Now I'm Cheburashka

A selection of Russian analogues of popular Western gadgets and services

In May 2014, it seems that almost no one remembers that two months ago the Winter Olympics were held in Sochi, with the help of which the country tried to show itself to the world as modern and open.

After the referendum in Crimea and the events in Ukraine, Russia and the West are mired in both real sanctions against each other and empty threats. Ultimately, there were even calls from deputies to create their own Internet in the country and completely abandon American technology.

On this occasion, TJournal publishes a selection of Russian analogues of popular Western services and gadgets.

Russian iPhone

At the end of 2013, the head of Rostec, Sergei Chemezov, demonstrated to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev the “Russian iPhone” - a two-screen smartphone from the Yota company, which at that time had been in development for about three years.

The so-called “yotaphone” wandered around various exhibitions for a long time and by the time of its release it was noticeably outdated even compared to the Android flagships of 2013, not to mention the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8, released in the spring of 2014.

The device, which was launched on only one, albeit interesting, idea, was quickly lost among cheaper Chinese products, while Yota itself actually buried it, scheduling the release of the second version for the fall of 2014.

Chemezov separately noted that day that the device is a 100% Russian invention, but assembled from foreign parts, and Medvedev jokingly noted that “Apple tensed up,” not yet realizing that his phrase would then be caustically quoted on the Internet for a long time.

In 2012, the “Russian iPhone” was also called a smartphone from the Chinese ZTE, released by MTS. Its sales failed miserably , even the unique support for the GLONASS satellite system at that time did not help.

Russian Google

Just a few months ago, any person, when asked whether Russia has its own Google, would without any doubt point to Yandex.

But on April 24, the company’s general director, Arkady Volozh, openly announced his intention to begin searching for new growth points abroad due to the slowing pace of development of the Internet industry in the country. And on the same day, Vladimir Putin called Yandex “a project with Western influence.”

After this, the search engine became involved in a series of scandals , and on May 6 announced the nomination of the chairman of the board of Sberbank, German Gref, to a post on the board of directors of the IT giant. Sberbank owns a 75% share minus 1 ruble of the Yandex.Money service and a golden share of Yandex.

However, Yandex is not the only candidate for the title of “Russian Google”. By the end of spring, a national search system called Sputnik will be launched in Russia. Rostelecom's development is planned to be implemented through mandatory installation in various government organizations.

At the time of writing, access to sputnik.ru is closed, but users are asked to leave their contacts to notify about the launch. On the main page there is a symbolic silhouette of the planet Earth, on which there is nothing except Russian sights.

Russian Kindle

In August 2011, the meeting between the head of Rusnano Anatoly Chubais and Vladimir Putin received wide media coverage. Then the prime minister was shown a “unique tablet” created not on a silicon basis, but on a plastic one. The introduction of the flexible device, costing about 12 thousand rubles, was planned to begin in Russian schools, and production - at a plant that had not yet been built in Zelenograd.

As is the case with all “Russian iPhones,” the domestic reader turned out to be not entirely domestic. In fact, it was a device from the English company Plastic Logic, almost unchanged in appearance and characteristics. But even the production of this tablet in Russia was not destined to take place: a few months later, both parties abandoned the construction of the plant and further plans for production.

Russian Twitter

On January 16, 2012, Mail.Ru Group launched a microblogging service called Futubra, which was almost instantly nicknamed “Russian Twitter” or “Russian Tumblr”.

Like Twitter and Tumblr, Futubra was created to share short notes and content. However, its authors have failed to explain why someone might suddenly need to abandon rapidly developing originals for a copy that does not bring anything fundamentally new to the formula.

On December 21, Futubra, having not even existed on the market for a year, was closed because Mail.Ru failed to achieve sustainable user growth.

A year later, the media reported on an even more amazing analogue of Twitter - the country communication service.rf, created by schoolchildren-programmers from the Samara region. Tweets in it are called “tales”, and reposts are called “retellings”. Unfortunately, since then almost nothing has been heard about the fate of the project, but its website continues to function.

Russian GPS

Unlike other Russian analogues of foreign solutions, the GLONASS satellite system actually works and is ready for use. The project was started back in the Soviet Union, but they began to actively form a constellation of satellites only at the end of the 2000s. It plays an important strategic role: in the event of a military conflict between Russia and the United States, under the conditions of a GPS monopoly, the latter would have a serious strategic advantage.

GPS and GLONASS mainly differ in the way satellites are located in orbit: for the consumer, there is no significant difference - even inexpensive navigators increasingly support both standards. Since 2011, even the iPhone can work with GLONASS. The overall picture is clouded only by the repeated failures of Russian satellite launches.

Russian processor

At the end of April, the Russian company MCST announced the successful completion of tests of the new Elbrus-4C (Elbrus-2S) processor and the imminent start of its mass production.

Elbrus-4S is a 64-bit quad-core microprocessor manufactured using 65 nanometer technology and operating at a frequency of 800 MHz and supporting 3 DDR3-1600 memory channels. It is planned to be used primarily in server installations where secrecy is required.

A few months before the MCST announcement, Zelenograd-based Mikron announced its readiness to produce processors using the 65-nanometer process technology. True, Habrahabr users then came to the conclusion that they should not expect serial production of such modern processors in the near future.

Russian Internet

After the cooling of relations between Russia and the United States, even the Internet itself was criticized. Vladimir Putin called it a CIA project, which, just as it was launched by the intelligence service, “is still developing.”

It is not at all surprising that 4 days later a proposal was received from Russian politicians to create their own Internet. This method of “getting out from under the wing of the United States” was proposed by Federation Council member Maxim Kavdzharadze, noting that “someone is accumulating information” about what Russian officials are doing on Facebook and Twitter.

Unfortunately for Kavjaradze and his initiative, in the process of discussing the name of the Russian network, for some reason he cited the word “Cheburashka” as an example. Ultimately, it is for him that this idea will be remembered: on April 28, Twitter users spent the entire day joking about the hero of Soviet books and cartoons, forgetting to understand the essence of the senator’s proposal.

As Kavjaradze later told TJournal, in fact, he wanted to create a backup network in case something happened to the existing infrastructure. According to the senator’s idea, “Cheburashka” should work through satellites connected to each other, created by young specialists from Russia.

Well, we can live without their iPhones (in fact, no),
Vadim Elistratov,
TJournal

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