Karina Kasparyants began her career as an influencer in her teens, making YouTube videos of beauty tips, shopping hauls and glimpses into her everyday life as a student in Moscow before also embracing Instagram, where she gradually built up a following of more than 2 million people.
At the time, major foreign brands were spending heavily in the Russian market, and Kasparyants was able to build lucrative relationships with companies, including Samsung Electronics and H&M. "Back then, I wanted to pour all of my energy into Instagram because that’s where the biggest brands were spending their advertising budgets and inviting influencers on press tours,” she said.
By 2021, the size of the influencer marketing business in Russia had reached 15 billion rubles ($187 million), according to data from digital influencer marketing platform Perfluence. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 threatened to disrupt that. Many Western brands pulled out of the Russian market. Some U.S.-owned social media companies changed their policies to limit Russian users’ ability to receive payments. In March 2022, the Russian authorities banned Instagram, as part of broader restrictions on freedom of expression.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.