MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th March, 2020) In this Friday issue, we will check in with Russian businesses, regional authorities and regular Internet users to see how they are handling the coronavirus outbreak.
Yandex will set aside up to 500 million rubles ($6.5 million) to help small- and medium- businesses weather the economic impact of the pandemic.
The companies will get two months of ad placement on the tech company's context ad service as well as access to extra features of Yandex's remote work services. Both businesses that are already registered with the context ad service and new users can have Yandex specialists tune up their ad campaign for free.
In addition, Yandex is offering a longer free trial period on several services for businesses, including cloud storage and a project management tool.
Another tech company, Mail.ru Group, is allocating 1 billion rubles ($12.7 million) to support small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Mail.ru's social networks and a classifieds service will offer more promotion to these companies -- VKontakte, in particular, will offer promotion grants.
The group's delivery service will lower its fee for all recently registered restaurants, and its online real estate agency will give up its fee and redirect it to real estate agents. Taxi aggregator Citimobil will compensate lost income to drivers who have contracted the coronavirus or were in contact with infected passengers. The company will also provide masks, antiseptics and disinfectants for the drivers.
Moscow labs are completing 4,000 coronavirus tests every day, Deputy Mayor Anastasia Rakova said.
"We have launched nine laboratories, as of today. Moscow labs now do about 4,000 coronavirus tests daily," the deputy mayor said, adding that this number could go up to 13,000 in the coming week.
Who should get tested, according to Moscow authorities? All people with chronic conditions, and all people aged 65 and older with signs of respiratory infection. Starting on Friday, relatives of the people hospitalized with possible pneumonia will be tested for the coronavirus.
Russians are becoming increasingly interested in electric scooters amid the coronavirus outbreak, the classified advertisements website Avito told Sputnik. Businesses can use scooters for delivery, and for individuals they offer an alternative to both crowded public transport and expensive cars.
Meanwhile, the Litres online library and store has revealed the most popular books in the past week. The top three are "1984" by George Orwell, "You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life" by Jen Sincero, and Andrey Safronov's guide on training one's memory.
The company has seen an increased interest in reading in the week of March 17 -- 142 percent more downloads of free books and 26 percent more subscriptions.
Pharmacies are also experiencing a boom. According to marketing platform Mindbox, the number of online orders and purchases in physical stores grew by 29 percent compared to the three previous weeks, while the average receipt increased by 14 percent.
Meanwhile, MTS, one of the largest cell and internet service providers in the country, has asked its users to avoid sending each other traffic-heavy memes. The company is seeing an increased use of internet networks at home as more and more people start working remotely.
"Memes and good mood are important, but now is the time to use content on the internet responsibly!" the company said.
MTS noted, however, that it was doing everything in its power to maintain the connection quality, and that it was by no means discouraging users from teleconferencing or streaming movies.
