Founded in December 1996, Cityline, a specialist provider of Internet technology (

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non ...

), was one of the first major Internet providers in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and across

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The founders of this limited company comprise a list of leading Russian businessmen:Емельян Захаров: «Моя основная профессия — антиквар»
/ref>Ведомости, «Поколение Next» от 24.09.2007
/ref> * Emelyan Zakharov, the renowned Moscow art dealer * Demyan Kudryavcev, chief executive of the major publishing house

Commersant (, , ''The Businessman'' or Commerce Man, often shortened to Ъ) is a nationally distributed daily newspaper published in Russia mostly devoted to politics and business. The TNS Media and NRS Russia certified July 2013 circulation of the daily ...

* Georgy Shuppe, the former president of Cityline. *

Dmitry Bosov Dmitry Borisovich Bosov (; March 27, 1968 – May 6, 2020) was a Russian billionaire businessman. He was known for his work with the ALLTECH Group, the Sibanthracite Group, HC Sibir Novosibirsk, VostokCoal MC, and the Genius Fund. Bosov was foun ...

; owner of the large investment company Alltech * Rafael Filinov; currently Chairman of the privately held corporation Djeruialtin. The line-up is completed by a major European investment company.
Cityline provided its services to such blue chip names as Mercedes, Vist, Soyuz and Computer Land.
In 1997 Cityline, in association with Mr. Sergey Skatershikov, founded Netskate, the company that owned a dozen of the most popular websites from the early period of

Runet The Russian Internet () or Runet (), is the part of the Internet that uses the Russian language, including the Russian-language community on the Internet and websites. Geographically, it reaches all continents, including Antarctica (due to Russ ...

, one of which was the leading Russian ‘Web Design’ studio of

Artemy Lebedev Artemy Andreyevich Lebedev () is a Russian designer and businessman. He is the founder of the design company Art. Lebedev Studio. He is also an avid blogger, known for his rather provocative views and frequent usage of obscene language. Biograp ...

.Materials about the history of Russian Internet

Cityline was one of the first companies in Russia to enter into a cooperation agreement with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

as an official Internet-provider for

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...

and its Small Business Server packages.Сервер новостей «What's new?» от 18.06.1998

By 2001 Cityline had 100 000 subscribers and was bought out for $29 million by the international telecommunications company

Golden Telecom Golden Telecom is an internet services provider in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It was acquired by VimpelCom in 2007. History Founded in 1996 by the global corporation Global Telesystems ("GTS"). NYSE-listed Global Te ...

that had been founded by the global corporation

Global Telesystems Global may refer to: General *Globe, a spherical model of celestial bodies *Earth, the third planet from the Sun Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 198 ...

."Golden Telecom Acquires Cityline and Uralrelcom", Business Wire, April 3, 2001
/ref>

References

{{reflist Internet service providers of Russia Russian brands