Runet (russian: Рунет), a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsru (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-eig ...

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

) and net/network, is the Russian-language community on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and websites. The term Runet was coined in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in the spring of 1997 by an Israeli resident and Russian-language speaker from Baku,

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 Wiki ...

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 Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

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 technolog ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

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 ...

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

, Foursquare, etc. for usage in all

post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

), 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 were more attractive to Russian speaking users. Nowadays, some Russian users are not interested in usage of such services as

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

because local services have more Russia-specific features and local community ( VK.com,

Yandex Yandex LLC (russian: link=no, Яндекс, p=ˈjandəks) is a Russian multinational technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine, information services, e-commerce, transportation, map ...

services, etc.), though many international websites have very high quality Russian localization 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

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 peo ...

, Ukrainian, Belarusian 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. 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

n part of Internet". Also, Russian officials strongly suggest that Runet is the Internet in Russia.

Research

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

's Berkman Center conducts regular researches of

Internet in Russia Internet in Russia or Russian Internet (russian: российский Интернет which means ''Russia-related Internet'') and sometimes Runet (using first two letters from Russian plus net) is a part of the Internet which is related to ...

, 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