Vietnamese community press in Moscow

The press of the Vietnamese community in Moscow makes an important contribution in providing information, exchanging and facilitating business and cultural activities, contributing to community unity.

In 1981, the Labor Cooperation Agreement was signed between Vietnam and the United States.Male- The Soviet Union was implemented. During the first ten years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were about 210,000 Vietnamese workers scattered throughout the Russian Federation and the Republics.

Many paper newspapers are now being published inMoscow.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Labor Cooperation Agreement ended by default, as a series of factories were closed, many factories were on the brink of bankruptcy, with no wages for workers. About half of the Vietnamese people were still provided with tickets to return home by the factories, the rest stayed to live and integrate into Russia during the opening period. They did business, traded, and moved to live in concentrated areas such as Hammer and Sickle, Old Dom 5, New Dom 5, Ben Thanh, Song Hong, Togi, Voikov... These places of concentrated living and trading were truly a miniature Vietnamese society, existing for the past two decades.

The post-Soviet Vietnamese now live concentratedly in Russia in major cities such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Volgagrat, Svetlov, Kazan, Upha...; a small number live in Ukraine, Belarus; and the Central Asian republics are sparse. Nearly 90% of the Vietnamese in Russia live by business and trading in the market.

The above-mentioned community characteristics are the basis for creating a picture of the press and information of Vietnamese people in Russia.

In the early 90s of the last century, Vietnamese-language newspapers in Russia were received from two sources. Either from within the country, such as the newspapers: Nhan Dan, Lao Dong, Tien Phong, Phu Nu, Cong An Nhan Dan... and the only monthly magazine Dat Nuoc of the Embassy.

At that time, Vietnamese people in Russia were very lacking in information: the Internet was not available, VTV4 channel was not yet available, telephones were not yet developed and the majority of Vietnamese people could not read newspapers directly in Russian or listen to Russian radio. Domestic newspapers, even though they were sent by post a month late, were still extremely valuable to the community.

By 1993-1994, the situation changed, many community associations such as: Business Association, Science and Technology Association, Literature and Arts Association and later the Vietnamese Association, Vietnamese Settlement Association... were born, followed by the appearance of newspapers of the Association organizations. The newspapers Nguoi Ban Duong, Doanh Nghiep va Thi Truong, Thong tin va Thoi Dai, Khoa hoc va Cong Dong, Hoa dao Xu Tuyet, were considered serious magazines with a professional and highly social nature. These magazines, completely non-commercial, purely the voice of the organizations, popularly published articles by experts. Because the news section always accounts for more than half of the magazines, thanks to that, these magazines are considered pioneer publications in the work of disseminating social and political information to the community.

These magazines, together with the Embassy's Dat Nuoc newspaper, became mainstream newspapers, providing practical and timely information in the early stages of an organized community.

Spring Newspaper Travel Companion

In 1992, the largest Vietnamese Trade Center in Russia, Dom 5 Moi, was born. This place gathered thousands of residents and tens of thousands of small traders from other cities to do business. Based on practical needs, the first newspaper of the community, called Van Su, appeared and was enthusiastically received by the community. Van Su was 8 pages thick, printed in photocopy form, providing current information translated from Russian newspapers and taken from domestic newspapers, gathering market news, advertising to serve business people at the market.

After the birth of Van Su, the Vietnamese press service in Russia developed very strongly. The following community newspapers were born such as Buu Dien, Viet Bao, For You, Nhat Bao, Thoi Bao Moscow, Tin Nhanh, Phu Nu, Tab Cai, Tuoi Tre... These newspapers became more and more mature, with fierce competition. At the most prosperous time, when Cho Vom, Saliut 2, Saliut 3, Song Hong... still existed, the newspapers were sold in all 16 Op Cho, to the places where Vietnamese people lived with the circulation of each newspaper being about 2,000 copies at a price of about 1 USD. After deducting the costs of printing, distribution, machinery, and premises, despite the hardship, journalists still had a good income.

Vietnamese newspapers are printed on A4 sheets that are more compact than other types of paper, the thickness gradually increases from 8 pages to 16 pages, then 32 pages. Most newspapers have the same structure, including the Current Affairs section, Local News, Entertainment, Sports, and the most dominant section is Advertisement. Newspapers printed in this format were for a long time the only information channel for the community.

Over time, unprofitable and poorly organized newspapers gradually had to close down or be transferred. By 1997-1998, although the Internet had developed widely, Vietnamese newspapers in Russia still played an important role because they collected and selected the most necessary articles from the diversity and clutter of information, "reading the newspaper for you" with a lot of useful information. Vietnamese people do business and trade every day, do not have the knowledge and time to access the Internet, and receiving information is completely dependent on the daily newspapers published in the market.

Vietnamese newspapers in Russia are increasingly improving in form, those that are not printed well, not presented attractively, and have unselected and uncompetitive articles are losing customers. The capacity of newspapers has increased to 48-60 pages, and now they are racing to increase to 104 pages of beautifully printed editions with three main colors.

Currently in Moscow there are 5 newspapers existing in parallel with the same format: Nhat Bao, Nhan Hoa, Ngay Moi, Tin Tuc, Niem Tin, Tin Tuc Thi Truong. To increase competition, one of the newspapers merged into Ngay Moi- Nhan Hoa, Tab Cai- Nhat Bao.

Later, due to the decline in Vietnamese commercial activities, most Vietnamese shopping malls had to close, and the number of newspapers gradually decreased. When the two large markets, Sadovod and Liublino, replaced the Dome market, asserting their position in terms of business, newspapers were sold here, although they had to pay taxes, but were sold openly, without being oppressed like the time of the Dome market, so the journalists and newspaper distributors felt much more comfortable. The most widely distributed newspaper, now sells approximately 1,500 copies per day. Some newspapers such as Tin Tuc and Nhat Bao have expanded to other cities such as Upha, Vongagrat, Kraxnodar,Kazan...to expand the market.

Vietnamese newspapers inMoscowAll have licenses from the Russian Information and Propaganda Department, so from the past to the present, all journalistic activities have a high legal status. However, due to the competition that sometimes causes turmoil, such as the Nhan Hoa - Van Su, Thoi Bao and Ngay Moi newspapers in the past, it led to the Russian police summoning them, paying administrative fines and the Embassy having to deal with it for a long time.

The content of today's newspapers still continues to follow the previous tradition, but has promptly added many sections suitable to the actual situation of the Internet information explosion period.

Newspapers still exploit information on the Internet, focusing on four main sections. Section 1 is current events in Russia, Vietnam, the world and the community; Section 2 is literature and art; Section 3 is Sports; Section 4 is entertainment and making friends. In addition, an indispensable part of community newspapers is the advertising pages. On average, each newspaper devotes nearly half of its pages to posting advertisements about jobs, house rentals, transfers, car sales, material trading and classifieds. The income of newspapers mainly depends on these advertising sections.

From 1992 to the end of 1997, the newspapers were all made at home, then brought to photocopy shops to be printed and then brought to the market stalls by the distributors to be sold. The first newspapers were not bound into volumes, but were simply folded together in order of page numbers. All steps had to be completed before 4am to be sold in time for the market opening.

Website nguoibanduong.net of the Vietnamese Literature and Arts Association in Russia

Since 1998, most newspaper owners have purchased their own printers to place at home. The new technology printers cost only about 10,000 USD, are compact, and can be placed right in the living room. Once the copy is finished, the printing and binding are done right there. Everything has to be done at night, from 1 am to have the latest information.

There is a lot of news now, the problem is choosing articles. Because they are competitive newspapers, newspapers compete to exploit criminal and legal topics too much. There are newspapers that only see prostitution, stabbings, robberies, frauds... but lack outstanding news information. This form of attracting readers has damaged the general reputation of newspapers. Because of chasing the sensational taste of customers, the professional orientation of journalism is still absent in community newspapers.

None of these newspapers have any reporters, the publishers usually do the editing, select articles from the Internet and have them printed. After the printing is done, the printers are immediately sent, and the distributors take on the role of shuttles to pick them up directly from the facilities at around 5 am, selling all kinds of newspapers in the markets. When the sales start, business people in the areas of Liublino, Sadovod, kilometer 19 MKAD, Slavianski market... can already have in their hands a Vietnamese newspaper to read the news and do crossword puzzles!

In addition to the paper newspapers, in the past 6 years, in addition to business websites, 5 reputable websites have appeared in Moscow. The first was nguoibanduong.net of the Literature and Arts Association, followed by mekongnet.ru of Zolotoi Drakon Company. The following websites hoidoanhnghiep.ru, hoinguoiviet.ru, baonga.com, always have improved interfaces, updated very promptly with the hottest news. These sites have a large number of visitors, the people in charge are all intellectuals with experience and seniority in journalism. In particular, these sites, in addition to posting general information online, also have many practical translations about current events, society, instructions on local laws, and articles about diverse community activities.

Poet Chau Hong Thuy, Ms. Thu Trang, Mr. Vo Hoai Nam, Mr. Ngo Tien Diep... are regular writers of community newspapers and active contributors to many domestic newspapers.

Since 2007, Dat Nuoc magazine is no longer published as a monthly magazine, instead Dat Nuoc News Weekly was born. With its agility, Dat Nuoc News Weekly is now a leading magazine of the Vietnamese community in Russia.

Vietnamese journalists inMoscoware people who have contributed a lot to the community in providing information. Events of storms, floods, natural disasters, launching and sponsoring charitable activities in the country are all fully updated, thanks to which the community can grasp and respond to policies and guidelines in a timely manner.

Together with the Vietnam News Agency, the Voice of Vietnam, VTV 4, which are the main and official media systems, the press of the Vietnamese community in Moscow - the Russian Federation has made important contributions in providing information, exchanging and creating conditions for business and cultural activities, contributing to community connection. And in fact, the profession of Vietnamese journalism in Russia is also a profession full of sweat and tears./.

According to VOV-M