Passport Magazine’s Fourth Birthday!
 Passport magazine is celebrating its fourth birthday in Moscow this month. We have published 48 issues and printed over a million copies to date. PASSPORT magazine was the brainchild of Glen Cox and John Harrison who both worked for InterMark Company. Glen was the sales manager of RPN Residential Property News and John Harrison was the Editor of CRE Commercial Real Estate News. In October of 2003, Editor Quinn Martin and his partners conceived and printed the first pilot magazine from a makeshift office in an apartment. About 5,000 copies were printed. On the cover was Alan Thompson in a kilt. Today Alan is known better for his Scottish Stromash events.
In 2004 John Ortega bought the majority shares of the company. John Harrison decided not to leave his cozy job at CRE and Quinn and Glen ran the magazine together. In May 2004 PASSPORT Magazine moved to offices at 29 Usacheva Street. At this location Quinn, Glen, Marina Sinitsyna, Slava Molokova, Yury Kunetsov and Sergey Solomahka did their magic to produce the next eight issues. In December of 2004 Quinn moved back to the U.S. and we hired a new editor from St. Petersburg: Jeremy Noble. Jeremy is an experienced writer and cultural PR person working at the Marinsky Opera and hailing from Britain.
Our Editorial Mission
We firmly believe that the better people understand their surroundings and the Russian community of which they are a part and the better informed they are of the opportunities which exist for them, the more likely they are to take an active role in the community and to make the most of the their lives in Russia. Through an interesting editorial mix, colorful photography, and professional design and layout, PASSPORT Magazine aims to become the premier English-language lifestyle publication targeting foreign residents – expats – in Russia. Recognizing that there are many people in Russia who are less fortunate than the average expat, PASSPORT is committed to raising awareness for charity organizations and other noble causes, and will encourage others in the community to do the same.
Why Another PASSPORT Magazine?
We are not the only PASSPORT in the world. There’s another Passport Magazine in the U.S.: the largest Gay and Lesbian magazine in America. But we are different!
In Russia, by law, every foreigner is required to carry his or her passport at all times. PASSPORT Moscow’s goal is to be as essential a document. We take the best of what is happening on Russia’s vibrant cultural scene and present the information in a way that foreigners can understand and enjoy. PASSPORT Moscow is a lifestyle magazine, but it also prints topical features on business, real estate and current affairs which are important for foreigners to understand if they are to be fully informed.
PASSPORT Moscow strives to be a community bulletin board for the foreign community. We print news about embassy and business social events, and essential tips and information diffi cult to find in other publications. The magazine was launched in October 2003 with a print run of 5,000 with 20 pages. We now have, depending on advertising, up to 60 pages of essential reading with a press run of 40,000 copies a month, which are then distributed to 375 outlets in Moscow alone. The pass-along of the magazine from reader to reader creates a readership among English-speakers and Russians that dominates the foreign community here.
I would like to take this opportunity to say Happy Birthday to PASSPORT Magazine and thank the original writers and editors for their help in making us number one!
John Ortega, Publisher
Writers and Editors and Partners
Glen Cox
J. Quinn Martin
Jeremy Noble
John Harrison
John Bonar
Anna Kulyagina
Marina Sinitsyna
Alex Osipovich
Stephen Dewar
Vernon Howell
Dylan Markov
Timur Beslangurov
Daniel McLaughlin
Elizabeth Buchanan
Carolynne Wheeler
Jennifer Cherkasova
Yevgeny Akimenko |
Eric Baum
Marina Nikolskaya
Clem Cecil
Samantha Gee
Olga Nikitina
Linda Lippner
Charles W. Borden
Jillian Ong
Sarah Fishburn Roberts
Simon Roberts
Michele A. Berdy
George Dubenetsky
Daniel Klein
Piers Gladstone
Lev Marzeev
Marina Orlova
Jason Platt |
Liza Azarova
Andrey Vodenikov
Ram Kumar
George Voloshin
Raymond Stults
Alexey Gorov
Alexey Zhukov
Ruslan Sergeev
Denis Manko
Serge Golovach
Olga Slobodkina-von-Bromssen
Natalia Shuvalova
Stephen Lapeyrouse
Ian Mitchell
Oleg Kirpach
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Overview of PASSPORT Magazine
PASSPORT is free, full-color and glossy, and written for expat’s living in Moscow. It is published twelve times a year; it is a reliable and entertaining source of information about what is happening in the local expat community, as well as topics of interest in the city and the country at large.
PASSPORT strives to use primarily native English-speaking, freelance journalists to write on a variety of topics with direct relevance to an expat’s life in Russia. These include profiles of interesting people, charities and businesses, practical how-to articles designed to make life easier, and a wide range of features on travel, art and life-style.
PASSPORT is published with the intention to be interesting, entertaining and informative to anyone who is either living in Russia on a full-time basis, or spending a significant portion of their time here – in short, ‘expats’. Because PASSPORT is free to our readers, all revenues come from our advertisers and we encourage advertising by demonstrating our great expat demographics of high-income, culturally active and educated readers whom we survey on a regular basis to discover their interests, buying patterns and reading preferences.
There were approximately 14 free, English-language publications (magazine and newspaper format) available in Moscow when PASSPORT was born in 2003; many of these publications are gone now, but our magazine continues to grow and serve our community!
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