Dear friends,

For the past couple of years I had the following basic “rhythm” of work: once a week I would write an analysis roughly ranging from 1500 to 3500 words, typically around 2000-3000 words.  The rest of my work would involve research (especially parsing as much of the Russian blogosphere and news media as possible), contacts with my guest authors, collaboration with our translators, etc.  Please keep in mind that I did that while also working with my wife on our small business.  This worked pretty well, but now three reasons are forcing me to change the pace:

  • The C19 pandemic has forced my wife and I to basically almost shut down our small business (which represented a major financial loss for us) and now we have to change the way we will be working.  I will spare you the boring details, but that means that I now have to spend more time working on my “day job” and help my wife.
  • I have some health issues which limit the number of hours I can work in a day (6-8 hours is my current max).
  • Frankly, I am very close to burnout and I need to pace myself.

I have therefore decided to change the way I work on the blog.  The main difference will be these:

  • I will write full-length analyses only once every two weeks.
  • Instead, I will write more, shorter, items like comments, quick reports, reactions to current events, etc.

A good example of this quick reaction post is yesterday’s post about the US Embassy in Moscow flying a “rainbow flag”:  305 words only, but a good basis for a discussion in the comments section.

In this way, I will write more often, but shorter items, and keep the (much more labor intensive) full-length analyses to a much more sustainable once every two weeks pace.

Of course, and as always in the past, if important events happen, I will immediately react to them, as will our community’s translators.

I have been running this blog for 13 years now, mostly all by myself and I am rather exhausted (try churning out a, say, 3000 words analytical paper every week for over a decade and you will see for yourself).  The one great thing which has developed over time is that I have a fantastic assistant, Amarynth, which helps me a lot with the day-to-day work on the blog, which frees me more time to do other things (mostly research).  My main goal now is to ensure that the blog continues in a sustainable pace and my main hope is that this new rhythm will be better both for you and for me.

Hugs and cheers to all

The Saker

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