Ten years ago, I signed up for a blog.
Back then, I had no lofty goal in mind, I just needed somewhere to host translations of documents from Soviet archives and it seemed as good a place as any. I would have been happy to have a few dozen views per day, but thanks to people spreading the word dozens became hundreds and hundreds became thousands. Since then, I've opened a Tank Archives Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Mastodon. Thousands became tens of thousands and now millions of people see my content in some form every month. My articles were also published on Wargaming's military history portal Warspot.ru and now defunct English language version of the site, Warspot.net.
Tank Archives didn't stay online. In addition to a handful of magazine articles in The Armor Journal, I published my first book back in 2019, a second in 2021, and most recently a collaboration with Military History Visualized hit the printing press. I can't tell you what my next one is going to be, but I promise it won't be the last. Expect to see more fresh material announced soon, as always bringing you fresh information based on primary documents.
The internet changes and Tank Archives changes with it, but the blog remains the core of my online presence. As sources that formerly posted new scans of documents daily dry up, I've shifted to more long form articles, both translations and original works. Over ten years, I clocked in 7,830,355 views. Although this pales in comparison to Twitter's 2-3 million views per month, the blog isn't going away any time soon.
Huge thanks to all my readers, and here's to many more decades of Tank Archives!