Russian Internet

What date should be considered a starting point of the Russian Internet? How it all began?

A global computer network in the Soviet Union was created on date of August 1, 1990 – the day when company Relcom combined several of networks in the Soviet Union into one. The first communication session of the Soviet computer network with an international telephone line happened in the same month. On September 19, 1990 the domain SU was registered for the Soviet Union’s users. This date can be regarded as the birth of the Soviet Internet. Despite the fact that it was just “mail”, the scientific community struck by the speed of data transfer – a letter to the United States could be delivered within just one hour, in contrast to conventional air or sea mail, where it took several days to several weeks.

After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned on December 25, 1991. However, the Soviet Internet existed, and since it was mainly concentrated in Russia and even Moscow, it gradually became Russian. Russian Internet date of birth is April 7th of 1994 – the day an international information center reported to the national InterNIC domain RU for the Russian Federation, which can be considered the official start of the Russian-speaking Internet.

Russian search engines:

YANDEX.RU

The name of the most popular Russian search engine Yandex means Yazykovoy Index (Language index). It’s slogan is “Will Find Everything”. Russian search engine Yandex quite successfully cope with it’s slogan and it has all rights to be called today the most visited resource in Runet. Officially, the search engine Yandex was introduced in September 1997 and immediately began winning ascent to stardom. Yandex today is the biggest portal providing search service apart from the catalog and a wide variety of web services: news, encyclopedias, dictionaries, catalogs, free mail, hosting, payment system, and more. About two million people visit this Russian search engine.

Russian search engine Rambler

RAMBLER.RU

Rambler is the first Russian search engine in the Internet, created in 1996. Eventually, with adding search engines, e-mail and other services Rambler has become a leader in providing media and online services of the Russian Internet for worldwide audience. Rambler today is a portal that provides users with a variety of quality services in the field of navigation, communications, media and entertainment on the World Wide Web. In 2009, the Rambler received award in the Culture and Mass Communications category.

Russian search engine Mail.ru MAIL.RU

Mail.Ru Group is thelargest Internet company in the Russian-speaking world and the leading Internet company in Russia, based on global monthly unique users. It operates Russia’s leading e-mail service Mail@Mail.Ru and the two largest IM networks in Russia – Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ. Mail.Ru Group operates two of the three largest Russian-language online social networking sites – My World@Mail.Ru and Odnoklassniki.ru – and owns a strategic minority equity stake in the social network Vkontakte.

In addition, Mail.Ru Group is developing popular e-commerce projects, enabling users to buy goods and services over the Internet and pay with e-money. More than 40 thematic vertical sites, targeting various user categories, are leaders in their segments. Their media projects provide people with a wealth of information on a broad range of popular topics. Mail.Ru Group is also Russia’s largest online games company. The company’s portfolio of online games includes 34 MMO games and more than 30 games for social networking sites.

Russian social networks:

Russian social network Odnoklassniki

ODNOKLASSNIKI.RU

Odnoklassniki (translates as classmates) is the scourge of office workers at all levels, one of the most popular and the first Russian social networks to search for classmates, fellow students, former co-workers and etc. The project was launched in March 2006, as of January 2008, the network recorded more than eight million users. The project Odnoklassniki spawned dozens of jokes, parodies, legends and horror stories. Especially popular humorous slogans: “Odnoklassniki.ru – let all your lovers finally see each other!” and “Odnoklassniki.ru – a second chance to have a sex with your school love!”

Odnoklassniki become an integral part of life in the Russian-speaking population, not only in Russia, CIS and Baltic States, but worldwide.

Russian social network VKontakte VKONTAKTE.RU

*VKontakte (translates as In Touch or In Contact) is a Russian social network popular in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. VKontakte offers a striking similarity in design and functionality to Facebook. VKontakte allows users to message contacts publicly or privately, create groups and events, share and tag images and video, and play browser-based games. VKontakte is in integration with torrent file sharing technology which allows users to share larger files.

In September 2009 VKontakte launched vk.com and translated the site into twelve languages in an effort to expand the site’s user base beyond Russia and the former Soviet Union. The site now has sixty seven languages available, including one novelty language dubbed “V Soyuze,” which uses Soviet era language and a red interface branded with the Soviet hammer and sickle.*Information is taken from WikipediA

Russian social network Moy mir MOY MIR

Moy Mir (translates as My World) is another popular Russian social networking site in RuNet. It belongs to the company mail ru. There are currently more than 50 million registered users. Each month the site is visited at least 17 million and daily online at the site are more than 300 thousand users.In 2007, May 17th the project was launched officially. Initially, users can keep a blog post on their page, photos, videos, a guestbook is available. December 11 was released wap-version. It was a smaller version of the site, which includes basic functions. By the time the social network has registered more than 5 million users.The idea of Moy Mir that everyone wants to create his own world, even little one. Private space should be available for everyone, it’s a very necessary as authentic philosophers said, and now psychologists confirm. The titanium Internet industry Mail.ru takes care of it.