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Russia – Holland 2009

On 19 June 2009 a bi-lingual, colour supplement to The Moscow Times will be published. The “Russia-Holland” supplement is an annual business publication, devoted to the partnership between Russian and Dutch companies.

This year the magazine is timed to coincide with the most glorious event in the cultural co-operation between the two countries for the last decade – the opening of Hermitage Amsterdam. The unique exhibition centre will be opened on the 19 June by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev.



Tuesday, July 07, 2009 Updated at 07 July 2009 1:47 Moscow Time.

The Moscow Times » » Technology

RuNet Hit by Wave of Layoffs, Closings

25 November 2000By Elizabeth Wolfe / The Moscow TimesThe honeymoon is over, the rose-colored glasses are off and several people are out of a job.

After a couple years of rapid growth and investment, the Russian Internet, or RuNet, is undergoing a reality check. Some smaller sites are shutting down, while the Internet leaders are looking closer at the bottom line and shedding excess weight, from advertising to human resources.

"Now everything is dictated by effectiveness and [companies] are not just burning money," said Timofei Bokaryev, general director of Internet ad firm Promo.

Online market players insist that dot.ru is in no danger, but on the contrary, getting smarter. Working as a real business and not on the whims of giddy investors is the latest trend — as it is with their counterparts around the world.

"It’s clear now for everybody that no additional foreign investment will be available here soon," said Arkady Volozh, of search engine Yandex.

In the past three months, 25 percent of the staff at Internet development company NetBridge, creators of auction site Molotok.ru and e-shop 24X7, has been shown the door. Information site Pole.ru switched off its phones a couple months ago. Internet portal eStart has chopped its news content and the people along with it. And online media company Port.ru has let go of 15 (and counting) people, while others left the company because of strategy differences, said Nikita Korzun, formally in charge of Port.ru’s development.

Total web advertising on RuNet sites for the year — which different parties estimate at between $1.5 million and $6 million — has fallen below expectations that didn’t take into account the early fall freeze. Six months ago, web sites accounted for more than half of all advertising on the Internet, but that amount has fallen to 20 percent to 25 percent, Bokaryev estimated.

NetBridge president Yury Milner said his company’s cuts were mostly dependent on the U.S. NASDAQ, which swooped down in the spring in response to over-valued Internet stocks. If this year NetBridge could depend on three investors, than next year they are holding out thinner hope for one, he said.

"We’d been anticipating that NASDAQ would continue to go up forever," Milner said. "That was not to be."

Mikhail Dubik, head of eStart, which is owned by Moscow Times’ publisher Independent Media, said the firings were not unexpected and were due to the company going through an experimental stage while it gets a feel for the online market.

"We now know much, much better what the RuNet audience likes and what it doesn’t like, so there will be far less experimentation in the future," Dubik said.

None of the Internet companies, except perhaps a few small business to business projects, are profitable yet, but the big guns are aiming to break even at the end of next year.

"A few months ago everybody was saying forget about breaking even, just go go go," Netbridge’s Milner said.