Actuality December 24, 2007

T

he Russian Internet search portal "Yandex" has published the data of the latest research " Internet development in regions of Russia.

Autumn-Winter 2007". Though the estimations stated in this report can be disputed,

in the whole the document looks verisimilar.

World Wide Web development in Siberia and in the Far East

First of all, Yandex data say that 12 % of users of the Russian Internet live (3,5 mln people) in Siberia. The important peculiarity of the district is that the biggest number of news sites of Russia is registered there – 23 % of the general number. By this rate Siberia is in the lead among all districts of Russia. What do these facts say about

? That there is no united information field, characteristic for other districts of Russia with more compact territory and population (first of all, for Ural and Povolzhje), in Siberian federal district.

It is defined by huge territory which yields a bit to neighboring China, and also that on the average population density makes 4 people for one sq.

km. in Siberian federal district. Therefore each region in Siberia is the separate country living under own laws, and very weakly connected even with the neighboring territories.

Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Barnaul, Kemerovo, Kyzyl, Ulan-Ude – all these regional centers have their own information field, and people, living in them, are slightly interested in what is happening in the neighboring areas. For this reason in Siberia there are so many news sites and

there is no single, all- Siberian information portal. In Ural such resource exists. In Siberia there is no.

Even more. All attempts to create all-Siberian mass media (and not only in the Internet) have not crowned with success yet.

And nevertheless the majority of the editions pretending to the status of district ones, cannot really maintain the level.

The regions of Siberia differ from each other too much, the distance between them is too big (from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk, for example, there are almost 40 hours by train, and two hours by plane).

One more interesting detail in Yandex report concerns Internet development in Far East federal district.

There is the least number of users (5 % from the whole number, or 1,6 mln people), the least number of electronic mass-media (only 4 % of total amount). But existing news sites are the most active in Russia. The average information portal in Far East federal district publishes 14 news daily that exceeds average Russian index twice.

Certainly, cheapness of the Internet information affects, especially in

the conditions of the Far East where distances and population density considerably differ even from the Siberian.

Activity of Far East portals is created by exclusive isolation of district from the whole territory of Russia. Isolation is not only economic, but also time one, when in Eastern outly ing d

istricts a day begins, in Moscow it already comes to an end. Hence we have such great interest to what is happening "underfoot", but not in far and for the majority of the population unachievable "centre". Who need it, if the majority of people have seen that Moscow only on TV?