For some Siberian voters, election day began with a dip in an ice-cold river.
"Cold water invigorates. We are making our choice with a healthy body and healthy mind," Alexander Zelyenetsky, leader of the "Polar Bears" swimming club in the Siberian region of Altai, said after emerging through a hole in the ice of a local river.
His choice, like that of many others in Russia, is Vladimir Putin. The 55-year-old president is by far Russia's most popular politician after presiding over eight years of an economic boom.
Pollsters say Putin's United Russia party -- which also boasts a polar bear as its logo -- will win an overwhelming victory in Sunday's parliamentary election.
Lyudmila Pistsova, a 28-year-old accountant in the Altai regional capital Barnaul, also cast her vote for the party that has put Putin top of its list of candidates.
"It seems like the only party that can really help our region," she said.
The ballot is seen as a referendum on Putin, who aims to retain influence after stepping down as president in early 2008 and says a strong mandate from voters will give him that right.
Voters in Altai, a region nested between the Kazakh steppe and the mountains after which it is named, arrived early. They ate cheap pastries sold at polling stations and enjoyed a 10 percent discount offered by tailors and cobblers nearby.
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Monday, December 3, 2007
Russians Now Own LiveJournal
The owner of LiveJournal, a blogging and social-networking site, agreed yesterday to sell the company to SUP, a Russian online media company, in the latest example of deal-making in the social-networking sector.
Financial terms of SUP’s deal with Six Apart, which owns LiveJournal, were not disclosed.
As part of the deal, SUP will create an American management company, LiveJournal Inc., to manage the social network’s operations. SUP will also form an advisory board that includes Brad Fitzpatrick, LiveJournal’s founder who now works for Google.
Though its biggest user base is the United States, LiveJournal has become exceedingly popular in Russia, finding about 28 percent of its audience there. Last year, SUP struck a licensing deal with Six Apart to manage LiveJournal.ru, the site’s Russian component.
Ever since the News Corporation bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million and saw its value skyrocket along with the site’s popularity, media companies have seen social-networking as a field ripe for the picking.
Two months ago, Google and Microsoft dueled over the right to buy a stake in Facebook, the site du jour. Microsoft prevailed and paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake.
LiveJournal, which claims 18 million unique visitors a month, is one of the older social-networking sites, founded in 1999. It first became known as a site where users posted diary-like entries and could control who saw them. It has since established communities around various interests, including food, fashion and television shows.
According to the site, its users skew young — the bulk are 15 to 22 years old — and two-thirds are female.
Financial terms of SUP’s deal with Six Apart, which owns LiveJournal, were not disclosed.
As part of the deal, SUP will create an American management company, LiveJournal Inc., to manage the social network’s operations. SUP will also form an advisory board that includes Brad Fitzpatrick, LiveJournal’s founder who now works for Google.
Though its biggest user base is the United States, LiveJournal has become exceedingly popular in Russia, finding about 28 percent of its audience there. Last year, SUP struck a licensing deal with Six Apart to manage LiveJournal.ru, the site’s Russian component.
Ever since the News Corporation bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million and saw its value skyrocket along with the site’s popularity, media companies have seen social-networking as a field ripe for the picking.
Two months ago, Google and Microsoft dueled over the right to buy a stake in Facebook, the site du jour. Microsoft prevailed and paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake.
LiveJournal, which claims 18 million unique visitors a month, is one of the older social-networking sites, founded in 1999. It first became known as a site where users posted diary-like entries and could control who saw them. It has since established communities around various interests, including food, fashion and television shows.
According to the site, its users skew young — the bulk are 15 to 22 years old — and two-thirds are female.
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