On December 8 in Moscow, ROCIT experts presented Runet Heroes Awards to people and phenomena that dominated socially significant events and achievements in the Russian internet in 2025.
Among the ceremony attendees were representatives of leading internet platforms, media projects, creative industries, and tech businesses. Runet Heroes Awards is becoming a key recognition prize reflecting the trends and achievements in the Russian digital landscape.
Anton Gorelkin, First Deputy Chair of the State Duma Committee on Information Technology and ROCIT Board Chair, revealed that the awards committee received over 10,000 submissions, with 25,000 people participating in a public vote.
“We focused on steady trends. Our country is defending itself on the battlefield and in cyberspace. We see unprecedented interest in the cultures of Russian ethnicities. Russian narratives are gaining popularity over Western standards, in a trend running for the third year. This will certainly persist,” he noted.
During the awards ceremony, Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Alexander Shoitov spoke about annual results and the serious impacts on Russia that have continued for several years.
“These impacts manifest themselves in coordinated cyberattacks and online scams. On the other hand, the year 2025 has been the first year of full-fledged development of the national data economy, with digital platforms, economy services, AI systems, and Big Data. These developments create new opportunities but also prompt strong information security decisions. This year has brought a breakthrough in countering cyber fraud. The government and businesses have indeed taken serious efforts. A new regulatory framework was adopted, with technological measures being implemented, which has brought about considerable effects such as slower growth of fraud incidents.”
The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ is this year’s general partner of the awards, with a special category For Language Diversity on Runet.
The prize in this category went to Paratype for developing Cyrillic typefaces and supporting the national alphabets of Russian ethnic groups. Director of the Coordination Center Andrey Vorobyev presented the award to Paratype Commercial Director Sergei Bobryshev.
“It is not the first time that we have presented awards in the category focused on the cultural development of Runet. When we speak about cultural development, we also mean language diversity. This year, we have decided to celebrate the contribution of the company that develops typefaces for the languages spoken in Russia,” Andrey Vorobyev emphasized.
Andrey Vorobyev highlighted that this year has seen some pivotal moments for language diversity.
“For example, Yandex has made a breakthrough in the translation support for Russian ethnicities. Content in local languages is gaining popularity online. In 2025, registration of Cyrillic domains using characters from the languages of Russian ethnic groups has been launched in .РФ. Domains in 17 languages are now available in .РФ, including Ossetian language support launched on December 10. The Coordination Center has even bigger plans for the next year. .РФ will support even more alphabets,” Andrey Vorobyev noted.
Sergei Bobryshev continued the topic of language diversity.
“Our company does not consider itself heroes; we have simply worked for 30 years to develop multilingual digital typefaces for the ethnicities in Russia. These people, Russian citizens representing different ethnic groups, can communicate online in their mother tongues, in no small measure thanks to the fact that the Coordination Center now supports registration of domain names in local languages,” he commented, adding that this year alone, the company has released some 50 new digital fonts so that the languages of Russia could be used in online communication.
Congratulations to the Paratype team on their well-deserved victory!
All 2025 Runet Heroes winners are listed at героирунета.рф.
