Top Online Russia News Services

As many of you will know, media coverage often varies significantly from country to country and from company to company. Fox News and CNN often have opposing views on many subjects in the US while Russia Today (Russia's new CNN) often gives a different look at the developments across the globe.

Most large media channels in Russia are state controlled as many of you will know, but the Internet continues to expand and bring freedom of speech and opinion in Russia and other CIS republics. Here are a few important media outlets that you can use to get the latest on what is going on in Russia.

1. Yandex.News - Yandex is the top search engine in Russia and provides technology which processes content from thousands of media channels to deliver the news you want. Yandex does not produce its own content but gets proprietary content from different partners and this is the key difference. The company itself is also doing well and this outlet will develop further in time and I expect great things from them.

2. RBC.ru - if you are concerned by the news that comes in every hour, this is the news service for you. They deliver political, economic and hi-tech news on the hour. This makes them one of the most popular services in Russia and despite the troubles of the media-holding itself, they are holding out.

3. Lenta.ru - there are few as successful news services and publishers as Lenta.ru. Part of Rambler media holding, Lenta.ru has been a small project which has become popular over time due to good quality publishing on a whole range of subjects. Rather then compete in the business segment, this news service tries to fit well in both the blue collar and white collar segments of the Internet audience in Russia.

4. Vedomosti - despite its rather thin audience, this is a very well respected newspaper with a quality online edition which is read by most intellectuals and business people every day. Since the writing style is of the standard of the Economist magazine, you would expect the reader audience be of this type as well.

5. Moscow Times - there is no English language newspaper that is as popular as Moscow Times in Russia. Moscow Times has done extremely well catering for the foreign population in Moscow especially but also surprisingly many Russians pay attention to this resource. Its website normally delivers a whole range of articles on politics, business and life in the capital.