Remembering Jovan Savović, creator of the invite-only sites Dirty and Leprosorium, which gave the RuNet ‘Preved’ and popularized writing Russian in deliberate misspellings. He was 43.

Yovan Savovich, the web designer and IT entrepreneur who died at the age of 43, is best known for creating the invite-only sites Dirty and Leprozorium. These sites played a significant role in shaping the Russian internet before the era of social media. Born in Sarajevo in 1982, Savovich moved to Moscow in 1991 during the August coup attempt.

He later relocated to the Soviet Union with his family after the war and later studied at Moscow State University's School of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics and School of Journalism. In November 2001, Savovich launched Dirty, an invitation-only collective blog that soon developed a loyal following. Three years later, he created the Leprozorium, a private section of Dirty that became even more exclusive.

Both sites popularized "Olbanian," a style of Russian written with deliberate misspellings, and the "Preved!" meme. Despite their closed nature, Dirty and Lepra had a substantial impact on Runet, popularizing a range of content and visual elements. Savovich also founded the company Futurico, which later owned all of his projects.

In April 2018, he joined Yandex as a product manager for Yandex Zen, where he contributed to the development of communication tools. Savovich's death in August 2026 remains unexplained, though people close to him reported he had been battling multiple sclerosis for years. Despite the emergence of other platforms, Dirty and Lepra continue to operate in 2026, even as newer, more popular alternatives have emerged.