Russia's Yandex Changes Domain Name

Durov's Code has learnt that Russian tech giant Yandex is changing its main domain name from yandex.ru to ya.ru.

Yandex press office confirmed this infomation to Durov's Code.

In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, Yandex, the company sometimes referred to as the ‘Google of Russia,’ has signed a term sheet to sell its media division to VKontakte (VK), aka the local Facebook equivalent, largely controlled by the Russian state. According to the document, Yandex planned to sell its news aggregator (News) and blogging platform (Zen) to VK, which can still be found on the Yandex main page yandex.ru

Now, Yandex is changing its main domain name. This comes amid discussions in the company on how to restructure business and operations after thousands of sanctions have been imposed on Russia by the West.

Israel Reluctant to Accept Foreign Tech Workers

Before the letter was sent, Volozh and other senior Yandex employees arrived in Israel, among them Yelena Bunina, and carried out talks with the Israeli ministries of finance and science.

Durov's CodeArtem Andryanov

Previously, we reported that one of Yandex co-founders Arkadiy Volozh was lobbying the Israeli government to allow it to move the Russian tech giant's HQ to Tel Aviv. These efforts seem to have borne no fruit, so Volozh reportedly was negotiating a deal to separate some of Yandex products from the Russian company and develop them independently in other countries. Later, Bloomberg reported that Volozh may keep some of the company's intellectual property rights in exchange for his stake in the company, as Yandex plans to move its HQ out of the Netherlands.