Russia contains much more than just bureaucrats and political heavyweights.It is easy, when you look at the press coming out of Russia, to think that at bottom it all comes down to two things: business and politics. In other words, it is all about corruption.News is most often determined by financial and/or political interests. The consequence is legions of articles about this or that corporate scandal, piece of legislation, political intrigue or high crime.Going solely by such reports, one would get the impression that Russia is populated entirely by businesspeople and political bigwigs. That there is much more to Russia drops out of the picture.Of course, this impression is a false one. There is plenty going on beneath the dizzying heights of Kremlin politics and shadowy meetings in oligarchs´ back offices. Russia´s 150 million citizens are people, not just statistics, and have their own lives, concerns and initiatives. And these are people that carry not just the burden of a painful and unique history but the promise of a great future as well.This is why The Russia Journal is publishing its new weekly supplement, The Citizen. We will throw light on people, events and organizations that highlight the development of civil society here and its role in shaping culture and people´s lives. We will focus on the effects of grassroots initiative in Russia and the forms it takes in charities, drives to protect press freedom, NGOs and so on.We hope that The Citizen will provide a service in Russia and abroad by drawing attention to Russians as more than just faceless extras in some Yeltsin-Berezovsky-Putin political-scandal movie, but as heroes and heroines with lives, adventures, successes, failures, wills and agendas of their own. This is a paper about people, the true leaders of society, who are trying to better their world on their own initiative.