In the middle of December, Russian internet search engine Yandex published a study that analyzed users’ queries to learn which people, events and phenomena stirred their interest the most in 2014.
The Winter Olympics in Sochi came in first, followed by the events in Ukraine and Crimea, the Ebola epidemic, the change to wintertime (this fall Russia switched to “eternal” wintertime), the growth of the dollar against the ruble, which lasted all year (although the study was published before “Black Tuesday” in which the ruble lost a quarter of its value to the dollar), the July 15 accident on the Moscow metro, the arrival of the Gifts of the Magi in Moscow from Greece on Jan. 7 and celebrity photographs published by hackers.
Besides the Olympics and the Paralympics, the most popular sports competitions were the FIFA World Cup and the Ice Hockey World Championships, in particular the U.S.-Russia (Feb. 15) and Russia-Finland (Feb. 19) hockey matches and the Brazil-Germany (July 8), Russia-Algeria (July 26) and Russia-South Korea (July 17) soccer matches.
The people searched for most often online were transvestite Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst and the Russian singer Zhanna Friske, who was treated for cancer this year at a New York clinic.
Among the women, Olympic champion Adelina Sotnikova and Yulia Lipnitskaya were the most sought after, while among the men were the late Robin Williams, figure skater Yevgeni Plushenko and Viktor Ahn, the Korean skater who won two Olympic golds and a bronze with the Russian national team. Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and his successor Petro Poroshenko also made the list.
The top film in Russian web searches this year was ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2,’ followed by ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction.’ Russian feature-length films did not even make it into the top 10; however, users frequently searched for Russian TV series, among which were ‘Fizruk’ (about a physical education teacher who has connections to a powerful criminal gang), ‘Chernobyl: the Zone of Alienation’ and ‘Smile of a Mockingbird,’ about an independent woman forging success.
Among foreign TV series frequently searched for online were ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘The Vampire Diaries,’ ‘The Walking Dead,’ ‘American Horror Story,’ ‘The Untold History of the United States’ and the British series ‘Sherlock.’
The most eagerly awaited novelties this year were the iPhone6, the Russian Lada Vesta car, the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the latest version of the ‘World of Tanks’ online game.
The most popular musical search was the song ‘Samaya Samaya’ performed by Russian singer Yegor Krid and Canadian singer Kiesza’s ‘Hideaway,’ based on which a comedy duo from Perm then shot a spoof video set in a Siberian village:
A year in the eyes of Vkontakte
Russia’s most popular social network, VKontakte, has posted a list of 2014’s most discussed topics. Tech blog RusBase offers a rundown of the top 10:
1. Sochi 2014 – 56,200,000 mentions
Top of the list and way ahead of the competition comes the Winter Olympics in Sochi, and the Russian team’s victory. Thanks to a deal between the IOC and VKontakte, users could find results and news about the games on the site, and share their thoughts on all aspects of the games.
2. Ukraine Crisis – 36,370,000 mentions
The events in Maidan Square, the toppling of Victor Yanukovych, and the subsequent conflict in eastern Ukraine didn’t escape VKontake users, who discussed it in their millions.
3. Currency Crash – 11,200,000 mentions
The fluctuating value of the rouble resulting from western economic sanctions was one of the most talked about aspects of the past year.
4. World Cup in Brazil – 11,030,000 mentions
The second most important sporting event of the year, according to Russia’s social networkers, was the Word Cup in Brazil, which saw Germany defeat Argentina in the final to won the trophy.
5. Crimea – 10,402,000 mentions
The referendum about Crimea’s future status, and its subsequent incorporation into the Russian Federation was the subject of over 10 million public posts in 2014.
6. VKontakte – 9,191,000 mentions
2014 was a busy year for VKontakte, which might explain why the company itself got so many mentions.
7. GTA 5 – 1,490,000 mentions
A gaming masterpiece from the games developers at Rockstar, even though GTA 5 was released in 2013, Vkontakte users just can’t stop talking about it.
8. ‘Fizruk’ TV Series – 1,136,000 mentions
Russian comedy series “Fizruk” (PE teacher) came out in April 2014, and was a huge hit. A third season is planned for 2015, and will no doubt receive similar attention across Russia’s social media.
9. iPhone 6 – 841,000 mentions
Love them or hate them, Apple products always grab our attention, and the iPhone 6 proved no exception.
10. Game of Thrones – 754,000 mentions
The cult TV serial continues to grow in popularity, amassing armies of followers across the world, and especially in Russia.
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The five most talked about people of the year will come as no surprise, all of them being connected with political events in Russia, Ukraine and across the globe. Russian President topped the list with 12,498,000 mentions, followed by Viktor Yanukovych, Petro Poroshenko, Barak Obama and Yulia Tymoshenko.
In the light of all these goings on, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, but it would seem that life’s great questions are never far from the minds of Russia’s social media users. Tolstoy wrote the 560,000 words that made up his most famous novel almost 150 years ago, but it turns out that even the great writer could not match up to Vkontakte users who mentioned War and Peace 16,270,000 and 51,784,000 times respectively.
The 10 fastest-growing Russian queries in Google in 2014:
1. Sochi 2014
2. Singer Jeanna Friske
3. The TV series ‘Fizruk’
4. Eurovision 2014
5. Crimea
6. The TV series ‘Chernobyl: the Zone of Alienation’
7. Medal standings
8. The TV series ‘Smile of a Mockingbird’
9. News on Ukraine
10. iPhone6
This story combines reports from Russia Beyond the Headlines and Rusbase.
