Zagitova’s Complicated Heart Seen in “Publication of Presents from Japanese Fans

From my Japanese fans…”

Alina Zagitova, gold medal winner in women’s figure skating at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, posted a message and photo in Japanese on her Telegram account. It appears to be a gift from a Japanese fan, but what the heck…?

Towel from my Japanese fan.

Zagitova posted the message in Japanese on her Telegram account. Then, to her surprise, she showed a photo of a pink towel handkerchief with Rilakkuma on it. Apparently, this was a gift from a Japanese fan.

Seeing Zagitova smile as she interacted with her fans made us happy. However, fans must not be able to hide their mixed feelings about these posts.

Zagitova is known as an influencer and has over 1.12 million followers on her Instagram account. She has many Japanese followers, and her posts are frequently commented on in Japanese, and in the past, she herself has often sent out messages in Japanese.

However, Zagitova’s frequency of updating her Instagram has dropped drastically recently. This is due to the “Instagram ban” imposed by the Russian government. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia, which has been tightening its control over speech, has also tightened its restrictions on social networking services. Insta, which has 80 million users in Russia, was also subject to the ban.

In response, many Russian influencers, including Sagitova, have moved to Telegram, a Russian-originated SNS.

Telegram is a social networking service that is unfamiliar to Japanese people. In such a situation, her desperate attempts to woo Japanese fans seems somewhat tantalizing.

If there had been no war, there would have been no need for such a needless move. After all, there are probably many fans who would like to see Zagitova on Instagram. I hope that the world will soon return to a world where everyone can freely use social networking services.