Meduza's fundraising campaign mascot, a sad camel, is doing a little better

Russian independent media outlet Meduza has posted an update on its ongoing fundraising campaign, which became associated with a camel illustration after staff noticed their donation chart resembled a camel's humps. A month ago, the outlet's designers drew what they called the saddest camel in the world, because the second hump on the donation graph simply would not grow.

A modest improvement

Meduza reports that thanks to reader support, the camel is no longer quite as sad, although the second hump still isn't growing much. Importantly, donations have at least stopped declining. Since introducing the camel concept, the outlet has gained 300 new monthly donors and received an additional 800 one-time donations.

The newsroom thanked its supporters and encouraged them to keep contributing so the camel can eventually smile.

Camel facts flood in

Since publishing the graph, Meduza says camels and camel-related trivia have seemingly appeared everywhere. Readers pointed out that Arabic has more than 100 words for different types of camels, and that in Hebrew, the phrase "Solomon's camel" actually refers to a praying mantis rather than an actual camel. A camel has also featured on the coat of arms of the Russian city of Chelyabinsk since the 18th century.

Meduza also noted that Russia's Central Bank once compared the national economy to a camel, though in that case the comparison referred to the animal's resilience in extreme conditions rather than its humps.

The outlet added that the piece was written by one of its journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to its editorial standards, with every draft reviewed by a Meduza editor before publication.