As mentioned earlier, the registration of TLDs ( .рф for Russian Federation) will take place starting 16 November 2009. Afterwards, the accreditation of Second Level Domains (SLDs) will commence at the end of November. At the top of the priorities list are the Governmental institutions (eligible for free registration), trade mark owners and the administrative centres in different regions in Russia. The application procedure will then be open for everyone else in March 2010.

The Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Igor Shegolev expects this change to lead to the enhanced use of the Internet services due to reduced linguistic barriers and the easier search system. Additionally, the Minister claims that the use of Cyrillic domains is an important step towards “the electronic Government”.

Documents may be viewed here on the prioritised registrations and the rules on accreditation (in Russian)