published everything. There was some sef-censorship, and so on. You can't afford yourself some opposition views. Let's call a spade a spade. Your hands are tied. However, we managed to increase the number of unique users and beat "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Sputnik", BelTA and approached "Charter". For three months the number of unique visitors has increased twofold. Our audience doubled.

It is noteworthy that yesterday Charter97.org was viewed more than 650 thousand times, and "SovBel" was viewed only 99 thousand times. Thus, even the blocked "Charter" is six times more popular than "SovBel".