By the beginning of 2014, Lenta.ru became the main socio-political publication in Russia and the fifth largest website in Europe by audience size. Two million people read it every day. In their memoirs, the founders, managers and employees of Lenta share the secrets of working as a journalist, explain how a small news site turned into a market leader - and what it took to do this. “In a year, we crossed the mark of one hundred million visitors, our publications were read by one and a half billion times, one of our publications received a million views, our photo stories were viewed 30 million times, and our videos 13 million. We rejoiced. We believed that we had won. We thought that we could do it without the help of government agencies, without PR technologies and purchased traffic, without investments and jeans, without invited stars and effective managers to become the largest independent media in Russia. We were confident that we had changed the rules of the game. We had two months left.” Anton Nosik – journalist, startup manager, popular blogger, one of the “fathers of the Runet”; in 1999 he founded Lenta. ru", worked as its editor-in-chief until 2004. Daniil Turovsky is a journalist, from 2007 to 2010 he worked freelance for the Kommersant newspaper; wrote for Esquire, “Big City”, Openspace.ru; in 2011–2012 – editor of the magazine “Afisha”; in 2013–2014 – special correspondent for Lenta. ru" Dmitry Ivanov - philologist, journalist, since 1996 - employee of the Department of History of Foreign Literature, Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University; in 1999–2014 worked at Lenta. ru" translator, night editor, monitor, chief editor, deputy chief editor, head of the text control department; headed the subsidiary projects of Lenta - vip.lenta.ru and Lentapedia Vyacheslav Varvanin - editor, worked at the Kommersant Publishing House in the 1990s; from 1999 to 2010 - in Lenta. ru" in various positions, the last one is development director Anton Lysenkov - journalist, editor, screenwriter; in 2000–2008 worked at Lenta. ru" - editor of the night shift, presenter of the "Mass Media" column ("Internet and Media"), monitor worker, production editor, foreign correspondent Yulia Shtutina - historian, journalist; from 2005 to 2009 – editor at Lenta. ru”, headed the column “About High” (“Culture”) Dmitry Larchenko – editor, web producer; worked at Lenta. ru" with breaks from 2003 to 2012 - news editor, chief editor, head of the special projects department and “Motor” applications Artyom Efimov – journalist, editor, screenwriter; in 2006–2012 worked at Lenta. ru" - news editor, special correspondent, editor of special projects "Days of Eclipse" and "Country that Does Not Exist" Elizaveta Surganova - journalist, translator; in Lenta. ru” worked as an editor in the columns “About Advertising”, “Internet and Media”; after “Lenta” - Forbes columnist Andrey Konyaev - mathematician, journalist, since 2011 - assistant at the Department of Differential Geometry and Applications of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University; in 2012–2014 - employee of Lenta. ru”, since 2012 he has headed the “Science and Technology” column. Alexander Amzin is a journalist; in 2005–2010. worked at Lenta. ru” – headed the “Economy” section, then IT; in 2010–2011 – manager of relations with foreign media at Yandex; since the end of 2011 – independent media consultant and analyst, participant in the relaunch of Lenta. ru"Ivan Kolpakov - journalist, editor, from 2001 to 2011 worked in Perm publications (in 2008-2009 - editor-in-chief of the magazine "Companion magazine", in 2010-2011 - editor-in-chief of the online newspaper " Salt"); in 2012–2014 – Head of the New Media and Special Correspondents Department at Lenta. ru" Konstantin Benyumov - journalist, editor, historian; in the 2000s he worked at Kommersant, collaborated with RBC-daily and Vedomosti; in 2010–2014 - editor of Lenta. ru", in 2012 he headed the "Internet and Media" column. Andrey Kozenko - journalist, editor, worked in the newspaper "Saratov", in the Lower Volga edition of "Kommersant", from 2005 to 2012 - correspondent of the "Society" department of the federal "Kommersant"; from 2012 to 2014 – special correspondent for Lenta. ru"Kirill Golovastikov - journalist, philologist; in 2008–2014 worked at Lenta. ru" - news editor, monitor, cultural observer, also headed the "Culture" department and ran the editorial Twitter. Irina Meglinskaya - curator, expert in the field of photography, from 1998 to 2008 headed the photo service of the publishing house "Afisha", in 2010 founded gallery "Meglinskaya"; in 2012–2014 – photo director of Lenta. ru"Alexander Polivanov - journalist; in 2006–2014 worked at Lenta. ru" - news editor, head of the "Economy" section, deputy editor-in-chief. Svetlana Reiter - journalist, in 2012, interned at Columbia University from the Paul Klebnikov Foundation, laureate of the "Politprosvet" prize in 2013; in 2013–2014 – special correspondent for Lenta. ru"Galina Timchenko – editor, 1996–2000 – employee of the Kommersant Publishing House; From 1999 to 2014 she worked at Lenta. ru" - monitor, chief editor, and since 2004 - editor-in-chief