Name of Russia (Russia TV)
Name of Russia was a project of the Russia TV channel aimed to elect the most notable personality in Russian history through Internet, radio and television voting. The program is similar to British 100 Greatest Britons and other similar projects held in different countries.
History of the project
The Russia TV Channel initially nominated 500 names who "played significant role in Russia's history", selected by the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. On 12 June 2008 the list was shortened to 50 by voting. In December 2008 the name of the winner was announced. First was Alexander Nevsky, second was Pyotr Stolypin and third was Joseph Stalin.Controversy
From the very beginning the project received heavy criticism for a number of reasons. The information pages presented at the project’s site and linked to every personality were named inaccurate and laden with trivial and inconsistent details. Internet news agency http://lenta.ru/ revealed and explained some bloopers found on aforesaid pages.Furthermore, the nature of the free voting also resulted in a certain controversy. According to the rules, the election is based on approval voting where an Internet user can vote for more than one candidates. In addition, any user can vote for any number of times. With that method, the whole system proved to be very unpredictable. Since flash mobs were allowed and no protection set against automatic bots which were clicking the button for an extended period of time, the results were changing at sheer speed. Some candidates received thousands of votes in days and suddenly rose from the bottom of the list to its top. Some bloggers also claimed that management of the project was prejudiced against certain candidates, namely the controversial Soviet-era figures Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin. The amateur site created to collect voting information from project and monitor results as graphs demonstrated that Stalin and Lenin voting score were held back, while others candidates were receiving votes in a regular way.
Frustrated by results of the voting, Internet users also created alternative sites with a similar goal, but fair, as they view it, a system of vote counting.
New rules
On 14 August, the new voting rules for the project were introduced. The system of voting remained the same, but before giving a vote a user should pass a challenge-response authentication in form of a multiple-choice question with four possible options and only one right answer. According to the project's management, this new measure is aimed to curb the 'war of machines' or computer generated votes.The twelve greatest Russians were:
| Historical person | Promoter | Air date |
| Alexander II | Director of RAS Russian history institute Andrey Sakharov | 30 November 2008 |
| Fyodor Dostoyevsky | RF Ambassador in NATO Dmitriy Rogozin | 9 November 2008 |
| Catherine the Great | Governor of Krasnodar Krai Aleksandr Tkachyov | 16 November 2008 |
| Ivan the Terrible | Painter Ilya Glazunov | 14 December 2008 |
| Vladimir Lenin | CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov | 23 November 2008 |
| Dmitri Mendeleev | Professor, vice-president RAES Sergei Kapitsa | 26 October 2008 |
| Peter the Great | RF Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin | 12 October 2008 |
| Alexander Pushkin | Pushkinist and Soviet dissident Yuriy Kublanovskiy | 17 December 2008 |
| Alexander Nevsky | Mitropolit Kirill | 5 October 2008 |
| Joseph Stalin | General of army Valentin Varennikov | 19 October 2008 |
| Pyotr Stolypin | Film-director Nikita Mikhalkov | 21 December 2008 |
| Alexander Suvorov | Federation Council of Russia speaker Sergey Mironov | 2 November 2008 |
Results
- St. Alexander Nevsky, the Grand prince of Novgorod and Vladimir
- Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister of the Russian Empire
- Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier, Generalissimo of the Soviet Union, who led his nation to victory in World War II
- Aleksandr Pushkin, a writer and poet
- Peter I "the Great",, the First Emperor of Russia
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, a revolutionary and the founder of the Soviet Union
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, writer
- Alexander Suvorov, the Russian Imperial Army general
- Dmitri Mendeleev, a chemist and the inventor of the periodic table of elements
- Ivan IV "the Terrible", a tsar
- Catherine II "the Great", an empress
- Alexander II, an emperor, who abolished serfdom in Russia
Other editions