Tracking cookies

To make our website even easier and more personal, we use cookies (and similar techniques). With these cookies we and third parties can collect information about you and monitor your internet behavior within (and possibly also outside) our website. If you agree with this, we will place these tracking cookies.

Yes, I give permissionNo thanks
Logo

Media Loft. Independent European Media

Facts and Figures

  • Located in  Amsterdam

  • Founded in 2020

  • Available in Russian and English (Ukrainian version is in progress)

  • Target audience: Russian speakers in Europe: immigrants, expats, refugees, political emigrants from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, etc.

  • Audience reach: more than 3 million/month (see stats below).

  • International team: 25+ journalists and freelancers originally from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus etc.

Context

  • Russian is spoken by 200 million people around the world. Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, often less obviously Israel or Bulgaria.
  • At least 5 million refugees from Ukraine and moreless 1 million emigrants from Russia have entered Europe in 2022.  They have become a visible part of the local community.
  • These emigrants need help with integration as well as objective information in their own language.
  • On the other hand, the European community needs help in adapting the millions of newcomers quickly and efficiently. 

Financing

  • Victoria Hoogland (Netherlands) founded Media Loft in early 2020 using  own funds.
  • ​Her primary goal was to make a significant contribution to the Russian-speaking community in Europe, provide them with quality information, and help them to integrate and adapt to new communities.
  • From early 2020 until the end of 2022 the resource was funded with 85% family capital and 15% advertisers.
  • After 24 February 2022 Media Loft took an active anti-war stance, which led to:
    - A high risk to the personal safety of the team: in Russia the penalty for an antiwar stance can be up to 15 years.
    -The exiting of advertisers.
    - A decrease in funding.  Victoria Hoogland  lost more than 50% of her family  capital in Russia.
  • At the same time because of the high degree of trust that the Media Loft brand has earned, media coverage has grown at a rapid pace.
  • As of October 2022, Instagram alone had a reach of 3 million accounts with 60,000 followers (stats below).
     

​

​We at Media Loft define our mission as to aid the:

Respectful integration of Russian-speaking immigrants into European communities by focusing on democratic European values  

 How exactly?

  1. Inform objectively, no propaganda
  2. Recognizing democratic European values  
  3. Unite Russian-speaking Europeans by creating a friendly community
  4. Protect freedom of speech, orientation, and movement 
  5. Support those who had to immigrate to Europe involuntarily 

 Media Loft context

News:  daily information and digests of foreign press. No propaganda, no fake news

Emigration: how to move to a European country safely

Integration: the immigrant crisis, how to look for work, adapting to the new culture, practical country guides.

European values/ rights protection: LGBT+ , feminism, national minorities, human rights, refugees, child protection

Education: we publish extracts from books about European countries 

Community: successful stories, events (concerts, lectures)  in Europe,  networking

Video: documentaries in russian subtitled in English on all of the topics covered above.

Media Loft in numbers:

  • More than 400 articles 
  • Instagram: 57,000 followers, 3 000,000 reach/month (October 2022). See the stats below.
  • Youtube: 5,200 subscribers, 504,873 total views 
  • Website: 30 000 views/month
  • Telegram: 24 000 subscribers

Contact us