Alexandr Kuznetsov

The Moscow Tourist Information Support Centre has launched a new hotline for tourists in Moscow. Visitors to the Russian capital can now get 24/7 help via a short number - 122, as well as a ten-digit landline number - +7 (495) 122-01-11. Moscow Call Centre operators will advise on how to pay fares in the Metro and get to the airport, how to get from one location to another, and where to rent a bike. They will also provide information on interesting events and festivals taking place in Moscow and give out the addresses of museums, stadiums, parks and other attractions. In addition, hotline staff will assist tourists in the event of emergencies and advise on the addresses and opening hours of embassies, consulates and visa centres.

The service is currently provided in two languages: Russian and English. In future, Chinese, French, German and Spanish will also be available.

The hotline was created by the Moscow Tourism Committee together with the Moscow IT Department on the basis of the citywide Contact Centre.

''The number of tourists visiting Moscow is growing every year, so the Call Centre is an important step to get their feedback. The short number 122 is easy to remember and takes only a few seconds to dial on your mobile phone. Call Centre operators provide advice in Russian and English, which is vital given the growing number of foreign tourists in Moscow. To establish the Moscow Tourist Information Support Centre, we made use of our previous experience, including the hotline of the Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure Development during the 2018 FIFA World Cup,'' said the Committee for Tourism.

The short number 122 can be dialed from the mobile numbers of all Russian and foreign operators in Moscow and Moscow Region. The ten-digit city number +7 (495) 122-01-11 can be dialed from mobile and landline numbers abroad and in Russia. Calls to both numbers are charged at your operator's rates.

The hotline currently has a staff of 20, but this number will grow quickly as the Call Centre’s workload increases.

The citywide Call Centre has been operating in Moscow since 2011. It receives over 2.5 million calls each month. Approximately 90 percent of calls are received by hotlines popular with Muscovites: the Moscow Unified Information Service, the Unified Control Centre, the unified service for making doctor’s appointments, the Moscow Transport Call Centre and others. It is one of the most innovative call centres in the world, with around 40-45% of all enquiries processed by a robot which can answer simple questions and give updates on the status of applications and complaints. Using a robot reduces waiting times and eliminates the human factor.

Russian mobile operator MTS has launched a 5G zone at VDNKh (All-Russian Exhibition Center), one of Moscow’s major attractions. Equipped by Huawei and functioning on the 28GHz and 4.9GHz frequency bands, the network became operational on Thursday. It will test so-called Smart City technology, designed to improve security and urban services management, as well as helping to develop Moscow’s transport system.
The agreement between MTS and Huawei was signed in June during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
5G is speeding up the development of self-driving vehicles in Moscow together with other future technologies, according to Eduard Lysenko, Head of the city’s Department of Information Technology: “Moscow is looking into the implementation of telemedicine and IoT technologies in city services which require a secure and fast connection”.
While the super-fast network is currently available around only one of the pavilions in the VDNKh complex, the pilot zone is expected to expand and cover almost the whole of the VDNKh area by 2020.
Owners of 5G-capable smartphones will be able to enjoy super-fast internet connections after the network’s commercial launch, as the first phone connected to the network demonstrated an internet speed of 1.2Gbps. This means it will take around one minute to download a full HD movie.
Moscow’s first 5G zone was launched earlier this month and covers the famous Tverskaya Street. Swedish telecom company Ericsson provided the equipment for the network, which is run by Russian mobile operator Tele2. By the end of this year, Moscow is expected to have four pilot zones, each operated by one of Russia’s four major telecom providers.

Turnout in the online election of deputies to the Moscow City Duma was 92.3 percent (10,396 people).
Online voting was available to residents of three experimental constituencies in Moscow: No.1 (Kryukovo, Matushkino, Savelki Silino, Staroe Kryukovo); No. 10 (Northern, Lianozovo, Birilevo); and No.30 (Chertanovo Central, Chertanovo South).
In Constituency No.1, the turnout was 92.8 percent of registered users, while in Constituencies No.10 and No.30 it was 92.2 percent, and 92 percent, respectively.
For the first time, voting was held using blockchain technology, which guaranteed the security of the process and total anonymity of the voters. During voting, the user is redirected to the voting slip address by means of an anonymizer using a unique link created randomly from three sources: the user’s personal account in the mos.ru portal, the browser, and in the protected blockchain network. This makes it virtually impossible to trace the path of the voting slip. The user is given 15 minutes to fill out the slip.
There was a brief outage during the online election but this did not affect all users.
To participate in the online vote Muscovites submitted applications for inclusion in the register of online voters. This involved entering their passport data, address, personal insurance policy number, mobile telephone number and registered address in one of the three experimental constituencies in their personal mos.ru account, and then confirming their new user account in any My Documents city services centre.
Online voting statistics could be viewed in real time. In addition, on September 4 Moscow provided a hotline for queries relating to online voting in the City Duma elections.