OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2011. The second-large share of Internet users in Russia belongs to Karelia. The corresponding rating was prepared by experts of RIA-Analytics on the basis of the information provided by the Federal State Statistics Service for 2010.

As a tradition, Moscow tops the rating leaving other regions far behind, as more than 72 percent of its population surf the net eirther on a regular basis, or from time to time. The Republic of Karelia is the second with a parameter of 59.2%. Karelia has even managed to outrun the city of St.-Petersburg in the rating; it is the last among the three leaders with a parameter of 58.8%. On the average across Russia the share of Internet users makes a little bit more than 37%.

In the opinion of federal experts, in the all-Russian standings Karelia has managed to win the second place thanks to active introduction of information technologies.

Let us remind, that in 2008 Karelia was chosen to be a venue for the Session of the Presidium of the State Council on Realization of the Information Society Development Strategy in Russia. Petrozavodsk State University is leading in the field of IT, many times its students were prize-winners of the world programming contests. The republic develops e-Government systems, converts state services into electronic form. As a result, the statistics shows that realizing practical advantage of the Internet citizens of Karelia use it in their daily life more often.

Among the first ten participants of the rating there is also a number of regions of the Northwest: Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, Murmansk, Leningrad and Novgorod areas, the Republic of Komi. As a whole, the Northwest Federal District is in the lead in the country with a parameter of 51% followed by the Ural Federal District (44%). The least parameter of using Internet is observed in republics of Northern Caucasus (19.6%).

Another important factor of widespread development of the Internet in Karelia and in the Northwest is proximity of the region to Scandinavian countries which are world leaders on Internet abundance. The share of Internet users in Finland, Norway, and Sweden according to RIA-Analytics makes more than 80%. Therefore, further growth of the number of Russians using the world computer network is very likely.