Information technology is rapidly rising in Yakutia. Personal computers have ceased to be luxury, and the Internet has dropped out of the category of astonishing things. Now a PC owner can do everything what is possible to do on the Internet. For instance, play online games, do online purchases, have Internet banking, use online brokerage for investment. At present, practically all local schools have got computer laboratories with Internet access.

Portals

In Yakutia the largest Internet portals are Ykt.Ru (Commercial Project), Ya1.Ru (Managed by state organization Sakhatelekom), Sakha.Net, Sitc.Ru (Owned by Yakutsk State University). Latter, by the way, has English version. There are also sites of various shops and the enterprises.

Success Example

This is Ykt.Ru, the informational-entertaining network with hosted public & corporate web-sites, chats, forums, mail server, game server, ftp-archives, blogs, and a lot of useful links. The portal was officially launched on April 29, 1999.

The average number of portal attendances - including all offered serverces - is over 500 thousand a day. Daily about 50 thousand Internet users visit the main page of the portal. Today Ykt.Ru is consired as one of the largest information resources in the east part of the Russian Federation.

The network Ykt.Ru is created and supported by Sakha Internet Ltd. This is one of the largest software producers on the basis of Internet technologies in Siberia and the Far East .

Personal pages could by placed on Pages.Ykt.Ru for free.

Ykt.Ru consists of 11 servers under the control of operational systems Linux Red Hat, Free BSD and W2K. Chats, game server, file archives, mail, other services and services are supported. The network includes hundreds informational, entertaining, corporate and personal web-sites with the domain names of various zones.

Over the last years, web development gained ground. Mostly, it happanes because small and middle businesses as well as big enterprises desire to reserve their place in the global network. Each business pursues different purposes, but the principal cause is that top managers have realized the Internet advantages.

Mass Media on the Web

Republic newspapers acquired online versions. The first one was Yakutia Daily Newspaper (www.gazetayakutia.ru). Yakutian-Sakha News Agency (www.ysia.ru) was the second. Both of them have daily updates. Other popular weekly editions appeared on the Web a little bit later. They are Yakutsk Vechernij (vecherka.ykt.ru), Nashe Vremya (www.nvpress.ru), Nedelya Yakutia (www.ya-week.ru) and others. In 2005, two online news portals - SakhaNews.Ru & V-Yakutia.ru - were launched. These web-sites tend to provide independent, alternative insight in the social and political life of the Sakha Republic. Links to all mentioned recources (in Russian) might be found on Ykt.Ru.

Chats

IRC Chat is most popular in the capital of Yakutia. This is the resource provided by Ykt.Ru for communication. Used mostly by teenagers and young people. In the chat people prefer to unite in groups, according to their common interests, whether it is the musical band or computer game. The channel "boltalka" is one of the most "crowded" places in the IRC Chat. We call it a guest room or mixed zone. Chatmen of different interests prefer to be in this common palce. There are channels by interest: DAYNIGHT , CYBERSPORT , MOBILE , AUTO , DESIGN , ANECDOT, etc.

Cyber Sport

Computer game industry finds its admirers over the world everyday. Now anyone can become a football star or the superman by means of game. Cyber Sport is extremely popular in Yakutia. The most favourite games are Counter Strike (an opposition of terrorists and special divisions), War Craft (fantasy real-time strategy), Fifa 2005 (a football simulator), series Need for Speed (an automobile simulator).

METEORA, the team of five girls gained vast recognition. It occupied the highest places in regional and national Counter Strike Champs. Twice METEORA deserved the bronze in Russian Female Cyber Sport Championship in Moscow. In 2005, the Yakutian team as well as one another Russian "gang" participated in World Cyber Cup in Paris but got little success. We have to admit that this attempt was the first.

The Computer Sports Federation of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) was founded on November 20, 2001. The basic purpose is «the assistance to computer sports development in Yakutia as the new kind of sports competitive activity and special practice of the person preparation to the competitions on the basis of computer technics, the software, interactive devices and other opportunities of computer technologies, and promoting computer sports in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)».

Miss Virtual Yakutia,
The Best Project for the Last Decade

One of the most successful Yakutian Internet projects is the beauty competition called Miss Virtual Yakutia. Hundreds of young ladies from all republic areas are eager to send their best photos, post them on contest web-site and compete for visitors' voices. The event takes place annually since 1999. Today it is one of the brightest and well-known events in the republic and considered as one of the best beauty competitions on the Russian Internet. In 2005, the web-site of the beauty contest received the prestigious Russian premium «The Gold Site» in the nomination "The Event of the Year ".

It is informally said that the idea of Miss Virtual Yakutia was born after the competition of hairdresses took place on Ykt.Ru and caused great interest among portal visitors. Organizers are Sakha Internet Ltd. and ONA Plus Newspaper (eidtion not only for female).

Participants have got the chance not only to receive valuable prizes but also to earn recognition at various Russian and International beauty contests.