Popular torrent website torrentreactor.net claims that it has struck a bargain with a small Russian village to have it renamed from “Gar” into “Torrentreactor” in exchange for healthy investment.
The company says it paid about $148,000 to residents of the village in the Tomsk region in Western Siberia, most of which will be split among the 214 residents, while the rest will be spent on renovating the local school and providing it with a broadband Internet connection.
The investor says there are only three computers owned by villagers, and most of them failed to understand the nature of TorrentReactor’s business. They say the two most popular versions were inspired by proximity of the Sibirskaya nuclear plant to the village. Some residents believe that TorrentReactor is a US-based nuclear power plant, while others say it is an environmental organization fighting against construction of nuclear power plants.
Meanwhile the local administration has not confirmed the renaming of the village. For such a move, residents of a village must first organize a public gathering and approve the renaming by majority vote, and then regional administration must approve it. Some bloggers say the photo of the sign with the name “Torrentreactor” spelled in Russian is a fake made by the website to gain publicity.
TorrentReactor is a major file-sharing website mostly popular in the US, Britain, Canada Poland and Germany. It states the daily number of hits at 1.3 million.