INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Woodworking craftsman Roman Golov built his business up from the ground over the past eight years.Whittling everything from rocking horses
to Orthodox icons in his backyard in Ivanovo, an industrial city 250 kilometers east of Moscow, the father of two painstakingly grew his
business, occasionally falling back on casual security gigs to pay his bills
Accruing over 10,000 followers on social media, he was soon fulfilling orders from across Russia and sometimes abroad.But at midnight Moscow
time on Sunday, it all came crashing down
Instagram, the photo and video sharing app, was now blocked in Russia, ostensibly for inciting violence against Russian citizens.For many
sinking, the ruble devalued and Russia cut off from worldwide payment systems
United States -based tech giants, viewing them with suspicion as instruments of a Washington it saw as implacably hostile.In 2016,
authorities blocked professional networking website LinkedIn, accusing it of violating data retention laws.In March 2021, amid widespread
announced a rule change allowing calls for the death of Russians within the context of opposition to the invasion of Ukraine, Roskomnadzor
superseded Russian-made social media services like VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, Russian celebrities have in many cases built enormous
opposition to the war.But for small businesses, many of which had come to depend on Instagram as an inexpensive platform for marketing,
Instagram will likely continue to be accessible in Russia using VPN (virtual private network) technology, which circumvents blocks, many
Russians are unlikely to install VPNs, many of which are paid services.Instead, some businesspeople are contemplating shifting operations to
public services portal Gosuslugi invited onetime Instagram users to return to Russian-made social networks that sagged in popularity after
