Julia Loktev

as a kid.

But I still followed news of what was happening in Russia.

And there was this New York Times story about

That I think the headline was something along the lines of Russian journalists getting named foreign agents and fighting back with humor.

And I think the humor was also part of what caught me in the beginning, you know, because it had this photo of these two very...

familiar to me looking girls that could have been walking down the street in Bushwick, frankly, you know, and, you know, with mom jeans and some cool t-shirts and except they happen to be foreign agents.

And Russia was declaring these individual journalists as well as media foreign agents.

And it had just started.

So, for example, like

If I was declared a foreign agent, then I would have to put this on everything, you know, not just my articles, but you'd have to introduce me.

This is Julia, a foreign agent.

If I put a cat picture on my Instagram, I'd have to put this is by a foreign agent, you know.

Absolutely.

I mean, it was this very legalistic – exactly.

The summary was I'm a foreign agent, but it was in legalistic terms, you know, saying like this has been created and or distributed by a source of mass media, a foreign agent carrying out the function of a – you know, it was in very legalistic terms.

And, for example, if I was a foreign agent and you were introducing me on this show, you would also have to state this because if you didn't say I was a foreign agent, you'd get a fine and eventually jail.

I mean, everyone was trying to figure out what on earth does this mean for us?

And there were so few people, as you said, it's kind of hard to imagine because right now there are hundreds, hundreds of foreign agents.

But at the time, it was really new.

And I had a friend, Anna Nyamzer, who was a host at what was Russia's last remaining TV channel, TV Rain.