On the 7th of September the Russian domain Registrar RU-CENTER and the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development held their action My Home Domain is .МОСКВА. The event was staged to coincide with the Moscow City Day and served as a prominent highlight of the municipal festive schedule.

The action has imitated a retro-style event to reproduce an atmosphere typical of the Soviet Culture and Recreation Parks back in the 1940s and 50s. The park was split into several sites where its visitors were provided with an opportunity to play chess or chequers, gorodki, tug-of-war and other games popular in those distant years. The competition participants were rewarded for their initiative to get involved with special coupons exchangeable into the real old-Soviet-styled soda pop, candy-floss and, above all, good old ice-cream.

The festivity attendants could volunteer to take part in an ad hoc quiz. All the park visitors were given a chance to answer questions related to Moscow’s history, architecture and urban planning. The rewards intended to encourage correct answers included memorabilia bearing the .МОСКВА and .MOSCOW TLD markings, as well as the books of comics “Stephen’s Adventures on the Internet” promoting safety precautions for kids and their parents on the web.

The central stage was used to deliver speeches by representatives of the companies which had initiated the Russian capital domain creation. Andrei Vorobiev, RU-CENTER’s PR Director has complimented all the visitors on the City Day and reminded that it was exactly his company, RU-CENTER, which for the first time ever initiated in 2010 the idea of creating domains of their own for Moscow and other major Russian cities. During the 2010 Moscow Day celebrations over 12,000 signatures by both the Muscovites and the Russian capital’s visitors were collected in support of creating the TLDs to serve Moscow. Since then the RU‑CENTER has been arranging in similar mass-scale actions in the capital’s major parks or during the industry-specific events.

Since 2011 the project related to the .МОСКВА and .MOSCOW TLD creation has been coordinated by the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development. Matvei Alexeev, the Foundation’s Executive Director, used the occasion to brief the public on operations geared to the .МОСКВА and .MOSCOW domains and on the plans featuring set-up of the city’s single information infrastructure on the new domain.

Sergei Ovcharenko, Deputy Director of the Foundation for Internet Development has also addressed the public during the festive event to wish success to the new domains in the name of Russia’s oldest Registry (the Foundation for Internet Development is the .SU TLD Registrant).

The FAITID representatives have stated in their speeches that the metropolitan TLD creation project enters its agreement signing stage with the International Corporation ICANN. Late October is to usher in the beginning of the .МОСКВА TLD technical testing. The next stages, i.e. adoption of the terms and conditions covering the new domain registrations and the Sunrise registration period, will follow shortly.

The event was given the finishing touches by a performance staged by the Dudes swing group singing old Soviet hits and the songs about Moscow which we all know since very early in our lifetimes.