The author of the materials was known in the network under the pseudonym Zhemao. For 10 years no one noticed that he was writing complete nonsense. This is not surprising, given that the “official” history of Russia is already completely faked by local propagandists.

in fantasy world

He began his “career” in fictional history in 2010 with several publications about the Qing Dynasty. Zhemao devised his plans around a real historical figure – the corrupt official Heshen. However, already in 2012, he paid attention to the history of Russia by editing existing articles about Russian Tsar Alexander I on the Chinese Wikipedia. From there, he gradually expanded the made-up stories into other material, mixing fact and fiction.

• As the source points out, one of the biggest hoaxes in Wikipedia history was uncovered by science fiction writer Yifan, who visited Chinese Wikipedia for inspiration.
• There he stumbled upon the story of the Kashin mine, became interested and began to delve deeper into the subject, immersing himself in the numerous battles and personalities that Zhemao filled in the article. However, the more Yifan studied the question, the more strange it seemed to him.
• The Russian versions of the materials turned out to be shorter or nonexistent than their Chinese equivalents, and a hyperlink from a passage about medieval silver mining methods led to an article about silver mining in the 21st century.
• He later discovered that such a mine never existed, even though the city allegedly found was actually in Russia. In addition, in the Chinese version there are numbers that are mixed with real people living at that time, which are not in the Russian version.

Wikipedia gets the reason

A study by Wikipedia revealed that Zhemao is only one of four “dummy accounts” created by a Chinese woman to falsify the story. The author used each of these “personalities” by citing his own articles to lend credibility to the other three. Now everyone is blocked. Author for more than 10 years wrote several million words of fake Russian history, wrote 206 articles, and spoiled hundreds of them.

According to an official statement, as of June 17, most of the content created by Zhemao on the Chinese Wikipedia has already been removed. A few entries were edited by third-party authors, so they stay on the site. Edits in other existing articles have been withdrawn.

Zhemao apologized for what he did

The author, whose real name was not disclosed by the source, published an apology letter on the English Wikipedia page. She writes that she is actually a housewife, works full time, only has a college degree and her motivation is to study history.

Most of the recordings were made by the woman to fill in the gaps left by her first few recordings.

As they say, to lie, to lie more. I didn’t want to delete the hundreds of thousands of words I wrote, but as a result, I lost millions of words and my academic circle of friends fell apart. The problem I caused is hard to fix, so perhaps a permanent ban is the only option. My current knowledge is not enough to make a living, so in the future I will learn a profession, work honestly and no longer do such vague things,
Zhemao wrote.

On the network, the author of the fictional Russian story was called Chinese Borges. While some Wikipedia editors warned that the incident “shamed the credibility of the current Chinese Wikipedia”, many users praised Zhemao’s talent and perseverance, encouraging him to publish a novel in the future.

It is truly amazing to invent a self-contained logic of history with all kinds of clothes, money, plates, etc.
– Wrote a user on the Weibo microblogging platform.

Neither Zhemao nor the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, did not respond to Sixth Tone’s requests for comment.