September 30, 1999, is the final day of Moscow International Internet Festival, which was held in Russian-speaking segment of Internet for two months at http://idaystars.ru. The festival terminates with official celebration of Internet Day in Russia.

The key event of the festival was the census of Russian-speaking population of Internet, which was carried out with a slogan: "2,000,000 users by year 2000!" This was the second annual census in a row. In course of the festival, there were more than 200,000 visitors registered at the official festival website. The number of forms filled during the festival exceeded 26,000, thus allowing to draw the portrait of average Russian Internet user on the eve of the new millenium.

As may be seen from the geography of festival participants and official representatives, the event has really proved its international status. The Internet festival was supported and joint by more than 800 websites, organizations and businesses from Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithvania, Moldova, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, and USA.

The goals of the festival were to present the best masterpieces in Russian segment of Internet, to evaluate the up-to-date Internet technologies, and to reveal new possibilities of human communication in virtual computer media. Company IT InfoArt Stars, which held the festival, believes these goals to be reached.

The International Internet Festival have been taking place in the virtual space for ten weeks, and has moved to actual world for one day only. September 30, the Internet Day, is devoted to summarizing the results of the festival, announcement of the census results, awarding the winners of numerous contests and topical weeks held in course of the festival.

Each week of the festival was dedicated to a specific topic, including personal Internet, mass media, Internet resources in Russian, Russian and world literature, photography and fine arts, pocket and personal computers, Internet TV, and Internet technologies. The final week was the week of Virtual Anigraph - the review of the past events, gathered and concentrated in a few days. Virtual Anigraph become both the exhibition of computer creation and a bright show, with Internet Day celebration being its culmination.

The contest program of the festival was arranged so that all principal areas of creation in Internet would be presented. Among the contests held during the festival there was the Internet Stars contest for the best websites. The Golden Pen contest included the literature works published in the Internet for the first time. The Internet Necklace, Eyes' Fascination and Photo Smile contests presented ladies' portraits, summer and autumn landscapes, and humor, respectively. Finally, the youngest participants of the festival competed in the Orange Sky contest of children's computer creation.

Juries of the contests included well-known professionals and experts. E.g., the jury of the Golden Pen literature contest was constituted of chief editors of the most popular Russian literature magazines, editors and observers of literature websites, journalists. The Internet Universe contest was judged by chief editors of the top national computer magazines and newspapers. On excess of the jury members, the works at each festival were judged by all visitors of the Internet festival. These were their votes which determined the winners of Public Sympathies prizes in each of the nominations.

A good portion of the festival was also concentrated beyond these contests. It included various exhibitions and galleries (at both the official site of the festival and the sites of its representatives), articles and broadcasts in iTV system, presentations of websites in Russian.

The principal sponsor of the festival was MTU Inform company, one of the top Russian telecommunications operators. Arrangement, technical and information support for the festival were provided by IT InfoArt Stars company (http://wwwinfoart.ru).

The results of the Internet census were proceeded and analyzed by COMCON company (http://wwwcomcon-2.com), a well-known Russian specialist in marketing and mass media research.

According to COMCON, 81 per cent on Russian Internet users are males and 19 per cent are females. In accordance with data of last year census 14 per cent of users were females. 11.6 per cent of users are under 19 years old, 60 per cent are from 20 till 35 years old, just about 18 per cent are from 35 till 45 years old. 81 per cent of Russian users have higher education. 27.5 per cent of users are managers, 36.6 per cent are specialists. 49.4 per cent have Internet connection at workplace and 38.1 per cent - at home. 77.5 per cent of Russian users use Internet daily, 11 per cent - two or three times a week.

Source: InfoArt News Agency

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