Runet Day continues the Russian holiday tradition by celebrating the Russian-language internet (рунет).

Runet is used for two mains things: Meeting people and Livejournal.

Online Dating

Livejournal is the main platform for Russian-speakers to blog on - on all topics. It also has a very healthy political community. Much larger, however, are the number of people who use the internet to meet and chat online. In fact, online dating is such a common practice (really, super, ridiculously common), that it’s made it’s way into pop music. One of the most popular songs is “Electronic Love:”

Hands down, the Russian favorite chat client is ICQ. I remember when i started college in ‘98 in the states we were all using ICQ. Then when I came back from France in ‘01, everyone had shifted to AIM. Well, overseas they’re still on ICQ. Runet also has its own versions of the most famous sites, such as википедия, RuTube, and VKontakte.

Runet is very well developed, and at least as woven into the lives of young Russians as Americans.

I’m on my way now to Rosh Hashanah services, I’ll put some pics up later.

“Nobody bought the cake, so he’s going home in the trolleybus. But to who??”

This drawing reminds me of my first days and weeks in Russia. It captures the darkness (literally, the reverse of the “White Nights”), desolation, loniless, and sense of displacement, the sense of being absurdly out of place, and not knowing what to do about it.

Leave Putin Alone! Оставте Путина в покое!

A funny Russian parody of the famous “Leave Britney Alone” video.

Посмотреть на Яндекс.Фотках

Generally drawn from the photography community Fotki.Yandex.Ru, these pictures will help open another window on the riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

It’s updated several times throughout the day, so make sure to check it often!

I signed up for a Yandex.ru account the other day, and when I received the confirmation email, I noticed a piece of standard text that differs slightly from the English.

Normally, on a confirmation email, something is written along the lines of “This is an automated message, no response is required.” In Russian, however, it’s “Это письмо написано роботом. Отвечать на него не нужно.” (This letter was written by a robot. No need to respond.)

I have in my head a vision of a robot, sitting behind a desk at the Yandex headquarters, writing all these letters . . . and getting very upset if someone responds! Although, maybe he’s kind of lonely just sitting all day, writing letters to people and never getting any responses back. Sounds like a good premise for a CGI movie.

Browswer Wars 2.0: Google Chrome

Does anyone use Google Chrome? I just downloaded it, but haven’t given it a whirl yet. I like the minimalism, but I also have a bunch of add-ons for my Firefox that I find essential.

This is the beauty of the free market in action. Not only is there a credible challenger to Internet Explorer in Firefox (and Opera), but now Google decides that even that competition isn’t enough, and throw its hat in.

Plus, Chrome has a sweet icon!!

I have heard several people say, “country x is the geographical center of Europe.” I most recently heard it from some Belorussians. Apparently, enough people have made competing claims that the great Wikipedia has decided to help sort it all out.

Here’s a map of some claimants, though not all.

Some claimants to the Center of Europe

Some of the proposed locations also have neat monuments. I love random monuments/architecture like this:

Monument to the Center of Europe in Lithuania

Monument to the Center of Europe in Belgium

What do you think? Where is the Center of Europe?