Transmission

A young Russian girl who hosts her own YouTube channel has elicited a wave of sympathy with a post in which she tearfully recounts how no one showed up at a meet-and-greet she had organized for her followers.

The video by Alina, a 10-year-old girl from the city of Nizhnekamsk in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, has garnered more than 2.3 million views since it was posted on November 2 and triggered an outpouring of support from across the country.

In the clip, she says more than 20 followers of her YouTube channel -- titled Like TV Show -- had said they would come to the "fan meeting" she had planned earlier that day, but that no one came.

"I waited there for half an hour and no one showed up," she says with tears running down her cheeks. "I looked everywhere in the park, but there was no one. Please don't deceive me like that anymore. I'm very, very upset right now."

She adds that she had bought "lots of candy" and wanted to "ask riddles and hand out prizes."

"I thought we would have fun and take pictures, and I would finally get to see my friends and subscribers," Alina says.

Words Of Encouragement

Viewers weighed in with words of encouragement for Alina, telling her to hang in there and that they would love to attend one of her fan meetings. Her well-wishers included popular Russian video bloggers such as Yan Gordiyenko and Eldar Dzharakhov, each of whom has millions of followers on YouTube and Twitter.

Both Gordiyenko and Dzharakhov said on Twitter that they would like to travel to Nizhnekamsk to support Alina.

Predictably, arguments erupted in the comments section of the video about whether it was merely an attempt to "hype" Alina's YouTube channel, which jumped from 6,000 subscribers before the video was posted to nearly 190,000 by November 9.

Others noted that YouTube does not allow children under the age of 13 to create an account, while some wondered whether Alina was accompanied by her parents to the fan meeting she had arranged.

Alina has posted more than 90 videos on her channel since launching it in January. She has discussed arts and crafts, making microwave cheeseburgers, and brought on her younger sister for her show as well. She begins each episode by showing two thumbs up, a signature move she even delivered before she broke down in her viral video.

In a video she posted prior to the November 2 fan meeting, Alina excitedly spoke about her plans for the event and showed off the candy and prizes she was going to give away.

On November 7, Alina got an invitation from Russian volleyball star Yekaterina Gamova -- a two-time world champion -- to come to a joint fan meeting before a November 18 volleyball match in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan.

"I watched your video, and I want to tell you not to worry or get too upset," Gamova said, adding that the two would organize "a little party" for their fans, including candy and autographs.

Alina has posted two more episodes since the tearful video. In a November 8 clip, she said she wanted viewers to know that she is not planning to close her channel.

"I'm here. All is good with me. I'm alive and well," she said.

Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny appeared to receive public support from an unexpected source this week -- Moscow's renowned State Tretyakov Gallery.

The gallery's official Twitter account on November 1 tweeted out Navalny's latest video announcing that he plans to sue Russian President Vladimir Putin and his administration over what he calls an orchestrated nationwide effort to stymie his campaign for the March 2018 presidential election.

The video still accompanying the link featured a photoshopped image of Putin as a waiter carrying a pig's head on a tray -- a reference to an incident this week in which Navalny's campaign said the head of a pig was tied to the door of an Irkutsk office building where it plans to meet on November 4.

The tweet from one of Russia's most famous art galleries, which stated that the gallery "liked the video Vladimir Putin And The Pig's Head," triggered bemusement among Russian-language Twitter users.

"The Tretyakov Gallery knows what's up :)," one Twitter user wrote.

Referring to announcements by several individuals -- including TV personality and journalist Ksenia Sobhack -- that they intend to enter the Russian presidential race despite no realistic attempt at winning, another Twitter user wrote, "The Tretyakov Gallery announced that it will run for president."

The original tweet of the Navalny video was subsequently deleted, and the gallery later said on Twitter that its account had been "hacked." It said the video "has no relation whatsoever to the museum and its activities."

Navalny, who has riled Russia's ruling elite with his anticorruption investigations, is seeking to run in the election, which Putin -- who has yet to announce his candidacy -- is widely expected to enter and win.

Navalny has continued to campaign nationwide despite statements by officials that he is ineligible for the ballot due to a financial-crimes conviction that he says was fabricated as retribution for his political activism.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged in a statement in September that Russian authorities are "systematically" interfering with Navalny's bid for the Russian presidency, including with raids on his campaign offices and detentions of his volunteers that it called "arbitrary."