According to Desnitsky, for him Pravmir is, on the one hand, a site to which he regularly contributes articles, and on the other, the people he calls wonderful and interesting. He noted that he had not had time to meet Anatoly Danilov and expressed the hope that a meeting might take place in a better world.
Desnitsky stressed that Pravmir is not a “success story” in the Western sense, where a person starts by selling matchboxes and ends up a magnate. In his phrasing, it is “an amazing story of landing in the right place, at the right time, with the right ideas.”
On the idea of an unofficial Orthodox publication
He recalled that at the dawn of the project many, including himself, discussed the desirability of a newspaper or magazine that would be Orthodox but not official—not patriarchal, not diocesan, not parochial—so that people could exchange opinions and news. Yet, he said, those same people would immediately cut themselves off: “It won’t happen. No one can pull it off.” Desnitsky noted that people took it on and pulled it off, and a unique phenomenon for contemporary Russia came into being.
On freedom and discussion
Desnitsky acknowledged that other good media exist, but in his view Pravmir is one of a kind. He characterized the site as absolutely free to the extent that one can be free while having good internal brakes: there is, he said, no censorship, no imposed frameworks, no partisanship; different people express their opinions, and there is lively discussion and an attempt to relate the surrounding world to the Christian faith and Orthodox tradition.
He said that at one time he had doubted whether he should write for Pravmir, and now he says: “I am happy to have found myself in such a wonderful place.”
A wish for the future
In conclusion, Desnitsky cited the Hebrew wish “May you live to 120!”, which is said to the birthday person in the expectation that people do not live longer. Since Pravmir, he said, is not a person and can exist far longer, his wishes are “to 240, to 360, and after that, whatever happens.”
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