MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. The World Cup topped Google searches in Russia and worldwide in 2018, the world’s largest search engine said on its official blog on Wednesday.

The World Cup, held this summer in eleven Russian cities, was the most searched item in the category News in Russia and worldwide. Former goalkeeper of the Russian team Igor Akinfeev, striker Artem Dzyuba and midfielder Aleksander Golovin were among top three popular searches in the category 2018 World Cup Names. The Russians also showed interest in Croatia’s Luka Modric and French striker Kylian Mbappe.

Among top five events of the year in searches across Russia were the Olympic Games, the Kemerovo shopping mall fire, the fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor and the Russian presidential election.

The top searched item in the category People was Russia’s UFC Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, wife of British Prince Harry Meghan Markle and a national of Belarus Anastasiya Vashukevich, known as Nastya Rybka, who made international headlines after claiming she could reveal details about Russia's alleged meddling in the US election.

The Loss of the Year category included the deaths of English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, Russian singer Joseph Kobzon, US rapper XXX Tentacion, Russian actor Oleg Tabakov and US comic book writer Stan Lee.

Russians were also interested in how to become a blogger, a model, an observer at elections, a programmer and a cosmonaut.