Who we are
Kronika is a civic technology initiative founded by PEN America and Bard College to protect independent journalism and public memory from censorship and erasure. Beginning with RIMA in 2022, we have grown into a broader international project building archives and technology for endangered media.
Our mission
Kronika uses technology to protect independent journalism and public memory from censorship, erasure,
and digital disappearance
We preserve endangered media, build tools that make it accessible and useful, and help journalists, researchers, educators, and communities keep this record alive. Our goal is not simply to save information, but to ensure that it remains available as evidence, historical memory, and a resource for understanding authoritarianism and resisting it.
Our values
01
We build with partners
Journalists, media organizations, researchers, and communities help shape what we preserve and how we make it accessible
02
Context matters
Technology is never neutral. We design our work around the political, legal, cultural, and security realities of the communities we serve
03
Experiment with purpose
We test new approaches while staying focused on practical needs, long-term value, and our mission.
04
Technology serves
the mission
We use AI and data science when they solve real problems, improve preservation, and expand access—not for their own sake
05
Archives are built
to be used
Preservation matters only when people can find, understand, and work with what has been saved
Our Team
M. Gessen
Founder
Shapes Kronika’s intellectual direction and its public voice
Anna Nemzer
Co-founder &
Head of Archives and Collections
Leads Kronika’s archival strategy, collection development, and work with media and archival partners
Ilia Veniavkin
Co-founder &
Head of Communications
Leads Kronika’s public engagement, strategic communications, institutional positioning, and external partnerships
Sascha Molokostova
Head of Product
Leads the development of Kronika’s products, archival platforms, and user-facing technology
Vera Shengeliya
Senior Manager, Digital Oblivion
Leads Kronika’s research and public work on digital oblivion and its implications for journalism, archives, and public memory
Liesl Gerntholtz
Managing Director
Provides institutional leadership and strategic oversight for Kronika within PEN America
We do not disclose the names of all team members for security reasons
Press about us
February 2, 2026
How Kronika Aims to Safeguard Journalism
A conversation with M. Gessen about how a project that began by protecting Russian independent journalism is expanding to safeguard endangered media around the world.
November 30, 2024
Unerased
Vladimir Putin’s government is trying to scrub critical journalism from the internet. The Russian Independent Media Archive is standing in its way.
March 5, 2025
A New Digital Archive to Preserve an Investigative Legacy in Central America
A look at how CAIMA grew from the rescue of Guatemala’s elPeriódico archive into a regional effort to preserve independent journalism threatened by censorship, closure, and political persecution.
August 29, 2024
How the Russian Independent Media Archive Is Defying Censorship — and Saving History
M. Gessen and Ilia Veniavkin discuss why RIMA was created, how it preserves journalism erased or altered by censorship, and why archives matter for understanding Russia’s past and future.
April 11, 2023
Digital Archive Aims to Preserve a Threatened Russian Independent Media
A report on the launch of RIMA as a joint PEN America–Bard College effort to preserve two decades of independent Russian journalism as media outlets faced closure, censorship, and exile.
May 4, 2023
PEN America in New York Is Creating a Digital Archive of Independent Russian Media
An early report on RIMA’s effort to bring endangered Russian independent media under one digital roof and preserve the “first draft of history” before websites and archives disappear.
We are Kronika, a civic technology project dedicated to preserving independent journalism under threat
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