Today is Internet Day in Russia!
Great timing for Russia’s # 1 fan of Cyberspace, Blogger-in-chief (as he is known) President Dmitry Medvedev (http://twitter.com/KremlinRussia_E) who must feel like kicking back after a week spent kicking some (albeit long distance) ass, firing Moscow’s pint sized mayor, Yuri “The Long Armed” Luzhkov. And not before time either. Go Dmitry, Go!
I’m currently doing some half-hearted research on the concept of The Great Russian Soul at the moment for my too much-neglected book, and one of the things that keeps cropping up is Russia’s sense of a special mission to promote its Russianness within the global community. This means they always have to be just that little bit different about every single little thing. Like Christmas. And Internet Day: although the rest of the world celebrates the Vatican-sanctioned World Day for the Internet (pronounced in Russian “Interrrrrrrrr-nyet”) on April 4th, the day of the ascension of St. Isidore of Seville (560-636 CE), (who is the current patron saint of the Internet), in Russia, we celebrate it today because some IT guys (called “Eye-tea-shniki”) decided we should. Instead of Facebook (pronounced in Russia “feyssss-buk”) Russians have a total prototype called “V Kontakte,” which means “In contact.” There are also lots of copycat retail sites such as ozon.ru, which sells books and if you squint looks just like amazon.com. Last Spring, there was a huge hue and cry about the introduction of a Russian language domain, so that the endings read “.rf” rather than the more Latinized “.ru.” This was a pet Kremlin project and will, I feel sure, play a big part in ushering in total world domination. Any day now.
The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.
~Dave Barry
Living in Russia, I count my cyber blessings daily. I am old enough, and enough of a veteran of life in Russia to remember what life was like before the internet: endless tries to get a crackly international line on the telephone, no access to print media in English, no iTunes downloads of “Big Love” or “Mad Men,” and no Google or Wikipedia. Awful…
According to my uber-reliable cyber buddy, Russian Sphinx, only 32.2% of Russians use the Internet, which seems woefully little for a country that has an almost monopolistic lock up on the cyber bride/dating concession. This may be because the demographics of Russia lean heavily towards the over 70-s, who have not embraced the new technology with open arms. This generalization, however, does not include HRH’s father, Dedushka, who is very much on-line. All the time. Great SKYPEr, Dedushka, as I have mentioned before.
Still, there is no lack of interest in Russia out there in cyberspace, and this is brought home to me each and every day as I spend way too much time trawling my Feedjit roll to see who is visiting my blog, how they came to it, and what they are looking for. The single biggest reason people come are searches (mostly from New Zealand or Australia) for recipes for Beef Stroganoff, but there are other reasons too. Some particularly intriguing ones follow:
Madras, Tamil Nadu arrived from google.co.in on “Dividing My Time: Sex in Russia” by searching for Would you ever want to Have sushi with Portia and Daniel.
Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts arrived from google.com on “Siberian Pel’meni for a London Yummy Mummy” by searching for what do siberians eat frozen on a stick.
Makati, Manila arrived from google.com.ph on “Dividing My Time: American Women Married to Russian Men” by searching for Russian men tender kiss.
Philippine, Benguet arrived from google.com.ph on “Expat Book Club Euthanasia” by searching for anecdotes which tell something about euthanasia.
Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg City arrived from google.ru on “Why I Hate Dachas, and You Should Too!” by searching for where to get a bikini wax st petersburg russia.
Mississauga, Ontario arrived from google.ca on “Cool Cucumbers in a Pretty Pickle” by searching for can you sterile cucumbers.
Brooklyn, New York arrived from google.com on “St. John’s Eve/Иван Купала: Ferns, and Fires, and Flesh: Oh My!” by searching for THORN WREATHS MARTYRS WORE AROUND LEGS .
Moscow, Moscow City arrived from google.ru on “Move Over Noho – Evidence of Same-Sex Marriage Found in Moscow” by searching for girls for marriage in moscow horses.
Melbourne, Victoria arrived from google.com.au on “Dividing My Time: Life in Russia” by searching for russian boom boom our guns are firing.
Elk Grove, California arrived from google.com on “Cool Cucumbers in a Pretty Pickle” by searching for pickles and russian culture.
Toronto, Ontario arrived from google.ca on “Day of the Inventors and Rationalizers (Management Consultants)/День изобретателя и рационализатора: Love To Hear Medvedev Go “Tweet Tweet Tweet!”” by searching for Hot Management Consultants.
El Mirage, Arizona arrived from google.com on “Dividing My Time: Equestrian” by searching for equestrian parade sharpie .
Perth, Western Australia arrived from google.com.au on “St. John’s Eve/Иван Купала: Ferns, and Fires, and Flesh: Oh My!” by searching for Aeroflot nude calendar download.
Happy Internet day to all of Russia’s bloggers, programmers, website builders, on-line retailers, and, of course, to cyber-stud, President Medvedev! Who is STILL not following me on Twitter. Which, frankly speaking, hurts my feelings.
Dear Readers:
Are you old enough to remember the pre-Internet days? What are the things you love or hate about the Internet? What is your take on the sushi with Portia and Daniel…I fear it is perhaps not rated-PG. Thoughts?
Lenin Lives Next Door: The Audiobook
I’m delighted to announce the release of the audio version of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow!
This was so much fun to narrate and record and I’m so pleased that it comes just in time for your school run, marathon training, soup-making marathons, and anything that helps you get through repetitive tasks!
You can purchase and download this 9-hour, unabridged version of Lenin Lives Next Door with me narrating (and doing Jesus’s voice, no mean feat!) on amazon.com and its affiliates, audible.com and its UK affiliate and iTunes.
Click here to download a brief sample!
Jennifer!
Another great post! You wrote about the over 70s crowd in Russia. I was in St. Petersburg recently visiting charities for United Way. One of the charities we support is Blokadnik, which was started to support survivors of the Siege of Leningrad. The charity has evolved over the years and their most popular program is “Babushka On-Line”. It’s a computer course for pensioners and it is hugely popular. In St. Petersburg, the government is putting more information and more forms on-line. If you don’t have computer access and you don’t know how to use the internet, you are very disadvantaged.
The charity runs courses every month. There are 30 spots and there is a waiting list. It’s so popular that they started “Dedushka On-Line”. The organisers found that they needed to run male and female courses separately because the men asked fewer questions when they were around women and the women wouldn’t start flirting with the men!
Keep up the posts,
Elizabeth
Some of those are hilarious. Now I am going to read to see why those crazy searches are leading to your blog. I don’t really get that much traffic from searches. I may need to spice things up!
BTW, I cant imagine living as far away as Russia without a damn good internet connection.
Great post! My wife knew nothing about computers before we met, but MSN Messenger kept us alive during the cruel years that she was stuck in Russia waiting for her immigration documents. Now she and her mother chat pretty much daily in Skype. I’d guess Internet use in Russia is somewhat higher than what you were quoted, but it might be accurate as a lot of Russia is rural, with poor to no connections. Even in Vladivostok public Internet was not as available as you’d expect for a city its size.
That’s “hue” and cry, not “hew”, in your hotlink.
@Mark:
Thank you for the spellcheck!! SKYPE is really one of the more amazing things the Internet has given us!
Hi Lori:
The Internet really makes it possible to be almost anywhere! As for the searches: it is the highlight of my day to find the weirdest ones. Really funny! Thanks for stopping by!
I LOVE IT!!! Senior love at the Internet classes! That is classic!
I agree, but she’s the adventurous one – I would never have tried it myself, and I still don’t understand all that well how it works. My in-laws will be here the end of the month for an extended visit, so she’ll have nobody left to talk with (in Skype) but her sister.
@ Mark: extended visit by the Russian in-laws. Ah yes…
IT guys (called “Eye-tea-shniki”) It sounds funny. lol
I like Facebook more than In Kontact. 🙂
Haha! Looking at people’s crazy searches is possibly my favorite part of having a blog.