Internet in Russland
Runet (Руне́т in Russian, short for Russian Internet) is the name Russian-speaking Internet users commonly use to call the part of Internet written or understood in the Russian language.
Origin of name
There is no commonly accepted history of the name. It was first used during the middle 1990s when the Internet was first slowly spreading through Russia. Usage of word 'Runet' became almost official and is used in the title of the Runet Prize given out yearly and supported by governmental Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications (FAPMC). FAPMC-supported educational portal on language Gramota.ru, which is widely recognized, lists the word 'Рунет' in 2002-marked spelling dictionary issued by Russian Academy of Sciences.
History
The history of the Russian Internet first began in 1990 from the development of analog modem-based computer networks in the USSR, intended to connect scientific organizations (primarily Kurchatov nuclear physics institute). Many Soviet state-controlled structures were inherited by the Russian Federation after the fall of the USSR. With the transformation of economy market-based telecommunication industries grew quickly. By the mid 1990s, computer networks appeared in many branches of regular life and commerce in Post-Soviet states. The Internet became a popular means of communication for anyone in the world who spoke Russian. National Nets of former Soviet Republics began to occur (e.g. "Uznet" for Uzbekistan, "Kaznet" for Kazakhstan etc.).
With increase of Russian-encoded email, Usenet and WWW usage, the Internet-aware society of Russians began to form. At some moment it came out of scientific facilities (many of them secret in Soviet times). Russian FidoNet activity also contributed to development of Runet. Some people one can call "Runet users" apparently began to appear even before the .ru domain was registered for Russian Federation on April 7, 1994. The USSR's .su domain was registered on September 19, 1990.
Runet Prize organizers formally consider Runet as starting with the registration of the .ru domain in 1994; this, in 2004 the first Runet Prise award ceremony was dedicated to "10 years of Runet". A separate count is held for the creation of the 'Soviet Internet' (the Soviet state dissolved in 1991). In 2005 there was a special conference in Kurchatov Institute on .su domain's 15 year anniversary. The domain still functions and registration is available through a Russian-based registrar.
ROMIR monitoring agency says that as of the second quarter of 2006, 19% (or about 21 million) of the people in Russia older than 18 are part of the 'Internet audience' ([1]). Rukv.ru monitoring project states 526,010 websites within .ru and .su responding on December 2, 2006.
Runet is usually distinguished by usage of Russian, and not necessarily by a having .ru domain or a server physically located within the Russian Federation. As well as Russian citizens, Runet consists of millions of Russian-speaking residents of former Soviet Republics, of Israel and other countries — there are significant concentrations of Russian-speaking people around the globe.
As of 2006, Runet has fast developing business sector, many mass media websites, other types of websites and lots of communities. The largest community ([2]) are Russian-speaking users of USA-based blogging platform LiveJournal widely known as 'ЖЖ' ('ZheZhe', acronym for "live journal" in Russian — "живой журнал").