On May 29-31, St. Petersburg hosted the 41st Russian National Forum of Hosting Providers, Domain Registrars, Data Center Operators, and Cloud Providers (HostObzor). The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ once again served as a co-organizer and anniversary partner of the event. The Center’s experts led sessions on domain-related and legal topics, and the forum concluded with a quiz dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the .РФ domain.
In his opening remarks, Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, emphasized HostObzor’s significance as a key platform for discussing pressing issues in the domain industry.
Maria Kolesnikova, Chief Analyst at the Coordination Center, spoke about the uniqueness and evolution of the Russian-language .РФ domain, the importance of implementing universal acceptance for all valid domain names and email addresses in software, and presented an overview of common errors in supporting internationalized domain names (IDNs) and email address internationalization (EAI) that users encounter across various applications, internet services, and websites.
During her presentation, Maria Kolesnikova outlined the Coordination Center’s 2025 plans to enhance the registration system to support Cyrillic email; expand support for languages of Russia’s ethnic groups in the domain space; and strengthen collaboration with Russian software developers to integrate universal acceptance into their products. She noted that in honor of the .РФ domain’s 15th anniversary, 25 new Cyrillic characters – including Ӑ, Ҕ, Ҫ, Ҥ, Җ, Ҙ, Ң, Ӧ, Ҡ, Ӳ, and others – will be added, enabling domain registrations in 17 additional languages of Russia’s ethnic groups. In partnership with the Technical Center of Internet, the Coordination Center will refine the .RU and .РФ domain registration systems to facilitate the use of Cyrillic email addresses by domain administrators and registrars. Ms. Kolesnikova also highlighted upcoming amendments to Russian Government Resolution No. 325 of March 23, 2017, which will enable users to send and receive emails using Cyrillic addresses and ensure proper conversion of Cyrillic domain names and email addresses into hyperlinks across Russian-developed software.
Vadim Mikhailov, Infrastructure Consultant at the Coordination Center, explained the principles of internet identifier internationalization and presented findings from an annual study on EAI support levels among mail servers in .RU and .РФ domains. He noted an evident increase in SMTPUTF8 extension adoption, a greater use of open-source mail software, and the emergence of domestic email solutions with improved internationalization support.
Evgeny Kuskevich (RIPN) shared insights from an audit of domain name suggestion services offered by registrars accredited in the .SU domain, which revealed inconsistencies in permitted Cyrillic characters across registrars, as well as technical limitations or input errors affecting such characters.
Irina Danelia, Deputy Director of the Coordination Center, introduced an upcoming .RU and .РФ registry data normalization project, outlining its objectives, tasks, and timeline.
The session concluded with the ceremony to sign the Memorandum on Expanding Support for Internet Addressing Tools in the Official Language of the Russian Federation. ISPmanager, the developer of the Russian hosting control panel ispmanager, joined the initiative. The document was signed by Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center, and Fyodor Bogomolov, CEO of ISPmanager.
“For ISPmanager, it is crucial that technologies remain accessible and intuitive for users. The efforts to support Cyrillic email are a natural extension of our extensive product localization strategy. We believe such steps not only remove language barriers but also serve to build trust among users whose native language is part of their digital identity. By joining this memorandum, we reaffirm our commitment to advancing support for national internet infrastructure and making the Russian-language digital space more comfortable and technologically mature,” Fyodor Bogomolov said.
“Most HostObzor participants offer full-fledged hosting, including email services, which allows users to create email addresses with their own domains. If someone registers a Cyrillic domain, they naturally expect to use Cyrillic email addresses as well. The Russian hosting control panel ispmanager already supports Cyrillic email, significantly simplifying operations for hosting providers. That’s why signing this memorandum at HostObzor isn’t just a coincidence – it’s a highly symbolic milestone. We sincerely hope more hosting providers will now offer full Cyrillic domain support to their users,” Maria Kolesnikova added.
The memorandum reflects the industry’s commitment to expanding Russian-language support on the web, promoting Cyrillic domain and email addressing in Russian software, and increasing adoption of Russia’s national domains, including .РФ.
In May 2025, the initiative was joined by RIPN, the Technical Center of Internet, MSK-IX, RU-CENTER, REG.RU, Russian Names, MBK Lab, ROCIT, Internet Development Foundation, RUDN University, MSLU, and other Russian organizations.
