Yandex Collects Questions to the President of the Russian Federation

Internet, June 30, 2006. Today Yandex begins collecting and publishing questions for the Internet conference of the President of the Russian Federation. The most popular questions will be passed on to Vladimir Putin during the Internet conference, which will be held on the 6th of July on the president.yandex.ru website. Questions for the head of state can be posted by any Internet user.

On the conference website it is not only possible to submit new questions but also to vote for the existing ones. The more votes a question collects, the higher the probability of receiving an answer from the President. Users can increase the importance of the topic by asking their friends and relatives to vote for it. This will be the first time when the President of the Russian Federation will be answering questions selected through a public Internet voting mechanism.

“We expect that the number of questions will greatly exceed the number which can be answered by one man in one and a half hours — says Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex. However, the questions collected will be valuable in themselves as they can provide an objective picture of the current interests of the society. I am sure that even before the beginning of the Internet conference itself, we will learn a lot about ourselves and our country.”

A continuously updated rating of topics based on the votes of the users will be published on the president.yandex.ru website. The most important topics will be highlighted in such a manner that the first glance on the page will make it clear which topics are raised by the Internet audience.

In the project of the Internet conference of the President of the Russian Federation, Yandex has partnered with British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC website is currently collecting questions in the foreign languages.

Contact:
Media Relations
Vladimir Isaev, Ochir Mandzhikov
Phone: +7 495 739-7000
E-mail: pr@yandex-team.com