Yandex Acquires Social Networking Web Site MoiKrug.ru

Internet, March 27, 2007. Russia’s largest Internet portal and search engine, today announced that it has purchased MoiKrug.ru, the largest social network for Russian-speaking professionals. As part of the transaction, the founders of MoiKrug.ru as well as a significant number of managers and developers will join the Yandex team.

“Even while growing into the largest Internet portal in Russia, Yandex still maintains its vibrant “start-up” atmosphere,” said Ilya Shirokov, a co-founder and the head of MoiKrug.ru. “We look forward to joining this innovative company and its world-class employees in developing the MoiKrug.ru service to its fullest potential.”

There will be no disruption of service for MoiKrug.ru users as a result of this acquisition. Effective today, Yandex technological resources will be working in favor of MoiKrug.ru users. The site will be hosted by Yandex datacenters. In addition, Yandex users will soon be able to access the MoiKrug.ru Web site via their existing Yandex logins.

The social networking Web site MoiKrug.ru, which translates into “my circle” in English, helps people to keep track of contacts and allows users to find their classmates, university friends and former colleagues. In addition, the service allows employers to locate potential employees and advisors based on recommendations of trusted contacts. There are currently thousands active job listings on the site.

The majority of MoiKrug.ru members live in Russia (84%), Ukraine (5%) and Belorussia (5%). The average member of MoiKrug.ru has more than 4 years of professional experience, with more than 50% of members working in one of the following four fields: IT/Internet/Telecom, Marketing/PR, Education/Sciences and Banking/Investing. MoiKrug.ru members have work experience at approximately fifty thousand companies.

“The MoiKrug.ru service is a great professional networking tool, used even by many of our own employees to maintain their networks of industry contacts”. said Roman Ivanov, the head of communication services of Yandex. “Simply put, adding MoiKrug.ru’s services and experienced team to Yandex will make our services more social.”

Contact:
Media Relations
Vladimir Isaev, Ochir Mandzhikov
Phone: +7 495 739-7000
E-mail: pr@yandex-team.com