The creation of a .РУС gTLD advances ICANNʹs mission of expanding access to the richness and vibrancy of the Internet to ever more people. The TLD provides a home for millions of speakers of Russian Cyrillic-script languages and cultures with ties dating back a millennium.
The term ʺRussianʺ as used by an English speaker is intended to mean something related generically to one of three different things interchangeably - (1) country Russia or (2) Russian peoples or language (3) Russian culture. This is not technically accurate since the term .РУС - ʺRussianʺ when used by Cyrillic language speaker means something related to the ancient people called the ʺKievan Rus’ʺ and their culture centered (1000+ years ago) around modern day Kiev in Ukraine. The Cyrillic⁄Russian language term for these people (from whom modern day Russians and others descended from), the Kievan Rus’, is “Киевская РУСь” – in Russian Cyrillic characters. Note that the ʺРУСьʺ portion corresponds to ʺRusʺ or the Russian heritage. Thus within the Russian Cyrillic language, the term РУС is often embedded in compound words as an adjective to describe Russian heritage - for example as in the word for ʺRussian Languageʺ or ʺRussian Riverʺ (“РУСский языкʺ and ʺРУСская река” respectively). Thus while РУС allows a connection to 2 of the 3 items listed above - namely, Russian people or Russian culturelanguage - it categorically does not refer to any connection to item (1), the country of ʺRussiaʺ, which is written in Russian Cyrillic as (“РОсия” – spells like “ROSSIYA”) with the term ROS (“РОС”) referring to the name of the country.
Thus while the term РУС may appear to a casual English speaker (or any non-Russian or non-Cyrillic speaker⁄user for that matter) to be translated into English as ʺRusʺ and therefore be somehow an acronym for the country Russia, this is definitely not so to native Russian speakers or the Russian community. For a Russian speaker, the term ROS (“РОС”) has to be present to suggest any connection to the country Russia. It is not interchangeable as in the unfortunate English translation where it could also incorrectly refer to name of the state.
For its intended target users and in its target script .РУС gTLD seeks to unite citizens of myriad nations through a historically, linguistically and ethnically connected Cyrillic Rus community dating back to the 9th century AD. The proposed gTLD is, in fact, the Cyrillic equivalent of the English word Rus, symbolizing a people who migrated from the Baltic region of Europe to Kiev, where they founded a dynasty that spread to what is today Belarus, Ukraine and the European portion of Russia. While the .РУС gTLD ties back linguistically to the Rus people, it also has the potential to tie together the diasporas of tens of millions of people across the globe who read Cyrillic-script languages, all of which evolved from the Cyrillic adopted and spread by the Kievan Rus.
A robust gTLD has the power to bring people together, irrespective of national borders, in a free-flowing exchange of information and commerce. There is not a .COM or .ORG equivalent of the .РУС--a domain that has universal appeal across a common language. ICANN is dedicated to creating more competition in the TLD space, and the introduction of the Rus-Cyrillic community through a .РУС gTLD does so in one simple stroke.
This is important, because finding a relevant and memorable domain name can be challenging. Since many keywords and descriptive phrases associated with existing gTLDs have already been registered, it is difficult to pinpoint a domain name which contains a limited number of characters. Consequently, prospective registrants are many times unable to secure a unique name. Often, in the .com and other spaces, this is because of exploitative or abusive registrations. In the forthcoming .РУС namespace, we will endeavor to the utmost of our ability to prevent this pattern repeating.
Equally, it can often be hard for Cyrillic Rus speakers to know where to seek content specifically produced in Cyrillic. At present, much content purporting to be in Cyrillic is merely automatically translated from English, and thus lacks the subtlety and nuance of content written specifically in Cyrillic. With the introduction of the .РУС gTLD, Cyrillic speakers will be much better able to locate the quality content they crave, and at present often cannot find.
RusNames Limited (RusNames) pioneered the introduction of Cyrillic text on the Internet, a task it considers daunting but critical. The RusNames team has blazed a trail towards Cyrillic domain names for more than ten years. No entity, therefore, is better suited to manage the Cyrillic .РУС gTLD, nor more dedicated to providing new online tools and services to facilitate the unification of the .РУС online community. The .РУС gTLD will increasingly open up the vast resources of the Internet and its interconnectedness to this community, while stimulating the introduction of more information and resources in the Cyrillic language online.
When we refer to the RusNames team, we are specifically referring the individuals who make up the Rus Names management team and their contributions to developing the Russian Cyrillic Internet in ICANN and other venues. Our goal is to encourage the use of Cyrillic Script on the websites under the .РУС TLD.
The company is headquartered in Russia, which boasts the largest population of Russian Cyrillic speakers; 45% of the worldʹs total. While it is anticipated that .РУСʹs appeal will range far beyond Russia, Russia is the country where it is assumed that mass adoption will begin, and where much of the content placed on .РУС web sites will originate. The .РУС gTLD is designed to accommodate a global community, and RusNamesʹ work with ICANN has always looked not just to serving the Russian people, but also all users of Cyrillic-script languages.
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