Russia's Instagram copy, Rossgram, says it will help the country's creators make money again. Influencers are skeptical.

On first glance, the design of the app — as well as its name — look very similar to the American original, including the logo colors, a bright pink and orange.

Rossgram promises to become an alternative for Russian creators, many of whom are left without their primary source of income and described desperation at losing access to Instagram.

"This is my work," said Karina Nigay, who has over 1 million Instagram followers, as reported by The Washington Post. "Imagine you were just fired completely from work and you aren't receiving any income at all, but at the same time you have expenses for your family, for your team if you have subordinates, and then all of a sudden you have nothing to pay your team."

Rossgram claims it will reintroduce all of the features that allowed them to make money on Instagram, such as affiliate links, branded content, and shops — and also new ones, such as subscriptions and crowdfunding. But many creators are not convinced that Rossgram will replace Instagram.

Katya Konasova, who has over a million YouTube subscribers and almost 400,000 on Instagram, wrote on Telegram: "The [Rossgram] logo looks like it's made with Paint, and I still don't understand who is actually going to use it."

In attempts to maintain their audiences and continue earning money, creators have instead flocked to other apps. A number have moved to messaging app Telegram and VKontakte, a Russian social network, and are organizing exclusive giveaways for their subscribers who switch to the new apps.

But moving followers has proven hard, and the user experience on Telegram and VKontakte is different from Instagram.

Despite the tough situation, creators are not convinced about Rossgram

The promises of Rossgram could offer a lifeline to creators looking to continue making a living off of social media — if it works. But some creators have said they are skeptical of many elements of the Rossgram project.

On March 17, creator Artem Graf posted a YouTube video reacting to the Rossgram announcement.

"Honestly, I thought it was a joke at first," he says at the beginning of the video. "They literally just took Instagram's design and photoshopped a new logo on it."

Graf — who has over 350,000 subscribers on YouTube, and almost 100,000 on Instagram — wrote to Insider in a Telegram message that most of his friends, some of them creators with millions of followers, had reacted to the news of Rossgram "with humor."

There were a few elements that provoked this, Graf said. First, there was the name Rossgram, which felt both overly patriotic and a rip-off of Instagram, and second, there was the narrow usage that the platform would have. 

"Instagram gave us the freedom to connect to the whole world," he wrote. "Rossgram is intended as a 'Russian social network,' which effectively cuts people off from the rest of the world."

After speaking with fellow creators and listening to their reactions, he estimated that 90% of them were skeptical about Rossgram.

Another creator, Denis — who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of political repercussions — also has a successful YouTube channel, where he made several videos discussing Rossgram. In an email to Insider, he wrote he was convinced the platform would turn out to be a joke. Like Graf, he perceived a lot of skepticism toward Rossgram from other creators.

In the comments to Graf's and Denis' videos, other users expressed their concerns.

"It will be the same as with Rutube and YouTube," one user commented. "I mean, it's like a copy. But in fact, it will never reach the level of the original."

This is not the first time Russian developers have tried to create national alternatives to "Western" social-media platforms. Some of the most popular ones are YouTube dupe Rutube and the photo app Snapster, which only lasted from 2015 and 2017. Another Russian Instagram, which will be called Limbiko, also recently appeared.

To many creators, these reiterations of existing apps feel doomed from the outset.

"Instagram is already a whole community, a lifestyle, our memories, for someone it is business and work," said Sergei Plakidin, a social-media marketer who uses Instagram to promote his business. "Rossgram, as we would say in Russian, is reinventing the bicycle — that is, re-creating something that already exists."

Plakidin was also skeptical about the speed at which the app was developed: It was announced in mid-March, and will be launched in April, a timeline which, he said, seemed unlikely to yield a quality product.

"It is impossible to make something even remotely similar to Instagram within this period of time," he said.

The creators of Rossgram are confident about their project

While some influencers are doubtful, the app's cofounders seem optimistic.

Rossgram's Telegram page has 90,000 subscribers, and Aleksandr Zobov, one of the cofounders, told Russian news outlets that he is expecting a million downloads of the app within the next month.

In an email to Insider, Zobov wrote that only the basic functionality of the app would resemble that of Instagram, but nothing else — unlike what the current presentation of the platform suggests.

"Not a single line of code of this social network will be copied by us," he wrote. "The design will be different too."

Zobov highlighted that the app is meant for the "citizens of Russia," and wrote that for the developers, the block of Instagram and subsequent demand for the product has been crucial.

"This moment probably happens only once in a lifetime," he wrote. "It is important not to miss it."