Zoomers Buy Vanity Numbers; Cancers, Geminis Top Mortgage Borrowers
Every day, numerous events take place in Russian and global business, making it impossible to keep up with the news flow. We gather the most interesting in this digest, focusing on notable events and news hooks from January.
A New Olivier? Best Dish of Gastronomy Contest Named
The results of the gastronomic project «Masters of Tastes» have been announced. The contest is held annually to find talented chefs and baristas. Participants compete in a show format: they need to prepare an original dish in just 8 minutes.
The best in the contest was a salad: the participant who prepared it took as a basis a traditional combination of ingredients from her homeland and adapted it to customers« tastes. The result was a mix of chicken fillet, mozzarella, and iceberg lettuce with a honey-mustard dressing.
The dish got its name right during the tasting. The contest judges decided that the most honest way to recognize the chef«s talent was to name the dish after her. Thus, the »Nigora« salad was born, which was included in the menu of the »Sgoryacha« service.
Zoomers on the Hunt for Vanity Phone Numbers
Vanity phone numbers are back in trend. This is indicated by statistics for 2025. Millennials made up 38% of vanity number owners, followed by subscribers aged 45–54 at 22% and youth aged 25–34 at 15%. This conclusion was reached by analysts from MegaFon, a Russian telecommunications company.
Among youth under 25, the service is gaining popularity most actively: they began choosing simple and symbolic digit combinations 11% more often. At the same time, the service is most often preferred by men — they account for 68% of unique number owners. Growing demand has been recorded for so-called «golden» numbers, where three identical digits can appear in a row, and «platinum» numbers, where four digits repeat consecutively. However, the largest share of vanity numbers in customers« hands are »bronze« ones.
According to the operator, the most subscribers with vanity numbers are in the Moscow region. Next come St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Samara and Samara Oblast, the republics of Dagestan and Bashkortostan. The top 10 territories also included Rostov and Sverdlovsk Oblasts, the Chechen Republic, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug — Yugra, and Krasnodar Krai.
What Children Most Often Asked Father Frost for Over the Phone
During the New Year holidays, Father Frost, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, was called over half a million times. It was possible to talk to the wizard via a special phone number: an interactive AI-based service was launched by T-Bank.
Father Frost«s voice was created using VoiceKit technology. For this, thousands of speech samples of the fairy-tale character from films, series, and cartoons were analyzed. Using AI technologies, Father Frost maintains a dialogue: he clarifies New Year»s wishes, asks about hobbies, interests, and favorite films.
Calls were accepted from December 18, 2025, to January 15, 2026. During this time, Father Frost received 522 thousand requests from 184 thousand unique users. The total duration of all conversations exceeded 950 thousand minutes — that«s almost two years of communication. Compared to last year, the number of calls increased more than sevenfold.
The most popular gifts requested by children were games and toys — accounting for 31% of all requests. In second place — electronics (23%), followed by pets (10%), sports equipment (8%), and sweets (7%).
Among toys, children most often ordered cars (30%), dolls (13%), soft toys (11%), and construction sets (8%). In electronics, smartphones, tablets, computers, laptops, and game consoles lead. The most desired pet among calling kids was a dog: requested in 66% of cases. Children also wanted to receive cats, horses, and hamsters as gifts. For sports gifts — bicycles, skates, sleds, and scooters.
New Futuristic Landmark to Appear on Moscow Embankment
Architectural bureau HADAA has shown the concept of a new residential complex on Novodanilovskaya Embankment. The appearance of two elegant towers with 31 and 51 floors is inspired by futuristic style. The complex will be built by developer STONE — start of work is planned for 2026.
Architects gave the project visual balance based on the play of light and shadow glares. They used the contrast of lightness and monumentality: transparent facades create a sense of weightlessness, vertical elements — scale and expressiveness, and glass surfaces reflect the water surface, conveying the dynamics of the embankment.
Analysts Study Demand for National Messenger: Numbers
Statistics on the number of users of the national messenger MAX have become known. In December, the number of registered in the app grew by 12%. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the number of unique users increased by 1–2 million monthly. This conclusion was reached by T2 analysts, having studied anonymized subscriber data.
According to the operator, the messenger«s daily audience is 10.2 million subscribers, monthly — about 17.1 million. There are more women among users of the Russian messenger than on average among competitors: in MAX — 56%, in Telegram — 53%. The share of Android smartphones in MAX is also higher than that of other messengers: for the Russian one — 83%, for foreign ones — 79%.
Exclusively MAX is used by 0.6% of T2 subscribers — mostly the messenger is installed as an additional one. Conclusions from the analysis based on «big data» indicate the rapid growth of the messenger. MAX«s indicators monthly approach the average parameters for all communication applications.
Most Popular Names and Zodiac Signs of Mortgage Borrowers Named
Analysts studied information on mortgage borrowers over the past year and concluded what names among them are the most common. According to research by «Domclick», the list of the most popular male variants included Alexander (8.5%), Sergey (6.4%), Dmitry (5.7%), Alexey (5.5%), and Andrey (2.2%). The top 5 female names were Elena (5.7%), Olga (4.7%), Yekaterina (4.6%), Natalya and Tatyana — 4.5% each.
«Alexanders most often took out mortgages for all categories of real estate in 2025. Only in ready-made apartments by the number of issued loans were they surpassed by Elenas. A similar picture was observed for the main mortgage programs. In total, there are 91 main names for which clients arranged more than 1000 mortgages. They accounted for just over 80% of all loans issued for the year. At the same time, more than 10.1 thousand client names were unique — each accounted for only one mortgage issuance, but their share in the total number was 1.5%,» clarified the press service of Sberbank«s service.
Specialists also analyzed the distribution of mortgage borrowers by zodiac signs. It turned out that mortgage loans were most often taken by Cancers (9.2%), Geminis (8.8%), and Leos (8.7%). They also lead in all real estate categories: representatives of these signs most often took loans for the purchase of secondary, primary, and suburban real estate.
Of all mortgage programs, Cancers yielded first place only in IT-mortgage — with a share of 9.3%, they were displaced by Geminis. The fewest mortgage loans in 2025 were taken by Scorpios (7.7%), as well as Sagittariuses and Capricorns — 7.8% each.
Lighthouse Tower to Be Commissioned in Southern Moscow
In the Nagatino-Sadovniki district, construction of a business-class residential complex has been completed. The developer received permission to commission its second phase — this includes three buildings on a common stylobate, including a 29-story lighthouse tower. It has become the dominant feature of the development.
The project is architecturally integrated into the appearance of Nagatinskaya Embankment. The press service of GC FSK clarified that the facades are made using suspended ventilated systems and aluminum composite panels in copper, silver, and pearlescent shades. The project«s public spaces include green areas, walking paths, a dry fountain, a sports ground, and a multifunctional play-hub. The total residential area is 1.79 hectares.
