Andrey Filimonov received the Pyotr Weil Scholarship

Freelance correspondent of Radio Svoboda Andrey Filimonov became the recipient of the Petr Weil “Free Russian Journalism” scholarship for 2024.

He has been collaborating with Radio Svoboda since 2016. The author of dozens of articles about political and social problems of Russia, about daily life in Siberia and the Far East, published on the website of Radio Liberty and his regional project Sibir.Realii. In April 2022, the Ministry of Justice of Russia included Filimonov in the list of “foreign agents”. He considers this decision unfair.

Andrei Filimonov was born in Tomsk in Tomsk in 1969, received a philosophical education. Writer and poet, author of many books of artistic prose, including the novels “Recipes for the creation of the world” and “Golovastyk i holy”, participant in the collection “Siberia: happiness beyond the mountains”.

The Petr Weil Scholarship “Free Russian Journalism” was established in 2009 in memory of the famous writer and long-time employee of the Russian Service on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The recipient of the scholarship is the best, according to the editors, freelance correspondent of Radio Liberty. In previous years, the Pyotr Weil scholarship was awarded to Radio Liberty correspondents in Kyiv, Crimea, New York, Sochi, St. Petersburg, Kirov, Saratov, Tomsk, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk, Pskov, Kaliningrad, and South-Sakhalin regions.

From next year, the editorial board of the Russian Service will change the criteria for awarding the scholarship: its laureates will be freelance authors of the best journalistic materials of “Svobody” at the end of the year.

The Russian Service of Radio Liberty was opened in 1953. The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty media corporation, which includes the Russian Service, sees its task as promoting democratic values ​​and institutions by addressing the audience of those countries where press freedom is limited by the authorities or has not yet become the norm of public life.