Why Mark Zuckerberg Is in Russia

Mark Zuckerberg has been busy touring Moscow this week, but unlike some of his other recent trips abroad, this one is strictly business.

Zuckerberg (wearing a suit!) met with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev for 20 minutes on Monday during which the two reportedly discussed the tech industry, copyright issues and the possibility of Facebook opening up a research center in Moscow.

For Facebook, Russia, with a population of more than 140 million, represents a significant growth opportunity. Facebook lags behind two other social networks in the country, including the market leader VK (or Vkontakte) and Odnoklassniki (which translates to “Classmates.”) Zuckerberg is also said to be interested in recruiting more Russian engineers to work for Facebook.

Medvedev, meanwhile, is well known for being a tech enthusiast. In recent years, he has toured the offices of several companies in Silicon Valley, including Twitter and Apple, where he met with former CEO Steve Jobs. It seems, therefore, that there is some potential for the two to work together to boost Facebook’s presence in Russia and the number of tech jobs in the country as well.

During an interview Monday night with Russian talk show host Ivan Urgant, Zuckerberg noted that he has spent much of his time in the country trying to persuade developers and engineers to build applications off of Facebook.

“A lot of what we are here to do is talk to developers and engineers and entrepreneurs here who are going to build stuff using Facebook, and build a lot of new Russian companies,” Zuckerberg said in the interview. He then went on to explain how this could make Facebook a better platform for users in Russia:

“One of the things that we’ve done in a lot of countries around the world is we have this platform for people to build apps that are local to different countries… One of the things that I want to encourage folks to do here is build Russian companies that can plug into Faceboook and make it a better platform for folks here.”

Image courtesy of Facebook, Dmitry Medvedev

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