vkontakte

Vkontakte (VK) is to Russia what Facebook is to Britain and America, and more besides...

Founded by Pavel Durov in 2006, VK is now Russia's second most used site (behind Yandex, Russia's answer to Google) and 21st worldwide.

Avatar from Pavel Durov's vkontakte page

VK has the same kind of features as Facebook - find friends; a front page where you can comment, post or upload statuses; messaging; upload photos; set up or join groups; apps - but you can also upload and download music and video with little restriction (which of course I frown upon as a breach of copyright).

Away from the PC screen, Durov came under pressure to censor political groups and little by little reduced his ownership. VK is now completely owned by mail.ru, which is in turn run by friend of the president and major Arsenal FC shareholder, Alisher Usmanov, who also owns a lot of the Russian media. Durov, meanwhile, no longer lives in Russia.

In terms of using the site, VK remains better than Facebook, perhaps because it hasn't tried to be force adverts down your throat too visibly, has kept it relatively simple and hasn't forced any major, unwanted changes.