Earlier this month, Russian search engine Yandex made big news by nominating German Gref, the head of state-owned Sberbank, to its Board of Directors. Some may see this as yet another attempt by the Kremlin to crackdown on the Internet. But it wasn’t. Yandex looks as strong as ever as one of the world’s very …
Why Russia’s government cares about Yandex so much Read More
In an empty Japanese restaurant on the northeast outskirts of Moscow, Nikita Kislitsin, a 28-year-old Russian with blond hair, blue eyes and translucent skin, is showing me how to pull off a multimillion-dollar cyberheist on his MacBook Air. The ace hacker is methodical; his slim fingers click quickly through a series of applications to activate …
From Russia with Code: The next generation of cybercrime Read More
In 2006, the co-owners of the little-known Russian IT company Parallels Nicholas Dobrovolsky and Sergey Beloussov, took part in a meeting at the offices of Apple in Cupertino, California. [Editor’s note: the company now controls 90 percent of the market for applications to run Windows-based programs on Apple computers]. The Russian businessmen aimed to introduce the Parallels Desktop system, which …
Recent political tensions and even a cold-war style warning from the FBI have not slowed the flow of Russian venture capital into US startups, nor have they stifled so far the American entrepreneurs’ appetite for these investments. In the past two months, no fewer than six publicly disclosed deals have been concluded between US based …
Far from politics, Russian money still fuels US startups Read More
As technoparks, IT parks and business incubators spring up across Russia, observers, including the start-ups seeking residency with such organizations, are becoming increasingly interested to know if the return on these multimillion dollar projects is really worth their cost. High-profile experts visiting KomTech 2014, a large innovation support event in Nizhny Novgorod, emphasized that even …
The birth of the .ru extension in April, 1994 has come to symbolize the beginning of Russia’s domestic internet history. Now, twenty years later, East-West Digital News co-founder Andrew Zotov, a pioneer of the industry, recalls these earlier times. The early days The Internet appeared in Russia well before 1994, with the first local service …
Celebrating the .RU – A look back over two decades of the Russian Internet Read More
The gaming industry is a lucrative, growing business with new opportunities continually developing around the globe — and Russia is no exception. Their gaming community is one of the most unique in the world and has grown exponentially over the last few years. In fact, Russians are known to be the most game-crazy of all with an …
The online gaming industry, Russia’s secret weapon? Read More
Russian and international media have been abuzz in recent days over a new round of website blockings by the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor). This comes on the heels of changes in the mediascape which have been perceived as setbacks to the liberal media in the …
Russian authorities tighten screws on online media Read More
This month has seen the blossoming of venture analytics in Russia, with no fewer than four reports dedicated to the field. A study from PwC, with the support of state-owned fund of funds RVC, and another from investment company Rye Man and Gor Securities (RMG) offer general views of the market. Two other reports, published by …
Russian venture market: From euphoria to maturation Read More
Russia has become the it girl of e-commerce. Even amid a slowing economy, the country’s online shopping increased 26 percent last year, to 510 billion rubles (about $16 billion), according to Moscow’s Data Insight, and could double by 2016. That has made the country an intriguing target for foreign players such as Amazon.com, eBay, Asos, and …
Ever since Russia become the ‘R’ in Jim O’Neil’s BRIC acronym in 2001, Western investors and entrepreneurs have increasingly sought to take their chances in Moscow, St. Petersburg and beyond. O’Neil’s assessment of the size of the opportunity within the Russian market has been shown to be decidedly correct. However, the flow of investors from …
Going East – What Western investors need to know when considering Russia Read More
More than 1,800 instances of the government-led abuse of Russian Internet users’ rights for unrestricted access to web-based information last year were brought to light in a muckraking report issued last week by a Russian civil rights group. Agora, an interregional association of Russian civil rights NGOs set up in 2005 to bring together lawyers …
Civil activists expose violations of Internet freedom across Russia Read More
