OMM Redaksiyası
Kazakhstan’s Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition has issued an official warning to taxi-booking platform inDrive after reports that some fares rose about threefold during widespread disruptions to Yandex services in Central Asia on Oct. 11.
The agency expressed concern about the sharp price increases and noted that Kazakhstan’s taxi-booking market is highly concentrated. The regulator also pointed to international measures aimed at preventing excessive price hikes during emergencies and other unforeseen circumstances.
The warning followed passenger complaints about sharp fare increases on inDrive. Passengers and drivers negotiate prices directly on the platform, rather than having fares set by the app.
Surge in demand affected prices
According to inDrive founder and Chief Executive Arsen Tomsky, the fare increases followed an influx of passengers after the Yandex disruptions, leading to an unusually sharp rise in demand.
Tomsky said that over several hours on the morning of Oct. 11, the number of ride requests rose about threefold compared with a typical Sunday morning. Demand quickly outstripped the available number of drivers, pushing fares sharply higher in some areas.
Tomsky said inDrive’s price-negotiation system allows fares to adjust to supply and demand, particularly when passengers are competing for a limited number of cars.
Yandex disruptions spread across the region
Widespread technical failures disrupted Yandex services in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Taxi bookings and deliveries of groceries and other goods became difficult, affecting passengers, drivers and couriers.
Yandex Go said its technical teams were working to restore services but initially could not say when operations would return to normal. Yandex’s Kazakhstan division said its platforms use computing infrastructure in several countries, meaning a failure at one facility could affect services in multiple markets.
In Uzbekistan, Yandex confirmed that recovery work was under way and said users’ personal data remained secure.
The disruptions coincided with a series of drone attacks on Yandex data centers in Russia. The company confirmed that its facility in Vladimir, about 180 kilometers from Moscow, was damaged in a drone strike on Oct. 11, forcing the data center to shut down completely.
No injuries were reported. Yandex began assessing the extent of the damage and whether the facility could be restored to operation.
The incident was the third reported attack on the company’s data centers within a week. A facility in the city of Sasovo in the Ryazan region was reportedly struck overnight on Oct. 7-8, while another attack was reported in the Kaluga region on Oct. 9.
The damage affected several Yandex services, with the impact reaching beyond Russia. The incidents have highlighted Central Asia’s reliance on digital infrastructure located outside the region and the risks to services used by millions of people.
