Russian regions on the Internet
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Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 09:32:54 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Russian regions on the Internet
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Sabirzyan Badretdinov <[email protected]>
Russian regions on the Internet
RUSSIAN REGIONS PRESENT THEMSELVES ON THE INTERNET
A growing sense of Russian regional identity manifests itself on the
World Wide Web.
The Russian Federation currently consists of 21 autonomous republics,
55 ethnically Russian regions (including 6 *krais*), 11 autonomous
districts and 2 cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg have the legal
status of Russian regions). Together, they make up 89 constituent
units of the federation. Many of these units are hardly known outside
Russia, even though quite a few of them are bigger than some
countries. As of February 1999, each region has its own website.
Most regions, in fact, have more than one website and quite a few have
many (usually, both in English and in Russian). Very often, the
Internet is the only source of information about current events or
particular aspects of life in Russian regions. The Moscow media, with
a few exceptions, rarely covers day-to-day news in far-flung regions,
unless the news has some national significance. Foreign journalists,
most of whom are stationed in Moscow, rarely venture into the
provinces. This makes the Internet resources related to Russian
regions especially valuable.
Most regional sites can be grouped into the following 6 categories:
1. Official websites created by or on behalf of local governments
(such as the site of Saratov region's governor: <www1.gov.saratov.ru>
or the site of Khabarovsk Krai's legislature:
<www.duma.khv.ru/default.htm>). Usually, the official websites of
Russian regions contain much information about the local power
structure, political parties and leaders, as well as local legislative
activity (e.g. <www.gov.spb.ru/index.asp> St. Petersburg's official
web site, <www.adm.yar.ru/eng/index.htm> official site of Yaroslavl
region, <www.tatar.ru/president> Tatarstan President's personal web
site, <http://ivadm.ivanovo.ru/mainbot.htm> Ivanovo region's official
site, etc.)
2. Business-related websites maintained by or on behalf of private
companies (e.g. <www.akbars.ru> Tatarstan's biggest commercial bank Ak
Bars, <www.rusmet.ru/chtpz_moscow> Chelyabinsk pipe-rolling plant,
<www.kazan.ru/air> Airstan Airlines in Kazan). Such sites are usually
created with the specific intention of attracting foreign investors;
this is evident from the fact that they are sponsored by
business-related organizations and emphasize a region's economic
potential, mineral resources, etc:
(<http://vladivstok.com/usis/Mag.htm> Magadan region's
English-language business web site, <www.tatneftjsc.ru/legal.htm>
Russia's fourth-largest oil company Tatneft's English-language web
site, <http://www.mac.doc.gov/bisnis/country/tatar.htm> Tatarstan
Investment Guide)
3. Tourism-related websites (e.g. <www.russia.kuban.net> of Krasnodar
Krai, <www.abacus.ru/travel/Ekaterinburg.html> Yekaterinburg travel
site, <www.aha.ru/~blackm> Kamchatka travel site,
<www.irkutsk-baikal.com> Irkutsk travel site). Predictably, regional
websites sponsored by tourist agencies emphasize the beauty of local
landscapes and include photographs of tourist attractions.
4. Academic websites created by local universities (sometimes with
the help of special grants from the Open Society Institute), academies
or other institutions of learning (e.g. <www.uni.udm.ru> Udmurt State
University of the Republic of Udmurtia, <www.bsu.bashnet.ru> Bashkir
State University of the Republic of Bashkortostan, <www.ksu.ru> Kazan
State University, <www.asma.ru> Arkhangelsk State Medical Academy,
<www.mnsfld.edu/~bkoloski/VolgogradSU.html> Volgograd State
University, etc.) Academic websites are usually run by regional
universities and often emphasize the achievements of local scientists.
5. Political websites created by local political parties,
organizations or movements (e.g. <www. alebed.org> Alexandr Lebed's
web site, <http://Bolizm.ihep.su/RBe98> the site of Bashkortostan's
political opposition). Political websites could be subdivided into
two categories: websites created by the local branches of Moscow-based
parties (such as <http://yabloko.wizard.ru/top.html> Irkutsk branch of
Yavlinsky's Yabloko party) and websites created by locally-based
parties and movements
(<http://politics.e-reliz.ru/politics/p08/index.asp> Sverdlovsk
region's local Agrarian Party)
6. Individual and other miscellaneous websites. (e.g. Shevket Haki's
Tatarstan web site: <http://members.aol.com/haki1jef/index.html>,
<www.gid.spb.ru> St. Petersburg regional theater site, etc.)
The most common type of regional web sites seems to conform to the
following pattern: <www.name of the region.ru>. For example:
<www.sakha.ru>, <www.tatar.ru>, <www.omsk.ru>, <www.chita.ru>,
<www.rostov.ru>, <www.tambov.ru>, <www.mari.ru>, <www.astrakhan.ru>,
<www.pskov.ru>, <www.dagestan.ru>, <www. volgograd.ru>, <www.komi.ru>,
<www.ryazan.ru>, <www.perm.ru>, <www.tomsk.ru>, <www.ivanovo.ru>,
<www.amur.ru>, <www.osetia.ru> etc.
But there are also some exceptions. The following web sites, for
example, do not exist: <www.udmurtia.ru>, <www.tuva.ru>,
<www.kalmykia.ru>, <www.yekaterinburg.ru>.
Quite a few regional web sites seem to have been neglected or not
updated regularly. Some others are meticulously maintained and include
many frills, such as impressive graphics (<http://arw.dcn-asu.ru>Altai
Krai), interactive features (<http://politics.e-reliz.ru/politics>
Sverdlovsk region's website that includes a discussion forum), useful
links (<www.admin.bryansk.ru> Bryansk region's website with a
collection of Russian search engines) or daily updates of local news
(<www.simbir.ru> Ulyanovsk region, <http://news.mari-el.ru> Republic
of Mari El, <www.novosti.vl.ru> the Russian-language site of The
Vladivostok News, <www.orenburg.ru> Orenburg region).
Outside Moscow and St. Petersburg, the most cyber-savvy places in
Russia seem to be the Novosibirsk and Sverdlovsk regions and the
Republic of Udmurtia. Each of them has many dozens of local websites.
The Maritime Region is also worth mentioning. Its 2 web sites
<http://vlad.tribnet.com> (in English) and <http://vl.vladnews.ru> (in
Russian) are run with the help of "The News Tribune," a newspaper
based in Tacoma, WA and include daily news written by a staff of
professional, locally-based Russian and Western journalists.
The growing pride in regional identity is reflected in the fact that
most Russian regions have their own coats of arms that they proudly
display on their "official" web sites
(<www.expo98.ru/english/Russia/Kursk/indexhtm> Kursk region,
<www.tomsk.ru> Tomsk region, <www.orenburg.ru> Orenburg region,
<www1.gov.Saratov.ru> Saratov region, <www.adm.samara.ru> Samara
region, <www.e-reliz.ru/govern> Sverdlovsk region, etc.)
The ethnic republics also have in addition to their own coats of arms,
their own flags: (<http://home.chez.com/fotw/flags/ru-ingus.html>
Ingushetia,
<http://home.chez.com/fotw/flags/ru-daghe.html> Dagestan,
<http://home.chez.com/fotw/flags/ru--nosse.html> North Osetia,
<http://home.chez.com/fotw/flags/ru-tatar.html> Tatarstan,
<http://home.chez.com/fotw/flags/ru-karac.html>
Karachayevo-Cherkessia,
<http://home.chez.com./fotw/flags/ru-tuva.html> Tuva,
<http://home.chez.com/fotw/flags/ru-mordo.html> Mordovia,
<http://home.chez.com/fotw/flags/ru-udmur.html>, Udmurtia,
<http://home.chez.com/fotw/flags/ru-chuva.html> Chuvashia,
<http://home.chez.com./fotw/flags/ru-khaka> Khakasia,
<http://home.chez.com/fotw.flags/ru-balka> Kabardino-Balkaria, etc.)
Besides regional web sites, there are also web sites created by news
agencies, such as National News Service
(<www.nns.ru/regiony/index.html>), which maintains a very detailed
database on some of the regions. It also provides digests of regional
press (<www.nns.ru/russian-press/rindex.html>). A very long list of
Russian regional web sites can be found at
<http://weblist.ru/russia/11000>.
Much information about Russian regions can be obtained from web sites
created by such research institutes as Hokkaido University's Slavic
Research Center (<http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/index-e.html) and
Norwegian Center for Russian Studies based in Olso University
(<www.nupi.no>). Other useful sources of regional information include
Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty's web service (<www.rferl.org>),
Russia on the Net (<www.ru>) and Unrepresented Nations and Peoples
Organization (<www.unpo.org>).
Even a superficial survey of Russian regional web sites demonstrates
the growing use of the Internet in the Russian regions and the rapidly
evolving sense of regional identity witin Russia.
Sabirzyan Badretdinov
New York
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