Nikolay Kononov

In 2002 Kononov graduated from the Department of Literary and Art Criticism and Publicism of the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University. In 2003-2004 he worked as a reporter for the newspapers Izvestia and Stolichnaya Vechernaya. In 2004-2005 he was a special correspondent in the Expert. From 2005 to 2010 he worked as a columnist and editor in Russian edition of Forbes. In 2010-2011 he worked as one of the four senior editors of Slon.ru. In 2011 he returned to Forbes and took part in launching the website Forbes.ru.[1]

In 2011 he published the book God without a Car: The Stories of 20 Crazy People who Made Business from Scratch in Russia (in 2012 the book was included in the short list of the literary award NOS[2]). In 2012, the second book came out — Code of Durov. The Real Story of the Social Network "VKontakte" and Its Creator. The adaptation rights for it were obtained by AR Films, a company of Alexander Rodnyansky, but the film's release (first planned for 2014) was postponed until an indefinite period.[3] In March 2014, The New York Times published a column of Nikolay Kononov, in which he summarized the further history of Pavel Durov and his social network.[4]

From 2012 to 2015, he was the editor-in-chief of Hopes & Fears – the daily online newspaper about the new generation of entrepreneurs. After the latter had been merged with The Village, Kononov became the editorial director of Look At Media.[5]

In January 2015, Kononov moved to The Firm's Secret as an editor-in-chief. Four key employees of the editorial staff followed him,[6] and then almost the entire team of Hopes & Fears left. According to Kononov, a series of decisions by the holding management prompted him to quit: first – the merge of H&F with The Village, which meant closing the business online newspaper that raised a monthly audience of about 800 thousand people in a year and a half, and then – using a successful name for a new English-language lifestyle newspaper.[6][7][8]

Nikolay Kononov was nominated for the title of journalist of the year by GQ Man of the Year 2015 Award.[9] In the same year, he entered the top of media rating Pricewaterhouse in the nomination "Media on the Internet".[10]

In the spring of 2017 came out the third book by Nikolay Kononov Author, scissors, paper. How to write impressive texts quickly. 14 lessons dedicated to practical writing techniques for journalists.[11] The fourth book The Uprising came out in 2019. This is an artistic novel based on archival documents. The book tells about Sergei Solovyov, one of the leaders of the uprising of prisoners in the Norilsk camp in 1953.[12] In 2019 the book was included in the short list of the literary award NOS.[13]

• Kononov, Nikolay V. (2011). Бог без машины: Истории 20 сумасшедших, сделавших в России бизнес с нуля [God Without A Car: The Stories of 20 Crazy People Who Made Business in Russia From Scratch] (in Russian). Moscow: Alpina Business Books. p. 231. ISBN 978-5-904522-96-4. Archived from the original on 2013-04-16.
• Kononov, Nikolay V. (2012). Код Дурова. Реальная история соцсети "ВКонтакте" и её создателя [Code of Durov. The Real Story of the Social Network "VKontakte" and its Creator] (in Russian). Moscow: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber. pp. 208. ISBN 978-5-91657-546-0.
• Kononov, Nikolay V. (2017). Автор, ножницы, бумага. Как быстро писать впечатляющие тексты. 14 уроков [Author, scissors, paper. How to write impressive texts quickly. 14 lessons] (in Russian). Moscow: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber. p. 272. ISBN 978-5-00100-651-0.
• Kononov, Nikolay V. (2019). Восстание. Документальный роман [The Uprising. Documentary novel] (in Russian). Moscow: New Publishing House. p. 310. ISBN 978-5-98379-233-3.