Social network sites (SNSs) are applications that promise new possibilities for how people can initiate and maintain social relationships. Research on social network sites suggests that articulating personal networks on SNSs can become what Donath and boyd (2004) called “public displays of connection” that people may use both as evidence that can validate identity information of their connections and as social resumes that serve as evidence of their own social abilities (boyd, 2006). SNS users also reap social benefits from participating in these technologies, as SNSs enable access to broader and more heterogeneous networks just a click away (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007). These sites tend to be used for connecting with previously established relationships rather than for trying to meet new people (boyd & Ellison, 2007; Ellison et al., 2007). Research suggests that SNSs have also become deeply embedded in the daily lives of youth (boyd, 2006) and college students (Lampe, Ellison, & Steinfield, 2008) in the US and in many countries around the world. For example more than a quarter of national population actively uses Cyworld in South Korea (Staff Writer, 2006, May 3), while Russian-language social network sites odnoklassniki.ru and vkontakte.ru consistently scored in the top five most popular websites in countries of the former Soviet Union (Kiselev, 2008).

The ability to articulate a social network is what makes SNSs unique (Donath & boyd, 2004) and the function of these sites is primarily in maintaining connections with the extended social network. These sites do not substitute, but augment the array of modalities that people use for relational maintenance. They offer elaborate systems for perpetuating relational continuity through explicit articulations of connections and through unobtrusive relational behaviors (Sigman, 1991) that are mostly asynchronous, such as leaving comments or notes for each other (boyd & Ellison, 2007). Though many personal relationships are multimodal, the range of modalities used to maintain any relationship is associated with the strength of that relationship and its’ perceived importance (Haythornthwaite, 2005). For strong ties, SNSs are likely to provide additional ways of perpetuating relationships, but users also actively engage in seeking out other users on SNSs with whom they previously had some connection outside the context of the site (Lenhart & Madden, 2007). These are former classmates, neighbors from prior residential locations, former co-workers – weak ties where the friendship had existed for a time but distance and life changes contributed to these relationships fading away. Weak ties tend to rely on fewer modalities for relational maintenance (Haythornthwaite, 2005), thus SNSs are likely to become exclusive methods of interaction for weak or previously lost ties. Although research clearly indicates that SNSs are implicated in relational maintenance both for strong and weak ties, how and why that happens is still unknown.

While social relationships are important in any culture, research suggests that in societies marked by economies of shortage or corrupt political systems, such as Russia and Kazakhstan, people rely on their social relationships for satisfying even the very basic needs of daily life and survival (Ledeneva, 2006; Lonkila, 1997). The disappearance of soviet-era barriers to travel and emigration over the last decade combined with a resurgence of nationalism and volatile economic conditions have motivated many to relocate. What used to be stable local personal networks, developed over the course of a lifetime, became unstable connections to mobile and often long distant contacts. In this research, my focus is on people’s personal networks manifested as connections to co-located contacts in Russia and Kazakhstan and to the Russian-speaking Diaspora. Russian-language social network sites provide citizens of these countries opportunities to reconnect within the Russian Diaspora, to re-establish connections lost due to out-migration, and to revitalize local connections that have deteriorated due to higher levels of local migration in an economically volatile environment.

Studies of the Internet and social network site use are predominantly conducted in highly developed digital societies. The post-soviet countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia are part of a region that is in the early stages of communication technology adoption, where Internet adoption rates are relatively low. According to the Levada center national survey of Russians in 2007, 30% of the population use the Internet or know how to use the Internet but do not actively use it (Levada Center, 2007). Recent surveys of Internet use in Kazakhstan put the number of households that access the Internet at 11% of the population (Severnii, March 7, 2008). Although Russia and Kazakhstan cannot be classified as technologically emergent societies, they still can be considered digitally nascent settings (Kolko, 2006). Studying such settings can give a novel perspective on how cultural preferences, social needs and constraints of available infrastructure influence user’s decisions and use patterns. Contextual study of Internet and social network site use is especially valuable in a culture that differs from the predominantly Western perspective that developed or provided templates for the majority of current applications.

In this paper I report the results of an exploratory study of the role of social network sites in the lives of people in Russia and Kazakhstan. The study was conducted as a series of in-situ observations and interviews in Moscow and Almaty. I also conducted a series of online interviews with Russian-speakers living in Europe and North America, sampled from personal contacts and through Russian-language social network sites Odnoklassniki.ru and Vkontakte.ru. The goal of this investigation was to understand how access to the Internet and existing traditional expectations of the role of friendship in daily life shape the use and the understanding of Russian-language social network sites.

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