Words by Kimberly Haddad
A conversation with Maria Tarasenkova on producing, risk, and what makes a story worth pursuing
One of the projects Maria Tarasenkova returns to is New World with Nina Serebrennikova, a YouTube channel featuring conversations with scientists, doctors, and researchers across health, science, and advanced technologies—work meant to be directly useful in people’s everyday lives. She worked with the team for two years, guiding its development as it grew past 100,000 subscribers and into a much larger audience. She speaks about that experience in terms of the people behind it—a small group of devoted journalists, as she puts it—“obsessed, in a good way, with what they’re doing.”
Tarasenkova started in Moscow as a producer, advising creators, media teams, and companies on their YouTube channels, then eventually relocated to Silicon Valley, where she now studies business at UC Berkeley. Her role has always varied depending on what’s needed—sometimes stepping in at the beginning, sometimes working with what already exists—but it consistently involves looking at how content is produced, who it reaches, and where it can go from there.
Alongside that, she has worked as an executive producer on documentary films across multiple countries, including shoots in Oymyakon, where temperatures reach -67°C, and in Brazil, where her team followed communities whose history traces back to migration out of the Russian Empire. The locations change, but she remains closely involved from early conversations through to release.
What are you most focused on building or developing at the moment?
At the moment, most of my efforts are geared toward improving my business knowledge. I have a humanities education—a bachelor’s in journalism and a master’s in strategic communications—which has always helped me in my work, but I felt I needed to strengthen the business side, and UC Berkeley is helping with that. I’ve gained a foundation in economics, accounting, and taxation, and learned to build large-scale projects, business plans, and calculate profitability. I also delved into vibe coding, which helped me refine systems I previously implemented at RTVI and on the YouTube channel “Redakciya.” There, I created a secure speaker database and a system for organizing filming processes and tracking released and planned documentaries. Now, with this combination of technical and financial tools, I can further develop the systems I’ve implemented within media outlets.
You’ve conducted thousands of interviews and produced over a hundred documentary films. What do you look for early on that tells you a story is actually worth pursuing?
The most important indicator is when, after learning about a story, you simply cannot keep it to yourself. You want to share it with everyone—your audience, your friends, your family. It’s an emotional reaction you can’t really control. Sometimes we come across stories that feel bigger than us. They have multiple plot lines, unexpected turns, and reflect moments that can’t be repeated. In those cases, I sometimes feel a little intimidated before we even start filming. Where do we begin, what matters most? These stories usually require a larger format and serious production. For example, when we filmed a three-part series about the White émigré, we traveled to six European countries, recorded dozens of interviews, and reviewed thousands of archive pages. It was a massive amount of work, but worth it. To begin a project like that, I try to imagine how I would tell the story to a close friend. Once you do that, the structure starts to appear naturally. It’s easy to drown in information today. You’re choosing from endless options. But sometimes something just hits at the right moment. You understand it’s relevant now, and the audience will connect with it. This happened when we discovered the story of Yuri Knorozov, the scientist who deciphered the Mayan script. He worked in a small museum office in the Soviet Union, almost forgotten, and never traveled abroad, yet solved what no one else could. When we found his story, we couldn’t stop thinking about it. Despite many difficulties, everything eventually came together and we made the film. Later, a memorial plaque appeared where he had worked, and millions of people learned his story. For me, this is why documentary storytelling matters. Sometimes personal biographies and small details can explain the world better than any political analysis.
You worked on a film about finding truth in a post-truth world. After spending that much time inside that question, did your own idea of “truth” change at all?
I wouldn’t say I just spent time thinking about that question—I’ve been living inside it for years. Today, the idea of truth has become more emotional than rational. Facts often come second. People build their own information bubbles, choosing the media and voices that match their worldview, and rarely step outside of that. Journalists are also human. They can fall into the same patterns, make mistakes, and accept false information as truth. And now, with AI, anyone can be misled. We can’t blindly trust what we see anymore. Even visuals aren’t automatically reliable, which makes building trust with an audience a long-term process that requires consistent credibility. In a certain way, we can learn from pilots. They’re trained not to fully trust their eyes, but to verify what they see again and again, because mistakes can be fatal. I think the same approach is now necessary—for journalists and for audiences.
It’s not enough to rely on one source, or to seek out different opinions just to confirm your own position. Our brains want to simplify reality, but in a world like this, that can backfire. We have to question what we see, and question ourselves as well. It’s the only way to survive in a post-truth era.
In your piece on why AI has become intimidating, you’re looking at both technology and perception. What do you think people are actually reacting to right now—the technology itself, or what it’s starting to change about how we work and think?
People are reacting to both the technology itself and the scale of change it brings. Some admire the progress and the tools it creates. Others feel fear, because it’s already replacing jobs, and it’s happening quickly. From my point of view, we’re living through something comparable to the Industrial Revolution. Back then, machines replaced physical labor, and people were terrified. But society adapted. It didn’t collapse—it changed. People had to rethink their skills, their work, and their role in the economy. The same process is happening now, but at a different scale. AI isn’t replacing only manual labor—it’s beginning to take on planning, analysis, and even creative work. We’ll likely experience the downsides first, as with any major shift, but it’s also our responsibility to define how these tools are used and how they should be regulated.
I believe AI will bring progress, but we have to learn how to work with it without becoming dependent on it. We shouldn’t hand over every small task or decision. If we stop thinking, someone else will do it for us. And that is where freedom becomes fragile.
You’re now based in Silicon Valley while studying at Berkeley. What has surprised you most about stepping into this environment after building your career elsewhere?
What surprised me most was how people here treat failure. It’s completely different from what I was used to. In journalism, mistakes are public. If you publish something incorrect, people remember it, and your credibility can suffer. So you develop a careful working style. You verify everything, double-check facts, and don’t move forward until you’re sure. Here, the mindset is almost the opposite. People talk about failed startups the way others talk about work experience—not with shame, but with confidence, as proof they took a real risk. I met founders who had closed two companies and were already building a third, and no one saw that as unusual. What struck me is that this isn’t just cultural—it’s strategic. Speed is critical. Testing ideas quickly helps you understand what works faster than your competitors, and in that environment, being too cautious can be a risk in itself. Coming from journalism, this was difficult to accept. We’re trained to get things right before publishing. But here, waiting too long can cost you as much as acting too early. I’m still finding the balance between careful thinking and fast execution.
You’ve worked in both highly structured media environments and more independent spaces. Where do you feel you do your best work?
I enjoy organizing and managing operations on my own. It feels like my own game—my rules, my sense of what works. I like building projects from scratch: creating the structure, organizing people, planning processes, and managing production. Whether it’s a documentary film, a YouTube podcast, a radio program, or a media platform, I’m interested in both the creative and the operational side. At the same time, I believe creative teams work best with some structure. Creativity needs freedom, but it also needs a framework. When people understand the process and the boundaries, they can focus their talent and deliver stronger results.
Outside of work, what’s been grounding you lately while everything else is in motion?
For me, real relaxation is genealogy—researching my family history. It’s been a passion since ninth grade. When I have time, I go into archives, documents, photos, and family stories—connecting personal lives with historical events, verifying records, and tracking down relatives across different countries. Through this work, I’ve started to see history differently. It feels more personal, and it changes how I think about the present. At this point, I have more than 400 people in my family tree, and I’m currently focused on the 19th century. I also love traveling. The last country I visited was Japan—my 31st country. I was lucky to be there during cherry blossom season, spent time with deer in Nara, and explored Tokyo day and night.