We have no room in our Moscow offices anymore. Since January we have been receiving 500, 600, even 700 letters a day. Our secretaries dump mail sacks right on the floor of the reception area, and our conference rooms are filled with folders of mail. Old-timers remember how only four years ago Ogonyok used to receive no more than 20 letters a day, mostly naive poetry or the memoirs of retired people.
The flood of letters underscores the changing relationship with our readers. For the first time, we are experiencing the uneasy satisfaction of a journalism that inspires not only love...