Launch of first Cyrillic Internet domain approved
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has registered Russia’s national Cyrillic domain as .рф, the Russian Press and Communications Ministry says.
The letters are equivalent to the Latin alphabet letters rf, which stands for Russian Federation.
“The Russian Federation has become the first country in the world to be given the right to launch a national Cyrillic domain .рф,” the ministry’s web pages read.
Preliminary reservations for domains in the “.рф” zone are now being implemented, and ordinary Internet users will probably be able to open sites with Cyrillic names this autumn.
In November 2008, .рф was approved by ICANN following a request by President Dmitry Medvedev, RIA Novosti writes. The domain is aimed at raising the status of Russian as a global language, and is hoped to expand Internet use among Russian speakers unfamiliar with Latin characters.
Read also: Russia with second-most Internet users in Europe
Internet usage in Russia increased 20% in 2009, mostly due to higher user activity in the country’s regions, a study by Yandex web portal shows, RIA Novosti reports. The Northwest Federal District hit a record in Internet growth rate in Russia (38 %) last year, with the number of domains and blogs per 1,000 users growing by 26 % and 61 %, respectively.
In april 2010 BarentsObserver became the first news-provider based in Norway to be listed on Yandex, the largest search engine in Russia and the world’s second largest non-English-language web-portal. All news articles and briefs published on BarentsObserver are co-published in Russian language.
