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 personPromoterAir date
Alexander IIDirector of RAS Russian history institute Andrey Sakharov30 November 2008
Fyodor DostoyevskyRF Ambassador in NATO Dmitriy Rogozin9 November 2008
Catherine the GreatGovernor of Krasnodar Krai Aleksandr Tkachyov16 November 2008
Ivan the TerriblePainter Ilya Glazunov14 December 2008
Vladimir LeninCPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov23 November 2008
Dmitri MendeleevProfessor, vice-president RAES Sergei Kapitsa26 October 2008
Peter the GreatRF Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin12 October 2008
Alexander PushkinPushkinist and Soviet dissident Yuriy Kublanovskiy17 December 2008
Alexander NevskyMitropolit Kirill5 October 2008
Joseph StalinGeneral of army Valentin Varennikov19 October 2008
Pyotr StolypinFilm-director Nikita Mikhalkov21 December 2008
Alexander SuvorovFederation Council of Russia speaker Sergey Mironov2 November 2008

Results

  1. St. Alexander Nevsky, the Grand prince of Novgorod and Vladimir
  2. Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister of the Russian Empire
  3. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier, Generalissimo of the Soviet Union, who led his nation to victory in World War II
  4. Aleksandr Pushkin, a writer and poet
  5. Peter I "the Great",, the First Emperor of Russia
  6. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, a revolutionary and the founder of the Soviet Union
  7. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, writer
  8. Alexander Suvorov, the Russian Imperial Army general
  9. Dmitri Mendeleev, a chemist and the inventor of the periodic table of elements
  10. Ivan IV "the Terrible", a tsar
  11. Catherine II "the Great", an empress
  12. Alexander II, an emperor, who abolished serfdom in Russia

    Other editions

Other countries have produced similar shows; see Greatest Britons spin-offs