Delfi Group, an Internet media company acquired in August by Ekspress Group, will start operating a Russian language news portal http://ru.delfi.lt in Lithuania on November 5th. “Delfi” has already Russian portals in Estonia and Latvia, and is intended to utilize the experience gained from them also in Lithuania. According to Ville Jehe, the Chairman of the Management Board of Delfi Group, expects the new portal 50 000 unique user per month in 2007. Next year the expected respective figure will be 80 000 unique users and later 120 000. “We expect that the portal will start earning money within a year after the launch”. According to Jurga Eivaitè, the Director of Delfi in Lithuania, an editorial team responsible for the portal's content is already nominated and ready to work. The new portal provides users with news and comments in Russian language -- not as a direct translation of the Lithuanian “Delfi”, but instead as an independent forum in which the editorial team publishes also their own news and reviews. „There is no high-quality Russian-language media in Lithuania. We constantly receive questions about when are we going to release a portal in Russian. We think it will raise interest not only among Russians living in Lithuania, but also among many Poles and other readers, who feel more comfortable reading things in Russian than in Lithuanian,“ said Mr. Eivaitè. Russian „Delfi“ is expected to gain audience also from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Delfi manages at the moment 7 Internet portals: ones in the native languages and Russian in Estonia and Latvia (www.delfi.ee, rus.delfi.ee, delfi.lv and rus.delfi.lv), two portals in Lithuania (delfi.lt and centras.lt) and a news portal in the Ukraine (www.delfi.ua). Additional information: Priit Leito Chairman of the Board AS Ekspress Grupp Phone: +372 6 698 081 E-mail: priit@egrupp.ee Ville Jehe Chairman of the Management Board Delfi Group Phone: +372 6 807 800 E-mail: ville.jehe@delfi.ee