On September 3, I published an interview with the Russian Elephant, where the venerable animal explained the goals of the project in detail and answered all other questions as vaguely as possible. Generally speaking, this is a rather correct tactic for presenting information about a project that is still under development and for which interest needs to be stirred up. Well, today the project was released.

As of today, only two options are available on the Russian Elephant website: donate money for the project’s development and create a case page for the Elephant. To create a page, you are expected to create your own account and then link it to your Twitter by posting a message with a generated code. Thus, the principle designated by the Elephant—”I will never forget you, you will never see me”—will only work fully if the Twitter account is anonymous, but this in turn calls into question the very necessity of such a link. In short, I didn’t understand the Twitter linking. In any case, after successful linking, the user finally gets the opportunity to upload their materials to the site for subsequent verification and publication.

It is assumed that the user will upload one or more photos to the Elephant’s site depicting a criminal, as well as a text description of their crime. As I understand it, it is desirable that the criminal event is also visible in the photos; otherwise, it is unclear why the Elephant should take the information on faith.

It is promised that we will soon see the actual database with evidence of various crimes, and then a list of successful cases—without which the whole endeavor is pointless. But for now, let’s fill up this piggy bank.