everyone has their own special

History

Ours certainly deserves your attention too...

As we know, a picture completes itself in the mind of the beholder. Much has been filed away. Much is being carried on. "Radio Akzent" - never commercial, never budgeted - goes back to an initiative of Lena Reichardt and Dmitri Dragilew.

At the turn of the millennium, in autumn 1999, the two of them - then staff members of the European Culture and Information Centre in Thuringia - set the first Russian-language radio programme on the Open Channel Erfurt on its way; it went on air on 13 January 2000 and soon became a weekly FM magazine.

Just at that time the core of the future team crystallised out of those people who would devote most of their free time to preparing and producing the radio magazine.

Alongside Dmitri and Lena, the initiative group of the first hour also included Inna Khalyapina, Tatjana Kadotschnikow, Lina Green…

The range of features initially proved very broad - from artistic experiments all the way to integration topics.

Over the first ten years more than 20 participants contributed to the editorial work. Some of them took our radio journal as an impulse for ventures of their own. For others it paved the way into areas of public life. The radio magazine thus set standards and became not only a model project but also a starting point for those who found the aims and interests of the association worth emulating.

Despite various circumstances and changes, the enthusiasts felt committed to their cause, and the loyal listeners looked forward to every new programme. Beyond that, the audience multiplied through bilingual programmes, radio bridges with other countries (Russia first among them) and the additional location in Berlin.