About 30 million people in Russia use the Internet. Users of RuNet (the Russian-language version of the global net) have increased 30 times! Since children are visiting the global network ever more frequently these days, RuNet is launching more sites for kids and teenagers. Parents can feel reassured that in visiting such a site a child won’t run into indecencies or obscenities. The programme “Net Watch”, which deals with the children’s RuNet, comes out every Tuesday at 15.00 UTC on the site of the Voice of Russia Radio Broadcasting Company at www.ruvr.ru
The first children’s resources appeared on RuNet 10 years ago. Today, RuNet offers a wide variety of sites designed to educate and develop children. According to Sergei Stepanov, the author of a kids’ portal and a search system for kids, children enjoy chatting with one another in specialised forums. The youngest visitor to a children’s forum was 6, he said. The boy chatted with the other participants in the forum together with his mother, who had registered him at the forum first.
Mr Stepanov said that Russia, like other countries, is consistent and serious about building kids’ resources. Naturally, a kids’ site should boast a good design, he says. A moderator must check for indecent references. Mr Stepanov says he thoroughly checks all references to other sites for bad language and a special filter in the search system checks it for obscene words and coarse expressions.
On the kids’ site of the Russian president all the texts, so they say, were edited by Vladimir Putin personally. Guiding the young users through the site are three fairytale characters, the pretty girl Alyonushka travels with the youngest, the prankster Ilyusha of Murom travels with older children, and the brainy Dobrynya works with kids between 11 and 13. The choice of a character influences the content of chapters which tell the children in understandable expressions about the Russian Constitution and statehood. RuNet offers historical games, such as building the Moscow Kremlin from scratch…
Learn what’s new on the RuNet from “Net Watch”, which goes on the air every Tuesday at 15 UTC on the Voice of Russia Website at www.ruvr.ru
12 May 2008
Sergei Mizerkin
Voice of Russia World Service
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=17093&cid=59&p=12.05.2008 (in English)
