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Soyuz - Союз - is the first Orthodox television channel in Russia. Its first broadcast went out on 31 January 2005 from Pervouralsk in the Urals, and it has grown from a small diocesan studio into a channel watched by more than 1.3 million people.

From a radio studio to a channel

The idea of Orthodox television belonged to Father Dimitri Baibakov, who had already worked in Orthodox radio. The team that gathered around him had little broadcasting experience but the programmes found an audience, and what began as a television programme became a channel. In spring 2005 Soyuz moved from Pervouralsk to Yekaterinburg, leaving only its transmitter behind, and on 1 July 2005 it went to a 24-hour schedule. On 21 December 2005 the federal broadcasting commission granted the Yekaterinburg diocese's company the right to broadcast on channel 21 in Yekaterinburg.

Satellite reach

On 12 May 2009 the channel began transmitting from the Yamal-201 satellite at 90 degrees east, taking its signal to the Far East, Kamchatka, the Kurils, Sakhalin, Kolyma, Evenkia and Yakutia. On 20 October 2010 it added Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and North America through HotBird-6 at 13 degrees east and Galaxy-19 at 97 degrees west. A change of frequency followed on 19 December 2021, when the channel moved to transponder 126 at 11034.

A channel paid for by its viewers

Soyuz describes itself as a public, people's channel that exists only on the voluntary contributions of its audience. That funding model shapes what it is: the schedule is built on liturgy broadcasts and prayer services, on church life and diocesan news, on teaching and on programmes about Orthodox culture, without advertising in the commercial sense. Its viewers support it as they would a parish.

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