Ilya Varlamov

Ilya Aleksandrovich Varlamov (Илья Александрович Варламов; born 7 January 1984) is a Russian public figure, journalist, entrepreneur and video blogger.

He is the creator of author's media based on the LiveJournal blogging platform (later on Teletype). Founder of the advertising and development agency "iCube", co-founder of the Urban Projects foundation, founder and head of the "Vnimanie" foundation for the preservation of cultural heritage. He is known for his photo reports from the actions of the political opposition in Russia and in the world, as well as materials about the urban environment in Russian cities. Since 2017, he has been actively running a YouTube channel called "varlamov", in which Ilya devotes most of the materials to the topics of urban studies, politics and news in Russia and the world. As of 28 November 2022, the channel has 5 million subscribers and 1235 million views.

Biography
Varlamov was born and raised in Moscow. He is a graduate of the Moscow Architectural Institute with a degree in architecture at the Department of Residential and Public Buildings. While studying at the university, Varlamov set up a company that later developed into a group of companies named iCube with a yearly revenue of 3 million dollars. According to Varlamov, the employees were de facto authors of his thesis: «At first I was too lazy to complete my thesis. And I set up an architectural studio to do it for me».

According to Vedomosti, in 2002 Varlamov together with Artem Gorbachev founded a 3D visualisation company D. V. A. v kube.

In August 2009 Varlamov together with Dmitry Chistoprudov founded a photo agency 28-300. Its specialization was commercial photography and photo selling.

In 2011 Varlamov established a negative award Steklyanniy Bolt. It was awarded to public officials responsible for the development of Moscow for their most stupid or harmful decisions.

In September 2011 he launched the Ridus online media. In June 2012, he announced his withdrawal from the project, after which the entire Ridus editorial board changed.

In April 2012 he won “Citizen Mayor” primaries and submitted documents to participate in Omsk mayor elections that were set to be held on 17 June. However, Varlamov failed to collect the required amount of signatures and was not allowed to be registered as a candidate.

On 4 June 2012, together with Maxim Katz, he announced the launch of the City Projects foundation.

Varlamov is a bicycle activist. Starting 2013, he was a co-founder of an official Peugeot, Gitane, Definitive and Puch bikes distributor in Russia, Koleso-Kolesiko. He withdrew from the project in 2015.

In 2015 Varlamov founded his personal mass media outlet Varlamov.ru based on his LiveJournal blog.

In 2018 Varlamov joined a foodtech project Bright Kitchen, organized by a former Uber Eats manager Mikhail Reyder. The project was in charge of several tableless restaurant concepts: Vedomosti.Lunch, Varlamov.Est, Kitchen 420 and Curry On!. Varlamov’s share of Bright Kitchen amounted to 18% in 2020. The project closed in 2022.

In July 2021 Varlamov announced the closure of his LiveJournal blog. Varlamov.ru transferred to Teletype platform.

Varlamov condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On 23 May 2023, he was declared a "foreign agent" by the Ministry of Justice of Russia. According to the ministry’s website, Varlamov disseminated "inaccurate information about decisions made and policies adopted by the public authorities."

Journalism activity
On 5 August 2006 he started a LiveJournal blog as a photographer under the nickname zyalt. Later it developed into a standalone personal mass media outlet. It hit the Medialogia rating of 2020 Top-30 most quoted Internet resources. In 2017 most of his 17 million unique viewers came from Russia (74,67%), Ukraine (8,24%) and the US (2,26%). Ilya Varlamov also has an X.com and Instagram accounts, a YouTube blog and a Telegram channel.

In January and February 2022 Varlamov hosted a radio program “Che Proishodit?!” (What’s goin’ on?) on Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.

Russian protest rallies coverage
Varlamov published photo reports of many political rallies in Russia and abroad. He covered Dissenters’ marches, Strategy-31 rallies, rallies against election fraud and others. He also attended the 2018 Paris protests and 2020 New York protests.

Euromaidan coverage
Varlamov made an in-depth coverage of Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in 2013-2014. He attended the rallies in person and conducted several photo reports and live streams. He first arrived in Kyiv on 26 November 2013 when the protests started and then regularly updated his blog when the action escalated. On 23 January 2014 he covered the fighting between protesters and Berkut special forces.

Overall Varlamov created 29 materials on Kyiv protests. His photographs were used by Russian and Ukrainian mass media outlets, such as the Ukrainian edition of Forbes.

When Russia started the annexation of Crimea, he wrote a blogpost “Who invades Crimea?” with several photos of armed men in unmarked uniforms taking the Simferopol Airport. He was accused of working for Euromaidan by the Young Guard of United Russia for that post.

Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister of Russia coverage
In 2010 Varlamov entered the Kremlin pool of journalists and followed Vladimir Putin in his trips to Saint Petersburg and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. He also covered the prime minister’s trip to Seliger Youth Forum.

World Travelling
According to Varlamov, he visited 37 countries in 2016, 35 in 2017, 29 in 2018 and 37 in 2019. His reports on Turkmenistan, one of the most closed to foreigners countries in the world according to Human Rights Watch, triggered the local media. Varlamov was accused of being corrupt and working for the Kremlin. After his reports some followers claimed that his blog was banned in the country. Upon his visit to Almaty when he described the city’s problems, the chief of Almaty’s architectural department criticized Varlamov claiming that his posts were mere PR actions, nor an expert’s view.

Russia Travelling
Varlamov travels to Russian cities and writes critical posts about the organization of public transit, urban environment and city management. Being an architect, he also covers the topic of cities’ architecture. In the “Bad-Good” series Varlamov describes disadvantages and advantages of cities and towns. In his “Border” series of posts, he compares Russian border towns with nearby towns in other countries.


 * In a publication about Grozny he described the problems of transport, architecture, courtyards and access to the urban environment for elderly people and those with disabilities. After publication, the President of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov convened a meeting at the city mayor’s office, at which he said he was grateful to Varlamov for “visually showing the good and negative sides in the work of Grozny’s communal services”.
 * After a trip to Naberezhnye Chelny Varlamov called it a “city-dormitory neighborhood” and noted problems in its design. In response to the publication, the President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov said that the criticism was noted and that they needed to “take action, not be offended”.
 * In a series of posts about Pskov Varlamov noted that “Pskov is not like any other city in Russia” as “It is clean here, there is no squatter construction or much destruction, history and traditions are preserved here”. At the same time, Varlamov noted that away from tourist places, the city is characterized by “uncleaned broken roads, lack of basic infrastructure for residents, stupidity and sloppiness”. Pskov region governor Andrey Turchak noted that “Varlamov’s posts about Pskov should be a guide to action for city leaders”. After Varlamov’s visit, city services visited the places photographed by Varlamov and corrected the downfalls.
 * In a series of posts about Chelyabinsk Varlamov described the situation with the playground for 20 million rubles, which, in his opinion, consists of poor and primitive structures. In response to this, a United Russia deputy Vladimir Burmatov accused Varlamov of lack of independence, and corruption.

Varlamov annually published a ranking of Russian cities based on the size of the city’s budget per capita.

In his video blog, Varlamov published a series of videos called “BDSM” (Bolshaya doroga s merom) together with urbanist Arkady Gershman. In the series he walks around the city with the mayor and talks about cities’ problems.

Stavropol onslaught
On 26 April 2017 Varlamov was attacked upon arrival in Stavropol. The attackers spilt brilliant green and flour on him, and beat him several times. Then the attack was repeated in the city, when a white Lada Priora rammed his car. Varlamov demanded to initiate a criminal case under Article 144 of the Criminal Code of Russia (obstruction of the legitimate professional activity of a journalist) and accused employees of the YugStroyInvest company, the developer of the Perspektivny residential complex, as well as deputy general director for public relations of this company, deputy of the Stavropol City Duma Sergei Medvedev, of involvement in the attacks. On April 28, the press service of the Stavropol police reported that a pre-investigation check was being carried out, and the identities of the four attackers had been established.

South Sudan detention
On January 13, 2021 Ilya Varlamov, travelling with his wife Lyubov and Mediazona founder, Pussy Riot member Pyotr Verzilov, as well as with the European gymnasium director Ivan Bogantsev and Vadim Ginzburg on the South Sudanese territory, was detained by the military in the city of Kapoeta. According to the blogger, the reason for the arrest was the suspicion of using a drone, which was confiscated from the team back in Uganda airport. However, later in his Telegram channel he said that the Russians were then accused of lacking permission from the Ministry of Wildlife.

Social and political activities
In 2011, he founded the “Country Without Nonsense” project. As part of the project, he fought for freedom of photography in Russian shopping centers and train stations, and also fought against the illegal seizure of car parking lots.

In January 2012, he co-founded the League of Voters. Alongside him, the co-founders were famous Russian journalists, public figures and cultural figures, such as Yuri Shevchuk, Leonid Parfyonov, Sergey Parkhomenko and Boris Akunin. The goal of the project was to protect the voting rights of citizens and organize monitoring of 2012 Russian Presidential election.

In December 2018, he announced his desire to make his archive of photographs publicly available and allow them to be used freely under CC BY-SA license. Later he registered for Wikimedia Commons. On February 1, 2019, he published a message on his blog stating that he allows the use of all photographs under the terms of the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license, and began uploading photographs to Wikimedia Commons.

Omsk mayoral elections, 2012
In 2012 Varlamov accepted an invitation by a group of Omsk opposition members to take part in the “Civil Mayor” primaries. Before voting, he admitted that he had been to Omsk only once and urged voters to think carefully before casting a vote for his candidacy. He explained his wish to participate in the elections by the desire to make young people participate in politics and change in the city, as well as the desire to change Russian cities.

Before the primaries’ voting, he said he would go to the polls only if the initiative group inviting him could itself collect the 1% of signatures of city residents required for nomination. According to the results of the primaries, Varlamov won with 46% of the votes, in second place came the Omsk University lecturer Igor Fedorov, who received 16% of the votes. Varlamov’s nomination in the mayoral elections of Omsk was supported by Alexey Navalny and Artemy Lebedev.

However, Ilya Varlamov was not registered as a candidate for the post of mayor of Omsk, as the initiative group failed to collect the required number of signatures for his nomination.

Urban projects
In 2012 Varlamov set up the “Urban Projects” foundation together with Maxim Katz. Its goal was to educate and lobby in the sphere of urbanism. The founders wanted to change the way how Russian cities develop: from car-oriented to modern European way, when urban transit and pedestrian infrastructure are prioritized.

On 19 December 2019 Ilya Varlamov announced that he and the Urban Projects team finished working on the “100 Advices to the Mayor” book, which took several years. Also he started fundraising for maintaining this project, which included sending these books to the actual mayors of Russian cities.

The foundation paused its work the day Russia launched a full-scale invasion into Ukraine.

2014 Moscow City Duma election
In 2014 Varlamov became head of Maxim Katz’s election headquarters during his run for Moscow City Duma in the #5 single-mandate constituency. The campaign was built around the principle of convenient cities and modern approaches to the development of pedestrian spaces and public transport; during the campaign, modern ways of organizing courtyards and streets of the electoral district were proposed.

The peculiarity of the election campaign was that it was financed exclusively by small donations. In total, Katz’s election fund received more than 2,500 payments totaling more than 10 million rubles. The winner of the elections was the United Russia candidate Oleg Soroka, who received 32% of the votes. Maxim Katz received 23% of the votes.

2018 Moscow mayoral election
On April 19, 2018, he announced his intention to run for mayor of Moscow. Varlamov presented a 17-point program called “radical urbanism.” The program suggested opening the Moscow Kremlin for free visits and bringing back its white colour, eliminating the right to use special vehicles by city’s officials and their departmental parking, sending more resources to improving public transportation, and introducing paid entry into the city center. On May 18 he backtracked the nomination.

PastVu.com
Since the late 2000s, Ilya Varlamov, together with programmer Alexey Duk, has been developing a historical internet project PastVu.com, dedicated to collecting archive photos of different places around the world. Volunteers upload old photographs, which are dated, described and linked to the map using a developed interface in Russian and English (similarly to Wikipedia, the history of edits is saved). By November 2020, over 1 million images were uploaded to the site.

Attention! Foundation
In July 2018, he founded the Attention! Historical Heritage Preservation Fund. The foundation restores the appearance of historic buildings in Russia, individual parts of buildings, signs and other elements of the urban environment. Among the foundation’s first projects is the renovation of a door in an architectural monument of the early 20th century in Vologda, restoration of Soviet neon signs “Gastronomy” and “Grocery” on a residential building in Syktyvkar, renovation of a brick merchant house built in Kirov in 1861 and a wooden post office building in Samara region’s Bogatoye village. By the end of January 2020, the foundation had restored 16 objects, and another 10 were in the process of restoration. Fundraising goes to 4 objects: Bak's House in St. Petersburg, White Tower in Yekaterinburg, the town hall in Sortavala and the Temple of St. John the Evangelist in Anisimovo village.

Russian invasion in Ukraine
Since February 2022, Ilya Varlamov has been opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On his YouTube channel he condemns the Russian government, war in Donbass and Russia’s recognition of the independence of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR.

Awards

 * 2011 – Rotor (award)
 * 2010 – Silver camera
 * 2009, 2011, 2012 – Best of Russia
 * 2022 – Romir Influence Ranking bloggers' rating, 5th place

Family
Varlamov is married to Lyubov Varlamova. She is an architect and CEO of the Urban Planning and Architectural Design Department of iCube.

Varlamov has two children, a daughter Yelena born in 2009 and a son Lev born in 2017.