OREANDA-NEWS. March 17, 2010. The Bank’s shareholder Valeri Belokon has set up Hercogiste Media, a Latvia-based publishing house. The publisher will focus primarily on evolving new media, developing unique media products and web projects, and magazine publishing, reported the press-centre of Baltic International Bank.

An informative and educational Russian-language magazine will be the first product to be released by the publisher. Further plans include creating a social networking website to facilitate interpersonal communication and connectivity and establishing Business Networking Club. The investment is estimated at around 1 million Latvian lats. The publisher’s creative team is headed by Tatiana Fast and Vladimir Vigman, well-renowned Latvian journalists.

"Amid the global economic downturn, publishers all over the world have to look for new innovative methods of communicating with their readers and advertisers,” says Alexander Vidiakin, a Board member and Development Director at Hercogiste Media. „Hercogiste Media intends to proactively involve in searching and promoting such new and innovative ways in Latvia. The interaction among paper-based publications, Internet environment and real-life human relationships underlies the publisher’s business.”

Hercogiste Media is owned by Valeri Belokon, the major shareholder of Baltic International Bank.