WebProNews

Presidents Bush and Putin may not be on the best of terms, but the Russian government is embracing (or at least nodding to) Google; a changed law has allowed the American search engine giant to release a Russia-specific mapping service.

“Until just recently, it was a crime to produce and distribute overly detailed maps of Russia,” acknowledges Tai Adelaja of the Moscow Times; it seems the country’s government was even more concerned about security risks than some American politicians.

But “Google on Thursday launched its Russia Map service,” Adelaja continues, “showing the locations of and providing directions to people looking for places or businesses all across the country.”  And although I’m sure Russians are rather used to their homeland, it seems that, in such a vast nation, maps and directions would be particularly handy.

Google is willing to agree with that supposition.  “The Google map services is a very convenient service that allows quick and easy access to local cartographic information,” Vladimir Dolgov, head of Google Russia, told the Times.  “It works with the Russian language via any Internet connection method.”

In other Russia- and Google-related news, a new version of Google Answers was recently sighted in that country.  Also, Haochi Chen spotted a Google doodle celebrating Sochi’s role in the 2014 Winter Olympics.