KononenkoFinal


The Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes 

FOLKLORICA 2020, Vol. XXIV 

163 

REPORTS 

<e Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes: A Report 

Natalie Kononenko 
University of Alberta, Emerita 

Waterloo, Ontario 

Introduction 

As a member of the Folklore Commission of the International Committee of 
Slavists, I am privileged to listen to the presentation of new research conducted in 
the countries of the Slavic world. On July 10, 2020, the Commission heard Nikita 
Petrov of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public 
Administration in Moscow present the Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and 
Fakes. Qis website is run by Petrov, Aleksandra Arkhipova and their team of 
Dar’ia Radchenko, Anna Kirziuk, Maria Gavrilova, Irina Kozlova, Sergei 
Belianin and Boris Peigin. Qe encyclopedia can be found at the following link: 
https://nplus1.ru/material/2020/04/08/coronarumors.  

Encyclopedia units; Unit 1: COVID lore categories 

The site contains a list of types of COVID-19 folklore, or popularly 
generated COVID-19 stories and beliefs, identified by the Encyclopedia team. 
The categories isolated are:  

1. Pseudo-medical advice, that is posts giving advice on preventing 
COVID-19 infection. Qe posts attribute this advice to young doctors 
such as Iura Klimov, presumably more believable because of their age, 
and to famous Israeli doctors.  

2. Folk and religious cures for COVID-19 or folk and religious COVID-
prevention strategies. Preventative measures include using garlic or 
ginger, the latter of which needs to be tied to one’s foot, nailing a cross to 
a tree, or using olive oil to draw a cross on the inside of one’s door.   

3. Warnings such as notices telling people that black helicopters will be 
flying over the city at night to spray the area with disinfectants and that 
all residents should take cover and even stay away from windows to 
avoid harm from the disinfectant. 

4. First person accounts of experiences with COVID-19 that may be real, 
albeit exaggerated, but which then get circulated and amplified on social 
media.  

5. “Documents” made to look like official notices or press releases. 



The Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes 

FOLKLORICA 2020, Vol. XXIV 

164 

6. Stories about the origin of the virus, narratives that usually suggest 
local government involvement or international conspiracies. 

Unit 2: Examples and analysis 

Scrolling down the webpage, the next section gives detailed examples and 
analyses of coronavirus posts collected and studied by the Encyclopedia staff. 
Each example is followed by the name of the Encyclopedia team member who 
investigated the story, gathering locations and dates of attestation, international 
social media parallels, and similar accounts in other media. Qis section of the 
website is essentially a series of articles, each carefully researched and 
documented. In addition to the reproduction of the posts that form the impetus for 
each story, the article offers embedded links to relevant sites. 

I should note that one cannot find a collection of all of the posts of a 
particular type collected by the compilers of the Encyclopedia. Qis is not a 
research site where one can search through massive amounts of raw data. Rather, 
this is an analytical site with data that has already been processed by the staff. Qe 
examples given are the following: 

 
Story 1: Newly introduced 5G network towers weaken the immune system 

and make people susceptible to catching the coronavirus. Qe discussion of this 
rumor includes a drawing shared online, variants of the post about the threat of 
5G, along with the places where those variants were attested. Bill Gates receives 
blame, just like in the West, along with entire countries, specifically the United 
States and China. Qere are accounts of supposedly real events that might have 
stimulated the 5G rumors, namely a massive bird-kill near a broadcast tower and 
rumors of anti-5G actions and protests in countries outside of Russia.  

Story 2: Migrants spread the disease. Apparently seasonal migrant workers 
were left in Russia after the outbreak of the virus and were unable to return home. 
Qe Encyclopedia reproduces a web page with warnings to be wary of the migrants 
and their threat of bodily harm, both as desperate perpetrators of street crime and 
as carriers of COVID-19. Qe discussion notes when the rumors first appeared 
online. It characterizes the language used, which is surprisingly neutral and 
unemotional, and lists the ethnic groups most frequently identified as the types of 
migrants likely to pose a threat to Russians. 

Story 3: Posting coronavirus jokes on social media such as WhatsApp and 
Instagram will be punished by a 100,000 ruble fine. Presumably “jokes” means 
fake news posted with the intent of being humorous. Qe notice was first 
documented in Kazakhstan in March 2020 and then spread across Russia, despite 
attempts by official media to declare it to be false information. Qe discussion 
states that the irrepressibility of this rumor is due to lack of trust in official bodies, 
combined with an expectation that any government reaction would, indeed, be 
excessive. Qe media posts apparently led to a number of pranks and, in 
Cheliabinsk, the pranksters did receive a fine, though not an excessive one. 



The Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes 

FOLKLORICA 2020, Vol. XXIV 

165 

Story 4: An online warning about masks soaked in narcotics. Qe post relates 
that people are walking door-to-door, claiming that they are official 
representatives of the local government. Qey hand out masks asking the person 
answering the door to try the mask on for size. Qe treated mask causes the person 
who unwittingly puts it on to faint, thus allowing the imposter handing out the 
masks to rob the home. Qe text posted in Russia may be a translation of an 
English language warning about official-looking personnel going door-to-door in 
Las Vegas with a similar intent of robbing their victims. It has also appeared, often 
in English, in India where the rumor stated that people on the street wearing masks 
would offer masks similar to their own to passers-by, their intended victims. Qe 
unwitting victims faint when they put on the mask and are robbed. Qe shortage 
of protective equipment may contribute to the wide circulation of this post. 

Story 5: Online warnings about thieves dressed in authentic-looking 
HazMat suits knocking on one’s door. Qe people in HazMat suits arrive at an 
apartment saying that COVID-19 infections have been detected in the building 
and announcing that they must urgently decontaminate the premises. Qey then 
render the person who opens the door unconscious in a manner similar to story 4 
and rob the home. Some versions of the story are made more contemporary and 
real by warning people to tell their children and their elderly not to answer the 
door. Both children and the elderly are presumed to be more gullible and, with 
children not in school because of the virus and with the elderly left on their own 
for the same reason, these groups have become especially vulnerable to thieves 
using threats of virus infection to deceive their victims. Qe team member 
investigating the story points out that this rumor exists in other countries, only 
there the people in HazMat suits talk their way into apartments in order to sell 
their victims fake coronavirus paraphernalia, whereas, in Russia, the intent is 
robbery, just as in story 4. 

Story 6: A notice that elders at Mount Athos advise all Orthodox Christians 
to put a cross on the inside of their doors. Qose who do not own a cross should 
draw one using olive oil. Qis advice is accompanied by photos of what is 
supposed to be Mary, Mother of God, or a cloud in her likeness, in the sky. It is 
she who notified the praying monks of the actions that need to be taken. Qere are 
also images showing how the cross on the door should be drawn. Qe 
pronouncement is followed by public reaction posts saying that there can be 
nothing wrong with drawing crosses. Qese posts proliferated despite clergy 
statements, including digital media posts, pronouncing the notices to be false.  Qe 
clerics also posted information instructing people on ways to cleanse themselves 
of the sin of spreading false information.   

Qe Encyclopedia staff point out that a knowledgeable person is able to 
detect that the posts are fake and not a pronouncement from Mount Athos because 
they contain stylistic problems: language patterns and terminology that would not 
be used by Orthodox clergy. Qere is also evidence of general lack of knowledge 
of Orthodoxy. Qe writer of the article of this example of COVID-19 lore draws 
parallels from folk responses to earlier epidemics, stating that fake ecclesiastical 
pronouncements are a typical reaction to situations of catastrophic illness.  



The Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes 

FOLKLORICA 2020, Vol. XXIV 

166 

Story 7: Polina from Italy. Qis is a post that the afore-named Polina, a 
citizen of St. Petersburg, now living in Italy, shared on her Vkontakte (a Russian 
social media site similar to Facebook) account. She warns her fellow Russians of 
the dangers that are coming their way by providing a description of what she sees 
happening in Italy. Qis is presented as a first-person account—things that Polina 
actually witnessed—but in fact describes a general situation that the author could 
only have heard about, not actually seen or experienced herself. Qe warning 
became an incredibly popular post with thousands of likes and reposts. It was even 
picked up by Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, and used as a warning to 
the faithful. Qe Encyclopedia gives links to “Polina’s” initial post and to the 
online pronouncement by Patriarch Kirill. It also gives examples of reactions that 
were not reposts, but confirming comments. Qe Encyclopedia attributes the 
impact and popularity of the Polina post to the fact that it is a warning of 
impending disaster combined with the power of the supposedly eyewitness 
account  by a real person who was even given a last name, Golovushkina, making 
her all the more credible. Polina’s post inspired secondary posts that confirmed 
the original warning by saying that the posters had friends in Italy who had 
described the situation there in similar terms. Qese secondary accounts of a 
disastrous situation served to strengthen the veracity of the Polina account by 
adding a second tier of eye-witnesses.  

Story 8: A little-known Pushkin poem. A poem that seeks to console the 
reader by saying “this too will pass” was circulated online as a verse written by 
Pushkin in 1827 when he was in isolation at Boldino because of the cholera 
epidemic that took place during that time period. Qis post, too, became extremely 
popular with multiple likes and reposts. Unfortunately, this is not a case of 
Pushkin reaching out from the past to offer comfort in the present. Rather it is a 
contemporary creation by the Kazakh poet and blogger Urri Grim written to 
celebrate the Iranian/Persian holiday of Navruz, celebrated widely by Muslims in 
Russia and Central Asia. Apparently, a reader of Grim’s posts named Seule 
attached the attribution to Pushkin and the year of composition and then reposted 
the text as a joke. She retracted her joke three minutes later but, by then, it was 
too late—the post had gone viral. According to the Encyclopedia, errors within 
Seule’s attribution should have alerted readers to the fact that it was a fake, but 
no—the inevitable happened and the text, using the power of Pushkin’s name, 
went viral. Who was responsible for the fake, Encyclopedia asks, and answers: 
everyone, but especially the readers and re-posters. 

Story 9: A curfew announced in Moscow. Qe post in question is meant to 
look like an official document generated by the Ministry of Defense announcing 
that there will be a curfew in Moscow on 30 March 2020 between 8PM and 5AM 
for the purpose of a chemical treatment (presumably disinfection) of the city. Qe 
difference between this and the black helicopter story is that this post is meant to 
look like an official document, whereas the black helicopter warning is a personal 
communication from someone who, allegedly, was privy to insider information. 
Qis post was almost immediately denied by the Ministry of Defense which 
blamed “neighboring countries” for the false warning. Qe Encyclopedia staff 



The Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes 

FOLKLORICA 2020, Vol. XXIV 

167 

argue that this is probably a hoax generated by a youngster and support their claim 
by citing the type of language used and the errors found in the text. Qe errors 
include formatting and content that differ from actual official notices. Finally, the 
Encyclopedia draws parallels to similar pronouncements during Soviet times that 
were circulated, not online, but on message boards.  

Story 10: Vodka kills COVID-19. Almost everywhere (not only on the 
Internet) one can find advice stating that using vodka protects against COVID-19. 
Qe meaning of the term “using” varies and includes drinking vodka, using it as a 
disinfectant cleanser, and soaking masks in it so that one ends up breathing 
through vodka. Qese uses are proclaimed and supported not only by popular, but 
also by some government, sources including Belarusian president Lukashenka. 
Advice that urges the populace to use vodka can be serious and it can be 
humorous. In the latter case, it serves to trivialize the threat of the pandemic. As 
the Encyclopedia explains, Russians and Belarusians have long accepted vodka 
as a cure-all but, in the West, this is a new idea. In one series of posts, Western 
recommendations to resort to vodka are attributed to St. Luke’s hospital in Kansas 
City. In Japan, the use of vodka was advocated by a journalist who proposed it as 
an effective alternative in the absence of hand sanitizer. Drinking vodka as a 
prophylactic led to tragic consequences in Iran where alcoholic beverages are 
banned, and people turned to bootlegged spirits, apparently methanol, and died. 
In Russia, attempts to discourage the use of vodka fell on deaf ears and the 
Encyclopedia explains this by the fact that, in problematic situations, people often 
turn to commonly available substances such as garlic, ginger and, of course, 
vodka. Vodka also has a pronounced flavor and is psychoactive, reminding people 
of medicine. Qe last argument in support of the use of vodka is that it is perceived 
as native, a truly Russian substance, and thus effective against illnesses that come 
from a foreign source. 

Story 11: Water of life/water of death. In February 2020, rumors started in 
Tomsk, Novosibirsk, and Kemerovo that local authorities were adding 
disinfectant to the drinking water, making it unsafe to drink. Qese rumors were 
believed because certain infections, such as cholera and bubonic plague, can, 
indeed, be water-borne. Qe other basis for their believability is that cities have, 
in the past, added disinfectant to drinking water when there were threats of 
hepatitis A and other infections. Of course, when actual massive treatment of 
drinking water occurs, the public is officially notified; there is no need for rumors. 
Rumors about water made dangerous with disinfectant seem to have originated in 
Hong Kong. A drinking water rumor in France held that the municipal water 
supply carried the coronavirus itself. In China, there was a post that authorities 
were adding chlorine in maximum concentration to the drinking water, making it 
unsafe to drink. Chinese rumors, the Encyclopedia proposes, spread to Russia and 
then to Europe. Qere were even comic versions of the rumors, namely notices 
that the city had added alcohol to the drinking water. Qese were meant to discredit 
the original warnings. 

Story 12: An open letter from Russian doctors. An open letter, claiming to 
be from the Association of Russian Physicians to President Putin, the Government 



The Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes 

FOLKLORICA 2020, Vol. XXIV 

168 

of Russia, and various other officials circulated online. It contains a series of 
warnings, essentially stating that the coronavirus epidemic is non-existent and that 
it is a hoax meant to facilitate control of the population. Other points in the open 
letter state that making people deathly afraid makes them easily manageable, that 
coronavirus threats are an international conspiracy aimed at creating an electronic 
concentration camp, that coronavirus is a plot by the world’s ultra-rich, that the 
quarantine is a pretext for introducing a 5G network, and that threats of the virus 
are a way to microchip the population. Qe discussion provided by the 
Encyclopedia staff points out that the above-named association of physicians does 
not exist and is the fictive creation of the Russian Rebirth Party. Qe “open letter” 
was made believable by its references to experts and its publication on parents’ 
and workers’ chat groups. Qe text first appeared on April 1 and many of its 
recipients took it as an April Fool’s joke, but its widespread republication, its 
official appearance, and its endorsement by individuals personally known to 
recipients added to its credibility. Qe Encyclopedia lists various internal errors 
and contradictions which show that the “open letter” is a fake. Nonetheless, 
people, not just in Russia, but in the United States and elsewhere, are willing to 
believe that there are government conspiracies aimed at controlling the population 
and the Encyclopedia lists past instances when such conspiracy rumors circulated.  

Unit 3: Requests to readers for new information 

Qe list of stories is followed by a request to the readership of the site to 
share their own experiences with coronavirus rumors and fakes. Qose submitting 
are asked to fill out a set of forms that ask for the rumor, its source, and the 
geographical location of the person supplying the information; the person’s age 
and gender are also requested. Qe forms further ask for the platform on which the 
rumor or fake was first encountered. Qe respondent is then asked to evaluate the 
credibility of the post and is prompted to reproduce the post (screen capture), if 
possible. At the end, the respondent has an opportunity to provide an email 
address, should s/he wish to communicate further with the Encyclopedia staff.  

Attribution 

At the bottom of the page there is a signature stating that the Encyclopedia 
is the work of the Laboratory for Qeoretical Folkloristics at the School of 
Humanistic Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy 
and Public Administration. Qe Laboratory’s members and their guest 
contributors are again listed. Qe preparers of the Coronavirus Encyclopedia, and 
the members of the Laboratory of Qeoretical Folkloristics as a whole, have a 
general interest in folklore. One of their posts is the discussion of a legend that 
recounts how a young woman committed a sacrilegious act by dancing with the 
icon of St. Nicholas and was punished for her transgressions. Qe event took place 
during the Soviet era in Kuibyshev and the post features an account of the legend, 
photos of icons depicting the event, narratives of related miracles, and a discussion 



The Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes 

FOLKLORICA 2020, Vol. XXIV 

169 

of folkloric parallels. In short, the members of the Laboratory of Qeoretical 
Folkloristics are producing a treasure trove of carefully processed Russian folk 
belief and narrative. 

Qe Laboratory for Qeoretical Folklore Studies 

While the future of the Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes project is not 
apparent from the website given above, communication with the staff at the 
Laboratory for Qeoretical Folklore Studies informed this author and the 
Folklorica staff that further work, based on more recent materials, is planned. Qey 
referred us to the following English-language site: 
https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/article/view/1778?fbcli
d=IwAR0CeHHidPlwKTOFKkILp1H4FG7fbWy7rKMV_RHJJQZUoPX0SceN
Bxu0ooE. It provides information about the Monitoring of Public Opinion: 
Economic and Social Changes Journal. Qey also recommended the main site of 
the Laboratory of Qeoretical Folkloristics (http://shagi.ranepa.ru/lab/folc). Here 
users can find a list of the Laboratory’s projects, publications, and researchers. 

Qe members of the Laboratory of Qeoretical Folkloristics were kind 
enough to also provide us with a description of their research interests and their 
approach to their work. Qeir team emphasizes fieldwork and making every effort 
to capture and study the expressions and the practices of communities as produced 
by the people themselves. Qeir regional focus is Russia and Eurasia. Qey seek 
to uncover those cultural texts that a society creates about itself, hoping to help 
educate a citizenry free of ideological manipulation. Qe Laboratory is currently 
working on three projects.  

Qe first is run by Sergei Nekliudov and deals with semiotic ideology and 
the logic of meaning creation in folklore texts. Drawing on the concept of 
linguistic ideology, this project seeks to understand the emic process of symbol 
creation and decoding, emphasizing the functionally semantic level of the study 
of tradition. Comparing emic and etic views allows researchers to see the 
normative hermeneutics of a culture. Looking at a culture as an assemblage of 
semiotic ideology helps access the depth and complexity of culture as a living 
process. 

Qe second project, run by Nikita Petrov, deals with twentieth- and twenty-
first-century folklore and post-folklore in urban environments and emphasizes 
narrative and behavioral strategies. It looks at the growth of new media, its bearing 
on the transmission of texts, and the impact of those texts on the landscape of the 
city. Qe main goal of the project is to study the cultural mechanisms at the basis 
of the transmission of city lore and the reasons why people react to events in a 
particular and communal way. 

Qe third project is also run by Petrov and looks at the contemporary city 
and its cultural texts and street practices. It examines city texts and practices (from 
meetings to rituals in public places) looking for development and change. Qe goal 
is to find expressions of vernacular culture and to understand their mass appeal.  

 



The Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes 

FOLKLORICA 2020, Vol. XXIV 

170 

Qe Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public 
Administration website 

 
Qe Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes is one unit of the 

Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration 
website. Qe site also contains units on physics, astronomy, biology, and robots 
and drones. It has a sub-unit with current coronavirus information, including very 
recent material such as information on the Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and other 
vaccines. Qe current coronavirus facts page has sub-headings with information 
on the long-term effects of COVID-19 in those who have recovered from the 
disease, information on what characterizes a super-spreader event, a discussion of 
the relationship between blood type and susceptibility, descriptions of differences 
between Russian vaccines and those produced elsewhere, and other current 
information. 

In sum, the efforts of the Russian Presidential Academy of National 
Economy and Public Administration are impressive, and the Laboratory of 
Qeoretical Folkloristics is doing cutting edge research. Qeir Encyclopedia of 
Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes deserves attention and emulation.