Director General of Iran Goreslavsky became a new guest of the show "Witnesses and Gogua"

Alexey Goreslavsky, Director General of the Institute for the Development of the Internet (IRI), became a guest of the new issue of "Witnesses and Gogua" as part of the show of the meta-project "Cart Online". During a conversation with the program's host Ilya Gogua, he spoke about the development of the modern Russian media industry, the results of Iran's five-year work and the impact of sanctions on the organization.

So, in the new edition of the show, Alexey Goreslavsky commented on the situation with cultural and media figures who, after the start of the special operation, began to publicly express disagreement with state policy, left the country, and now, according to some reports, are considering returning to Russia.

"Many of these people have been living on government money for years, if not decades, with a fig in their pocket, and then they say, 'Oh, I don't like all this, I don't support all this.' This is classic duplicity," Goreslavsky said.

He stressed that in Russia everyone has the right to their opinion, but Iran must be responsible for publicly expressing its position.

"According to my observations, we really have the freest country in the world. Everyone has the right to their own private opinion," the CEO noted.

The new issue of "Witnesses and Gogua" also focused on Iran's financing of the production of socially significant online content in Russia. So, last year, the institute supported more than 70 TV series, which is slightly more than a third of all original products of all platforms released on the Russian market in 2024.

"We don't have a task to distort the market. But it seems to us fundamentally important that a significant share, a quarter or a third of the total volume, comes out with the content of the meanings that the state and society need," Goreslavsky said.

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He also stressed that patriotic content should meet high quality standards: it should feature famous media personalities or other memorable characters who will be interesting to watch.

It is noted that Iran has more financial opportunities to support major gaming projects. The situation changed in 2022, when many Russian companies developing mobile games and selling them abroad faced problems due to sanctions and the withdrawal of foreign platforms. Then IRI decided to support the Russian gaming industry by providing funding to developers to create high-quality products.

"We will give you the money. You'll beat them off. At least you won't lose, say, during production," Goreslavsky concluded.

He added that the projects, which were started back in 2021-2022 with the support of Iran, began to be released in 2024-2025. Such games include "Cutting Edge", "Turmoil", "Sparta 2035". Goreslavsky noted that they received fairly high ratings on the market.