On May 12, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation hosted a roundtable discussion, “Cyrillic in the internet: The .РФ domain as a symbol of the Russian language’s significance in the modern world,” as part of the 15th anniversary celebrations of the .РФ domain. This discussion was moderated by Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ. Participants deliberated on the role of Cyrillic in the digital space, the development of the Russian internet segment (Runet), issues of digital sovereignty, and the prospects for promoting the Russian language online.
“The significance of Cyrillic in the global internet landscape cannot be overstated. According to 2024 data, Russian ranks as the sixth most widely used language in terms of online content volume. Meanwhile, the .РФ domain continues to lead among all internationalized domains, even surpassing Chinese counterparts. This underscores the high demand for Cyrillic domains both within Russia and abroad,” remarked Alexander Shoitov, Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media of the Russian Federation.
Anton Gorelkin, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies, and Communications, and ROCIT Board Chair, proposed two initiatives (not yet legislative) that, in his view, could provide additional momentum for Cyrillic domain names in global competition. These include prioritizing the use of .РФ website addresses in commercial and social advertising and establishing standardized Cyrillic internet addressing rules for federal and regional government bodies.
“The .РФ domain has become a symbol of our sovereignty in the digital space and a key element of soft power. I firmly believe that Cyrillic domain names should become the standard in Runet. Supporting the development of Cyrillic domains must be a strategic priority for the state,” emphasized Anton Gorelkin.
Alexey Platonov, Director of JSC MSK-IX. concurred, expressing that language is one of the primary means of identification and self-identification. He stressed the importance of maintaining a Russian-language segment of the internet and ensuring state support for the integration of the Russian language online.
Andrey Vorobyev announced that the Coordination Center is currently working to expand Cyrillic support in the digital space by enabling second-level domain registrations in .РФ in the languages of Russia’s peoples.
“We plan to make domain registration in the official languages of Russia’s republics available as early as this summer,” stated Vorobyev.
Alexey Rogdev, CEO of the Technical Center of Internet, clarified that the technical groundwork for implementing additional Cyrillic characters – used in the national alphabets of Russia’s ethnic languages – in the .РФ domain is complete. These new characters will allow domain names to accurately reflect the writing systems and pronunciation of these languages.
“Testing with registrars is underway, and soon it will be possible to register names with 25 new characters. These include letters from Abaza, Adyghe, Altai, Bashkir, Buryat, Ingush, Kabardian-Cherkess, Kalmyk, Komi, Mari, Tatar, Tyvan, Udmurt, Khakas, Chechen, Chuvash, and Yakut languages,” explained Rogdev.
Kirill Izotov, Director of the Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN) – the registry for the .SU domain – shared insights on working with Russia’s ethnic languages. He noted that .SU was originally a domain for a multinational country and already supports characters from various national alphabets, including extended Cyrillic. Plans are underway to introduce additional language scripts in .SU, including Chinese and Hindi.
Other participants included Pavel Lushnikov, Deputy Director for Digitalization at the Russian State Library; Anatoly Tsaregorodtsev, Director of the Center for IT Solutions Development and Support at the Institute of Russian Language, RUDN University; Maria Ivanova, Dean of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute; Vladimir Mamontov, Director of the Smart Internet Foundation; Irina Krayeva, Rector of Moscow State Linguistic University; Yulia Ebzeyeva, First Vice-Rector of RUDN University; and other experts.
