Doors open during Vladimir Putin's inauguration as President in May 2012. Image from kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0. This article by Andrei Jvirblis was originally published on openDemocracy Russia and is being republished as part of a partnership between RuNet Echo and openDemocracy. As the response of Russia’s Prosecutor General to accusations of graft in December 2015 shows, nothing gets Russian public officials angrier than journalists rooting through sensitive financial information. In a letter published by Kommersant, Yury Chaika called the video by Aleksey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) not only ‘baseless’ and ‘highly false,’ but the product of ‘orders from above.’ Indeed, Chaika went on to accuse Bill Browder, the billionaire-turned-human rights activist, of funding the 45-minute video as part of a conspiracy against Russia. FBK’s latest investigation into top public officials and their circles is precisely the kind of work targeted by a new bill drafted by the FSB. This controversial initiative threatens the work of anti-corruption activists by limiting Russian citizens’ access to the Unified State Register of Property Rights and Transactions, Russia’s land registry. The authorities are sending a message: transparency and access to state information exists only so far as it poses no threat to political stability. The idea of limiting citizens’ access to information is back on the table in Russia. The 200-year-old idea of Russia’s ‘special path,’ a guiding principle for many, has also, in 2015, found fresh meaning in the development of open governance and the state’s discovery of ‘big data.’ In 2013, after membership of just over a year, Russia retracted its signature from the Declaration of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Signatory countries recognise that the state should strive for openness: increasing access to information on the activities of state institutions for their citizens, stimulating public engagement in government and implementing policies of transparency and accountability—and all through state of the art technological means. There was no official rejection of the partnership’s aims from Russian officials—there was just talk of reviewing the scale and form of Russia’s participation in the partnership, as well as developing its own ideas on this issue. That said, at the time of signing the declaration, and particularly after its withdrawal, various nationalist and pro-Kremlin media and blogsites were actively spreading the idea that the OGP was a channel of American influence and a limit on Russian sovereignty. Homegrown experts, unsurprisingly, welcomed the official change of heart. As a result, Russia didn’t join the OGP, but the country’s own ‘Open Government’ organisation continues to operate. This structure was created at the time that Russia was planning to join the OGP, at the height of Dmitry Medvedev’s reign as president. Indeed, it was in the ‘Medvedev era’ that public discussion on state transparency and digital government emerged and Russia conducted its first experiments in the area, such as online public discussion of a draft bill on policing. Pro-Kremlin media spread the idea that the OGP was a channel of American influence. The head of the Open Government project, businessman Mikhail Abyzov, who, according to Forbes, is worth some $700m, is now Minister of Federal Government. And the Ministry of Open Government is no longer to be found on the list of state institutions; there is only a ‘Commission on Coordinating the Activities of Open Government.’ Three years after its creation, Open Government continues to operate, but it’s hard for the uninitiated to find out exactly what it is. The Open Government website states that it is a ‘system of mechanisms and principles that guarantee effective cooperation between state and society, as well as the quality and balance of decisions taken.’ Among the results of its work are ‘standards of openness for state institutions,’ a transparency rating system and a road map on developing open data, as well as a range of projects designed to open access to information about allocation of public funds and the activities of state companies (of which Russia has many). A new video by anti-Putin campaigner Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation has been watched more than three million times on YouTube. Source: Youtube Open Government is a rival of Russia’s Civic Chamber, which was set up in 2005 with the aim of improving cooperation between state and civil society. With 126 members, the Civic Chamber hosts something of an all-star cast of Russian civil society. Today, these two structures compete for the renewal and control of the system of public councils attached to government bodies.