.РФ – MSK-IX's favorite project

On May 12, a discussion panel marking the sixth anniversary of TLD.РФ, Russia's first Cyrillic domain, took place on the sidelines of the Moscow Media Communications Forum. Invited to speak at the meeting, organized by TLD.РФ's registry, the Coordination Center for TLD.RU/.РФ, were those who, six years ago, stood at the root of what is now seen as the most successful national IDN development project and an exemplary one for new TLDs. The speakers included Yelena Voronina, Andrei Kolesnikov, Arkady Kremer, Alexei Platonov, Mikhail Yakushev and ICANN representative Patrick Jones.

MSK-IX General Director Yelena Voronina recalled how, in 2010, the company was preparing to launch .РФ: "From the very beginning, we took a scientific approach to the process. Thus, .РФ was an experimental platform at first until it became fully operational. The DNS network for this domain was deployed at all MSK-IX units. It was the first Cyrillic TLD operation experience. What's important is that the launch of .РФ was technologically correct thanks largely to our previous experience with TLD.RU. Several potential development scenarios were envisaged and we still use the knowledge we gained back then. Our.РФ experience has helped us handle various non-standard situations that come up. TLD.РФ is our favorite and we wish it a successful future!"

Delegated to Russia on May 12, 2010, TLD.РФ is the most successful IDN area and the largest Cyrillic domain in the world.

With 882,488 domain names currently registered in Russia, the country is first among non-Latin TLDs and seventeenth among European TLDs. Domain name registration services are provided by 35 accredited registrars. About 86 percent of .РФ domain names are delegated names with websites accounting for 30 percent of domain names and 13 percent of second-level domains used for redirecting. Last year .РФ grew by 5.6 percent.