On Saturday evening, Irina Pankratova, a journalist and the sole and permanent investigator for The Bell since 2019, passed away. She had been seriously ill for the past six months but fought as she knew how, to the very end, her colleagues said.
Irina Pankratova began her investigative work in the mid-2010s in her native St. Petersburg, focusing on the most “non-mainstream” but very understandable topics for people—public utilities, street trading, and contraband cigarettes. She worked at “Delovoy Peterburg,” leaving as soon as new owners, shadowed by Yuri Kovalchuk, arrived, and at RBC.
In 2016, Pankratova received St. Petersburg's main journalism award, the “Golden Pen,” for her investigation “IP of City Scale. How Spontaneous Street Trading Avoids Problems with the Police and Officials” in the publication “Delovoy Peterburg.”
She did not accept compromises, did not perceive censorship in any form, which is why she joined The Bell when the publication was just starting—because she knew there would be no forbidden topics there.
The main characters of Pankratova's investigations were people who built their business thanks to proximity to power, and in recent years—people profiting from the war. She reported on how the business empire of the “Orthodox oligarch” Konstantin Malofeev is structured, on businessmen who became beneficiaries of a major military redistribution of property, wrote about how the presidential administration creates fakes and subjugates Telegram and TikTok, and about who runs the largest anonymous pro-war Telegram channels.
For her investigations, Pankratova became a laureate of the “Redkollegiya” award four times.
Irina Pankratova's materials became a foundation for her colleagues—when Ramzan Kadyrov and Suleiman Kerimov started fighting over Wildberries, everyone quoted the investigation on how the business of Tatyana and Vladislav Bakalchuk is structured, and when Rospotrebnadzor began massively closing “Svetofor” stores—the article on how the business was built by the Schneider brothers, owners of the chain.
“Ira was never afraid of work. On the contrary, work was a focal point for her. Despite all her life energy, she was very vulnerable and defenseless in some things. Emigration was probably harder for her than for all of us. And it's clear why. First, when there were no truly independent media left in St. Petersburg, she had to move to Moscow, integrate into it, prove she was worth something. And when Moscow became home, the war started, and she had to leave the country. When she was very sad, it was useless to suggest she take a break, switch off, take a vacation—she almost always refused, saying that work gave her strength, gathered and pulled her out,” wrote The Bell.
As colleagues said, already seriously ill, Irina began dictating a book—about herself, about how she became a journalist, how she conducted her investigations. She wanted something to remain from her, it gave her strength to fight the illness.
“Ira was a very good friend, very reliable, honest, sincere. She endlessly pulled both close and distant acquaintances, colleagues, friends of friends out of troubles. She was never too lazy and always cared about other people's problems. And she really wanted people to be together, not apart...
She tells about this and about herself better than us in her book. We will gather our strength now and definitely release it,” her colleagues wrote.
The editorial staff of NT expresses its condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Irina Pankratova.
* Recognized in Russia as a “foreign agent.”