Up

RUSSIAN REGIONS PRESENT THEMSELVES ON THE INTERNET, by Sabirzyan Badretdinov 

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*), 10 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 August 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.  From Tatarstan's point of view, this
is a positive development because it brings closer the day when Russia will
finally disintegrate into many independent states.
(=> same article on http://library.uraic.ru/~neubert/region.htm)

You have got any questions, comments, ideas to improve this page ?  Do not hestitate to mailto:webmaster@broich.de