Alexei Wladimirowitsch Piwowarow

Alexey Pivovarov (Russian: Алексей Владимирович Пивоваров, born June 12, 1974) is a Russian journalist, media manager and documentary filmmaker. His YouTube channel Redaktsiya (eng: The Editorial Office) has amassed more than 4 million subscribers and over 1.1 billion views as of June 2023. In 2022, the Russian Ministry of Justice placed Pivovarov on the foreign agents list for his condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and longstanding critical attitude toward the Russian authorities.

Alexey Pivovarov was born on June 12, 1974, in Soviet Moscow. He began his journalism career at the age of 14 as a correspondent at the Vsesoyuznoye radio. During his undergraduate studies, he hosted at Radio Maximum.

After graduating from the Lomonosov MSU Faculty of Journalism, Pivovarov worked as a TV reporter, news anchor, and later as a film producer at the first independent Russian TV channel — NTV. Pivovarov’s most notable work there was alongside famous Russian journalist Leonid Parfyonov in his program Namedni. It has been considered the gold standard of journalism and was awarded the TEFI award numerous times, including a personal TEFI for Pivovarov in 2004.

Since February 2003, Pivovarov had been anchoring the evening news but was suspended for making a scathing on-air comment about his Namedni colleague’s unfair dismissal. Pivovarov told the audience that Leonid Parfyonov had proved it “might be better to write than to talk in Russia”. When Pivovarov was reinstated, he was barred from prime time and became the anchor of the nightly news digest Today; thus, he began producing and starring in his own infotainment projects.

In 2011, the news agency Reuters called Pivovarov “an unlikely opposition hero” after Kommersant reported that Pivovarov refused to ancho the news on December 8, 2011 if he could not inform viewers about the ongoing protests in Moscow which were being ignored by all state-controlled media. The next day, NTV covered the demonstrations in the Evening news and other channels followed suit.

Working on NTV Channel, Pivovarov has done interviews with prominent political figures of the day, such as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In 2013, Pivovarov left NTV to lead CTC Media TV Channel, launched by a Ukrainian film producer and media manager Alexander Rodnyansky. Under Pivovarov’s leadership, CTC Media grew its share in the younger demographic viewership.

In 2016, Pivovarov was appointed an Executive Producer and Editor-in-Chief of RTVi, the only global Russian-speaking TV channel with HQ in New York, NY. Under his leadership, RTVi has undergone a massive digital transformation into a modern multimedia organization, expanding its presence to all social media and mobile apps.

After launching in 2019 his YouTube channel, Pivovarov left RTVi in June 2020 in order to dedicate more time and energy to this project. In 2020, the GQ magazine named Pivovarov their Person of the Year and one of the most influential Russian-speaking journalists and YouTube personalities.

In 2019, Pivovarov launched his YouTube channel ‘Redaktsiya’[10] and a year later left RTVi to concentrate on this project.[11] The first episode of Redaktsiya featured Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky.

Redaktsiya covers many topics from politics and current events to history, crime, personal development and self-improvement. In addition to hourlong storytellings, Redaktsiya publishes shorter reports on Tuesdays and a weekly news roundup on Sundays. Part of the content is translated into English and available in a separate English Subbed playlist.

After creating Redaktsiya, Pivovarov was named one of the 100 Most Creative Russians what reiterated him as a respected and influential voice of the global Russian-speaking community, with his far-sighted perspective and engaged interviewing style.[12]

Pivovarov is married to journalist Anna Schneider and has a son, Ivan, and a daughter, Varvara.

Pivovarov's works as director and producer include an Award-winning documentary 'The Term" about the Russian opposition's reaction and protests to Vladimir Putin's third presidential term, "Bread for Stalin" about the Dekulakization -the Soviet campaign of political repressions of millions of kulaks (prosperous peasants) and their families; and also a five-part docu-series about World War II. Based on thorough research, newly released historical documents, and interviews with experts and surviving witnesses, each film sheds new light on events of the recent past, deviating significantly from the version imposed by official Soviet historiography. One of the films, Rzhev: General Zhukov's Unknown Battle, was awarded a special prize at the 2009 ru:NIKA Ceremony (dabbed the Russian Oscars). In 2011, Aleksei participated in a joint Russian-German documentary project about the events leading up to World War II, acting as producer and one of the hosts.