Name of Russia (Russia TV)

Name of Russia (Russian: Имя Россия, English: "The Name of Russia") was a series produced by the Russia-1 television channel that aimed to determine the most notable figure in Russian history through polling promoted via the Internet, Radio, and Television. Various professors, artists, and politicians would present information on the historical figure they were 'promoting', and people could then vote online for their chosen figure.

From the outset, the project received heavy criticism for many reasons. The information pages on the project website that linked to every personality (named dossier pages by project creators) were inaccurately named and filled with trivial and inconsistent details. Internet news agency Lenta.ru highlighted this and explained how ridiculous some of the mistakes were. Since brigading was allowed and no precautions against botting were taken, the voting was wildly inaccurate, with some candidates rising from the bottom of the list to the top in a matter of hours. On 14 August, new voting rules were introduced that included the use of challenge–response authentication in the form of a multiple-choice question. According to the project's management, this new measure was aimed to curb the 'war of machines' or computer-generated voting.

In his book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, author Peter Pomerantsev (working as a consultant for the Russian television industry at the time) claims the actual winner of the contest was Joseph Stalin, rather than Alexander Nevsky, and that the "embarrassed" producers had to rig the vote in favor of Nevsky.^[1]

The twelve candidates for greatest Russian were:^[2]

• Greatest Britons spin-offs

• Official site of 'Name of Russia' project Archived 30 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine
  • Running results
• 'Names of Russia' alternative project
  • Running results
• 'Unnamed Russia' project
• Greatest Russian? Czar Nicholas leads vote