Already? Only? Doesn’t matter!
We have reached the seriously youthful age of 20! Hooray!
Let’s look back at how it all began and how the newspaper evolved with time.
When we started, Our Harbour was one of few media outlets offering informational support that the Russian-speakers in New Zealand had so craved for. With that cause in mind we called the newspaper The Information Herald “Our Harbour”.
As technologies kept speeding forward, the newspaper also had to transform to keep up with the time. When we started, no one heard of social platforms, whereas now it’s a big part of our lives. The relevance of newspaper as a source of information had declined in favour of instantaneous online resources. We had to readjust our focus and concentrate instead on stories about our people and the events happening in the Russian-speaking community.
Of course, we too are evolving and progressing along with the world around us. Now, Our Harbour has online presence where we have a great collection of stories about Russian-speaking New Zealanders written by our editorial staff as well as our colleagues and follower who are also active on various social platforms: YouTube, TikTok, etc.
It is pleasing to see that the interest to the newspaper is not waning. Its popularity and credibility is growing not only in New Zealand, but also in other countries. “Our Harbour” is not just the name – it is a symbol of the Russian-speaking community in New Zealand.
What have we achieved over the 20 years?
We covered stories about events and people in our community, their lives and often thorny path to success; we published two books featuring Russian-speaking New Zealanders. For many years, we published the information guide “Welcome to New Zealand”, a business calendar and other informational publications. We organised various festivals and events, arranged tours for our cultural performance groups, organised exhibitions and competitions, participated in all kinds of presentations and conferences. We believe it is quite a respectable record of accomplishments for a newspaper!
The recent months have changed the whole world to “Before” and “After” and reassured us once again that the policy we chose 20 years ago is the right one. All those years, we stayed away from discussing religion and politics. Now, that each of us has their own perspective on what’s going on in the world, it is incredibly hard to adhere to this policy. On the other hand, by keeping to our principle, we maintain understanding and respect for one another within our multinational Russian-speaking community. As a newspaper, we are trying to unite us and promote good relationship among our people.
To conclude, all of us, the founding members and those who joined the editorial board later are not getting any younger. Our goal now is not only to keep the newspaper running and continue Our Cause, but also to attract the young and talented to our ranks!