Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo of himself shaking hands with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev oustide Moscow on Monday:
Zuckerberg was in Russia to meet with the Prime Minister and other government officials about spurring the country’s nascent Web and high-tech industry, specifically centralized in an area outside Moscow known as Skolkovo, NDTV reported. Russia’s communication minister said that Medvedev urged Zuckerberg to open a Facebook research center in Russia rather than trying to recruit talent away from the country, the Associated Press reported.
But as NDTV noted, Facebook, while available in Russia, isn’t nearly as popular there as the country’s own homegrown social network VKontakte. In Russia, Facebook has 4.8 percent penetration, according to over 53 percent penetration in the U.S., according to third-party tracking firm Socialbakers.
