Runet

The Russian Internet (Russian: русский Интернет, romanized: russkiy Internet), shortened to Runet (Рунет), and also stylized as RuNet, is the part of the Internet that uses the Russian language, including the Russian-language community that uses the Web. Geographically, it reaches all continents, including Antarctica (due to Russian scientists living at Bellingshausen Station), but is based primarily in Russia, followed by other post-Soviet states. Runet is sometimes used narrowly to describe the Internet within Russian territory and jurisdiction. The term Runet is a portmanteau of ru (code for both the Russian language and Russia's top-level domain) and Internet. It was coined in 1997 by the Azerbaijani-Israeli blogger Raffi Aslanbekov (Раффи Асланбеков), known as "Great Uncle" in Russia, on his Russian-language column Great Uncle's Thoughts. The term was popularized by early Internet users and was included in several dictionaries, including the spelling dictionary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, edited by V. V. Lopatin, as soon as in 2001. Similar, "local to Runet" sub-cultures of ChuvashTet and TatNet later emerged along with comparable concepts such as Uznet (Uzbekistan), Kaznet (Kazakhstan) and others.