MOSCOW, March 13. /ITAR-TASS/. Around half of all search queries on Yandex at the beginning of March concerned events in Ukraine, said a spokesperson for the company, operating Russia’s most popular search engine and its most visited website.

The spokesman told Itar-Tass that five of ten most popular search questions among Russia’s Yandex users from March 3 to 9 directly or indirectly referred to Ukraine’s events.

“They included rumors of general mobilization, rumors of Viktor Yanukovych’s death from a heart attack, queries on the exchange rate [mainly dollar and euro exchange], queries on the latest news from Crimea and queries on the broadcast from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s news conference on March 4,” the representative said.

Over this period, Russian users were also interested in non-political matters such as International Women's Day on March 8, Orthodox Great Lent, the Academy Awards 2014 ceremony broadcast and the Paralympic Games in Sochi.

Interests of Ukraine’s Yandex users over the same period were similar to those of Russians.

Most popular search queries among Ukrainians concerned Yanukovych’s "death", the Putin news conference, the International Monetary Fund’s requirements for Ukraine’s bailout and the detention of Donetsk "people’s governor" Pavel Gubarev.

Ukrainian users searched also for information on events in Crimea and possible mobilization of the population. News-related queries prevailed in Ukraine, and “this is quite natural in view of recent developments”, the spokesperson said.

Non-political events of most interest in Ukraine were International Women's Day, the Oscar 2014 awards ceremony, the Paralympics in Sochi as well as new cinema releases 12 Years a Slave and 300: Rise of an Empire.