The biggest Russian Internet search engine Yandex has analyzed what Russians search for on the Internet in relation to foreign countries. The company created a map that shows the 3 most searched for words for each of the countries included in the study.
According to Yandex, 3% (or 175 million) of all searches made by Russians each month contain the name of a country. "To some extent, the study of the searches reflects the way people see the world," the representatives of the company say.
Move the cursor over your chosen country to find out what Russian Internet users associate with it. The map shows the top 3 search queries for each country.
Map source: OpenStreetMap
In many cases the top search words are clear to a foreigner: for example, it is obvious that when it comes to Cuba Russians look for information about hotels and weather; as for Ukraine it's recent news; and Argentina - tango. However, a number of the most popular requests require explanation.
For example, "Mongol yoke" was an important period in Russian history, when most of the country was controlled by the Mongol-Tatar forces. "Penguins" and Madagascar explain the popularity of characters from the famous Dreamworks animation movie in Russia. A funny thing happened to Greenland: a residential complex with the same name was built in St. Petersburg and as a result, Russians were interested in this northern country only because of the aforementioned real estate development.
