Why do websites like Envato keep adding a special Russian section?

[SoundStormLabs]

I have seen an increasing number of websites add a section to their links or help or forums exclusively for Russian speakers, which includes Envato. Why is this? There are many more people in Chin or India, but there are no Mandarin or Hindi sections. It seems as though every time English websites add a foreign language section, it’s always Russian.

[KingDog]

We added a Russian section as a test to see if separate language forums would work for our community. The main reason we haven’t added more languages is it will be too cluttered with our current design and we’re waiting on a forum redesign before we do.

Thanks!

[SoundStormLabs]

Thank you. Is there anything you can say that would explain why different websites also single out Russian? Did the Russian government release a statement asking people to use their language?

[ADG3studios]

In case you missed it, a Spanish thread was also added at the same time…

Official Spanish Language Thread

Hello! We’re pleased to announce the launch of an official Spanish language thread in our forums! We know there’s a huge group of Spanish language speaking community members here at Envato and we’d love to give you all an official place to chat, help, and support one another! Please note this is an experiment and subject to change, so we encourage you to use this thread as much as possible to allow it to succeed. Eventually we’d like to provide more opportunities such as this via other languag…

It just didn’t take off with the same fervor.

Russian Language speakers (not just citizens of Russia the country), including people in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan etc etc just happened to be the biggest non-english speaking group who used the forums at the time, by far, which is why the test included the Russian language among the first languages.

If Envato had the biggest community subsection of users speaking e.g. Chinese, maybe that would have been among the first test languages…

But yeah just like many people speak English outside of England, as a first or second language, just like many people speak Spanish outside of Spain, many people speak Russian outside of Russia.

[SoundStormLabs]

Oh okay that makes sense. Still, it’s surprising that even at this point in time, countries with a billion people somehow don’t have more online activity. Thank you for explaining it.

[Wolf_Music]

I believe it’s because of the economical and social differences. Korea has great influence because it’s a very well developed country, and what’s important, there are more people "online".
India has a large population, but I guess only part of it use electronic devices and internet connection in a daily life.

And in China they have limited internet access, maybe that’s why there are not many sites that have Chinese language.

[ADG3studios]

You’re welcome.