The rise of the Internet to the center of Russian culture and politics remains poorly
understood and insufficiently studied. With the end of the cold war and the demise of
the USSR, Russia and the CIS entered into a long period of decline. Economies stagnated, political systems languished, and the pillars of superpower status—military
capacities and advanced scientific and technological potential—rapidly ebbed away.
Overnight, the CIS become less relevant and dynamic. The precipitously declining
population rates in the Slavic heartland, a wholesale free-for-all of mafiya-led privatization, growing impoverishment, and failing public infrastructure, all made the distant promise of a knowledge revolution led by information technologies seem highly
improbable.
Moreover, the prospects for Russia and the CIS keeping up with the Internet and
telecom boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s seemed, for many, a distant reality.
By the time the USSR finally collapsed in 1991, it had the lowest teledensity of any
industrialized country. Its capacity for scientific development, particularly in the field
of PCs (which the USSR had failed to develop) and computer networking (which was
based on reverse-engineered systems pirated from European countries) was weak
to nonexistent. Moreover, Russian seemed to be a declining culture and language
as newly independent CIS countries adopted national languages and scripts, and
preferred to send their youth to study at Western institutions. In almost every major
indicator of economic progress, political reform, scientific research, and telecommunications capacity, the countries of the CIS seemed headed for the dustheap of history.
Not surprisingly, scholarly and policy interest in the effects and impact of the information revolution in the CIS waned, as attention focused on the rising behemoths in Asia
(particularly China and India), and the need and potential of bridging the digital divide
in Africa and the Middle East. And yet, during the last decade the CIS has undergone a
largely unnoticed information revolution. Between 2000 and 2008 the Russian portion
of cyberspace, or RUNET, which encompasses the countries of the CIS, grew at an average rate of 7,208 percent, or over five times the rate of the next faster region (Middle
East) and 15 times faster than Asia (see Table 2.2).
More than 55 million people are online in the CIS, and Russia is now the ninthlargest Internet country in terms of its percentage of world users, just ahead of South
Korea. 4 By latest official estimates, 38 million Russians, or a third of the population of
the Russian Federation, are connected, with over 60 percent of those surfing the Internet from home on broadband connections. And these figures may be low. Russian
cyberspace also embraces the global Russian diaspora that, through successive waves
of emigration, is estimated at above 27 million worldwide. Many Russian e ´migre ´s reside in developed countries, but tend to live online in the RUNET. Statistics to back
this claim are methodologically problematic, but anecdotal evidence suggests that this
is the case. The popular free mail service mail.ru, for example, boasts over 50 million
user accounts, suggesting that the number of inhabitants in Russia cyberspace may
be significantly above the 57 million users resident in the CIS. And these figures are
18
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski
understood and insufficiently studied. With the end of the cold war and the demise of
the USSR, Russia and the CIS entered into a long period of decline. Economies stagnated, political systems languished, and the pillars of superpower status—military
capacities and advanced scientific and technological potential—rapidly ebbed away.
Overnight, the CIS become less relevant and dynamic. The precipitously declining
population rates in the Slavic heartland, a wholesale free-for-all of mafiya-led privatization, growing impoverishment, and failing public infrastructure, all made the distant promise of a knowledge revolution led by information technologies seem highly
improbable.
Moreover, the prospects for Russia and the CIS keeping up with the Internet and
telecom boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s seemed, for many, a distant reality.
By the time the USSR finally collapsed in 1991, it had the lowest teledensity of any
industrialized country. Its capacity for scientific development, particularly in the field
of PCs (which the USSR had failed to develop) and computer networking (which was
based on reverse-engineered systems pirated from European countries) was weak
to nonexistent. Moreover, Russian seemed to be a declining culture and language
as newly independent CIS countries adopted national languages and scripts, and
preferred to send their youth to study at Western institutions. In almost every major
indicator of economic progress, political reform, scientific research, and telecommunications capacity, the countries of the CIS seemed headed for the dustheap of history.
Not surprisingly, scholarly and policy interest in the effects and impact of the information revolution in the CIS waned, as attention focused on the rising behemoths in Asia
(particularly China and India), and the need and potential of bridging the digital divide
in Africa and the Middle East. And yet, during the last decade the CIS has undergone a
largely unnoticed information revolution. Between 2000 and 2008 the Russian portion
of cyberspace, or RUNET, which encompasses the countries of the CIS, grew at an average rate of 7,208 percent, or over five times the rate of the next faster region (Middle
East) and 15 times faster than Asia (see Table 2.2).
More than 55 million people are online in the CIS, and Russia is now the ninthlargest Internet country in terms of its percentage of world users, just ahead of South
Korea. 4 By latest official estimates, 38 million Russians, or a third of the population of
the Russian Federation, are connected, with over 60 percent of those surfing the Internet from home on broadband connections. And these figures may be low. Russian
cyberspace also embraces the global Russian diaspora that, through successive waves
of emigration, is estimated at above 27 million worldwide. Many Russian e ´migre ´s reside in developed countries, but tend to live online in the RUNET. Statistics to back
this claim are methodologically problematic, but anecdotal evidence suggests that this
is the case. The popular free mail service mail.ru, for example, boasts over 50 million
user accounts, suggesting that the number of inhabitants in Russia cyberspace may
be significantly above the 57 million users resident in the CIS. And these figures are
18
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski