Yandex Blog

Yandex Reveals Plans for New Headquarters in Moscow

As life is gradually coming back to normal, we are now announcing the project of our new Moscow home. 

Located south of the city center on the current site of the Korston hotel, the Yandex headquarters will become a new local landmark, with its unusual silhouette, titanium-plated facade, and a publicly accessible covered atrium connecting the building with its surroundings.

The area around the building, as well as the first two floors with cafes, pharmacies, beauty salons and other businesses, will be open to the public. Public spaces around the office will offer an opportunity to relax, eat, or exercise. Yandex will also re-develop an area near its headquarters, creating a green park that connects the Akademik Zelinsky Street with Akademik Zeldovich Street.

The new Yandex home will be technically advanced and at the same time comfortable to work in. From the start, the building will be designed to easily accommodate both regular office workers and those remote workers who only visit the office occasionally. Lots of compact meeting rooms around the office will be perfect for meetings with colleagues who work remotely. The new office will also feature cafes, canteens, coffee shops, a gym, a basketball court, squash courts, as well as a swimming pool and a spacious roof terrace.

In addition to being a home to company employees and a comfortable public space for local residents, the new Yandex headquarters will also become a large educational hub with presentation rooms, classrooms, a lecture hall and a computer technology museum. Yandex will use its facilities to organize public lectures, master classes and presentations.

The new headquarters will match the local architecture. It will be of approximately the same overall height as the current Korston hotel, while the wings closest to nearby residential buildings will be lower. Architects were particularly considerate of the neighborhood when they designed the new Yandex home. Gagarinsky District has a special meaning to Yandex. Many current and former employees grew up in this area and still live there. This is where some of Moscow's leading research institutes are based. And this is also the area where Yandex began. The company's first office was nearby, on Vavilova Street.

Yandex employees will be able to access the new office on foot, on bike, or using a free shuttle bus from the University metro station, the Leninsky Prospekt metro station, or the Ploshchad Gagarina station. The free shuttle bus will also be available to the public. The office will also feature multi-level underground parking facilities for those who prefer to use their own car, while a part of the parking space will be reserved for Yandex.Drive cars.

The new Yandex headquarters has been designed by the London-based bureau PLP Architecture, with the firm's president Lee Polisano acting as the chief architect of the project. Russian architectural bureaus APEX and RTDA have also been involved in this project. In addition, Arteza bureau, which helped to create Zaryadye Park and participated in the renovation of Luzhniki Stadium, will spearhead landscape design. MR Group will be the project's developer. 

Dismantling of the Korston hotel will begin before the end of this year, while construction of the new Yandex campus will start after the project documentation is approved and all the necessary permits are obtained.

Yandex.Drive Hits 2 Million Rides, Doubles Its Fleet, & Announces Refueling Trucks

Earlier this year Yandex expanded its transportation services and efforts to improve urban living by launching its first car sharing service, Yandex.Drive, becoming one of the largest services in Moscow and surpassing over 2 million rides within the first six months of operation. Yandex.Drive, which offers drivers on-demand access to a fleet of vehicles through a mobile application, has since added a business class option and yesterday announced a refueling service for its fleet.

Starting in February 2018 Yandex.Drive offered users in Moscow and the surrounding region access to a fleet of 750 vehicles that included Kia Rios, Kia Rio X-Lines or Renault Kapturs for as low as five roubles ($0.09) per minute. Within months of this launch Yandex.Drive has more than doubled its fleet to over two thousand vehicles to meet consumer demand.

Recently Yandex.Drive added Audi and VW cars to the fleet and started offering qualified drivers access to 500 business class vehicles that include Mercedes E-Class and BMW 5 series vehicles.  The service also added new premium options that provide drivers access to crossover Porsche Macan vehicles and Porsche 911 Carrera 4S vehicles.

Drivers with a safe driving record over the age of 26 who have been licensed for a minimum of six years will have access to business class vehicles at a rate of 20 rubles per minute ($0.32)  for Porches and 10 rubles per minute ($0.16) for Mercedes and BMW vehicles.  Yandex.Drive rides are billed on a per minute basis and Yandex integrates traffic conditions and customer demand to provide dynamic pricing at the time of reservation. The price includes fuel, parking, liability and life insurance.

Moscow is an incredibly congested and challenging city in which to own a vehicle. This has led it to become the largest car-sharing market in Europe based on the overall available size of the fleet of vehicles. By offering users a viable alternative to car ownership through an accessible car sharing service that includes personalisation through the Yandex.Auto in-car infotainment system associated with each user’s account, plus a range of vehicle choices, Yandex.Drive has become one of the top services in the market.

Yandex also announced yesterday that it has plans to purchase a fleet of refueling trucks from Toplivovbak to integrate a more efficient refueling feature for Yandex.Drive cars.  The refueling trucks will not only help drive overall costs down but also serve to benefit drivers who need to refuel when taking long trips with their Yandex.Drive car.

Refueling Yandex.Drive vehicles will be done automatically using algorithms that gauge the fuel levels in vehicles and send fueling trucks to nearby cars.  By automating the process and monitoring of fuel levels, users won’t need to end their rides early or switch to another vehicle in order to refuel.

“We aim to provide our users with an efficient, convenient, and comfortable car sharing experience.  Over the past six months, the expansion of Yandex.Drive has led to an even better experience for our users that ranges from more vehicle choices to new app features. Optimizing the refueling process for our fleet of vehicles will further enhance the car sharing service we offer users and we look forward to further expansion and innovation.“ says Anton Ryazanov, Head of Yandex.Drive.

Users can start using Yandex.Drive by downloading the application for Android and iOS.