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Runet (russian: Рунет), a portmanteau of ru (code for both the Russian language and
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
's top-level domain) and net/network, is the Russian-language community on the Internet and websites. The term Runet was coined in Israel in the spring of 1997 by an Israeli resident and Russian-language speaker from
Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world ...
,
Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
, blogger Raffi Aslanbekov (russian: Раффи Асланбеков) also known in Russia as Great Uncle, an author of the online column Great Uncle's Thoughts. Runet was popularized by early Internet users and was included in several dictionaries, including the spelling dictionary of the
Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across ...
, edited by V. V. Lopatin in 2001. For ordinary users, the term Runet means that the content of
websites A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...
is available for Russian users without foreign language skills, or that online shops have an office in Russia (for example, Russian search engines, e-mail services, anti-viruses, dictionaries, Russian-language clones of Facebook,
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
, YouTube,
eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
, PayPal, Foursquare, etc. for usage in all post-Soviet states), so the term is related to practical usage for end users. Being on the Runet gives a company some advantage, as many local IT-companies are more successful than foreign services on the Russian market. The term can describe the situation of the 1990s to the early 2000s; foreign companies didn't want to operate in the Russian market and localize their products, so Russia-based
start-ups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
were more attractive to Russian speaking users. Nowadays, some Russian users are not interested in usage of such services as Facebook or Google Maps because local services have more Russia-specific features and local community (
VK.com VK (short for its original name ''VKontakte''; russian: ВКонтакте, meaning ''InContact'') is a Russian online social media and social networking service based in Saint Petersburg. VK is available in multiple languages but it is predomin ...
, Yandex services, etc.), though many international websites have very high quality
Russian localization Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
and Google search has had full support of Russian morphology for about 10 years. These situations are more or less applicable to most of post-Soviet states and these states are using the
Internet in Russian language Internet in Russian (also Russian Internet (russian: link=no, русский Интернет), known as Runet) is a part of the Internet that uses the Russian language. Geographically, it reaches all continents, including Antarctica (Russi ...
and forming a common lingua franca community like
English on the Internet The English language is sometimes described as the ''lingua franca'' of computing. In comparison to other sciences, where Latin and Greek are often the principal sources of vocabulary, computer science borrows more extensively from English. In ...
. Many officials of the Russian government actively use this term as a synonym for Internet in the territory of Russia, i.e. for Internet infrastructure, which is subject to
Russian law The primary and fundamental statement of laws in the Russian Federation is the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Hierarchy Constitutionism Adopted by national referendum on 12 December 1993 with 54.5% of the vote, the Constitution took ...
(including Russian censorship laws, copyright, corporate, advertisement laws, etc.), but the Russian online community doesn't support this use of the term as millions of users use the Russian language on the Internet while living outside Russia; Russian is spoken in large parts of eastern Europe that do not fall under Russian territory. Some Russian officials automatically believe that the Russian Wikipedia is based in Russia as a
business entity In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for ...
and try to control the content of the website or establish a Russia-based clone of Wikipedia. The country domain ''.ru'' in Russian phonology does not sound like the first syllable of the country's name, since "Russia" in Russian is called "Rossiya", with an O. The pronunciation of the word Runet is closer to the pronunciation of "Russian language" – ''russky yazyk'' instead of ''Rossiya''


Historical overview

Historically the term Runet has been described in several ways. * In 2009, a Yandex report stated that Runet can pertain to sites written in
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...
,
Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...
,
Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...
and Kazakh languages, as well as sites in any language published in the 12 national domains of the original CIS nations: .am, .az, .by, .ge, .kg, .kz, .md, .ru, .su, .tj, .ua or .uz. *
Russian-language Internet Internet in Russian (also Russian Internet (russian: link=no, русский Интернет), known as Runet) is a part of the Internet that uses the Russian language. Geographically, it reaches all continents, including Antarctica (Russ ...
. According to the definition in Yandex slovari dictionary published in 2001, "Runet is the Russian Internet. The borders of Internet are usually not based on the "geographical borders", but rather on "languages", and therefore the term Runet is usually considered to be not only websites in .ru domain, but also all Russian-language and/or Russian-oriented websites". "Economic dictionary" of 2009 says "Runet is Russian-language part of the Internet". This is a common meaning of Runet. Practically, this definition makes it the Russian-language online community of post-Soviet states and their diasporas. * .ru domain. Runet is the part of Internet, whose websites are in the top-level .ru domain. This definition would exclude Russian (language) or Russian (country) sites intentionally using other domains. Highly popular alternative domains include ".net" for humorous impact or strength of statement (as this means "no" in Russian), popular havens for illegal activities like ".me" (piracy) or ".cz" (to avoid prosecution for facilitation of prostitution), or ".com" for international expansion – the latter being home to Russia's #2 site by Alexa rank, domestic-owned and based international social network Vk.com. * Internet in the Russian Federation. According to the definitions found in Finansovy Slovar' and some early-version Yandex slovari dictionaries (disputed by revisions), "Runet is the
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
n part of Internet". Also, Russian officials strongly suggest that Runet is the Internet in Russia.


Research

Harvard University's
Berkman Center The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008 ...
conducts regular researches of Internet in Russia, and, in particular, has papers named "Mapping RuNet Politics and Mobilization" and "RuNet Echo". The prominent Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) regular Internet measurements are titled Runet.fom.ru. There are Russian internet-reviewing newspapers called TheRunet, Runetologia and others.


References


External links


History of the Internet in Russia



10-years-celebration of Runet
{{in lang, ru Internet in Russia Russian Internet slang