On May 12, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation hosted a ceremony of stamping a postal card issued specifically to mark the 15th anniversary of the first Cyrillic domain, .РФ. The 1,000 copies of the postcard printed depict Article 68 of the Russian Constitution, the .РФ logo and the Cyrillic alphabet. The Marka company also developed an alternative design, the image of the planet Earth combined with the symbolic designation of the .РФ domain.
Attending the ceremony were Eldar Gaifutdinov (Presidential Directorate for the Development of Information and Communications Technology and Communications Infrastructure), Alexander Shoitov (Russian Ministry of Digital Development), Anton Gorelkin (Russian State Duma, ROCIT), Rifat Sabitov (Civic Chamber), Alexei Borodin (Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications), Mikhail Seslavinsky (National Union of Bibliophiles), Pavel Lushnikov (Russian State Library), Maria Ivanova (Gorky Institute of Literature.
Eldar Gaifutdinov noted that over the years, .РФ has become a true symbol of the Russian-language internet and an example for many countries.
“It has 762,000 domain names and thousands of registrants – these figures speak volumes of how successful the project has been,” he added.
Anton Gorelkin emphasized that the state should make supporting the development of Cyrillic domains a strategic objective.
“The .РФ domain has become an important element of digital diplomacy, instrumental in promoting the Russian language at the global level. We mark May 12 as another Victory Day – a victory of the Russian language,” the speaker concluded.
“The importance of using the Cyrillic script online globally can hardly be overestimated. According to the 2024 statistics, Russian ranks sixth by the volume of online content available in this language. The .РФ domain is also the leader among other IDNs, even ahead of Chinese ones. This confirms the high demand for the Cyrillic domain both inside and outside Russia,” Alexander Shoitov said.
According to Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, state postage stamps and postcards reflect the history of our country, its achievements and accomplishments, culture, traditions, nature, memorable events, and family values. They also perform an important and honorable mission of fostering patriotic education and preserving historical memory for future generations.
“They fulfill an important mission – they safeguard historical memory and contribute to the patriotic education of younger generations. This high-profile stamping ceremony marks an official introduction of the new state stationery item to postal circulation,” he added.
In fact, issuing commemorative postal stationery dedicated to important events in the Russian domain industry has already become a tradition. In 2015, a “5 million .RU domain names” card was issued to mark the five millionth registration in .RU; in 2019, an anniversary postage stamp was released in honor of the 25th anniversary of the .RU domain. In 2024, a commemorative postcard was issued to mark 30 years of .RU.
