Yandex Search Launches Mini-Game About "Pukhososy"

A viral video about "pukhososy" (cotton-vacuums) spreading on social media led to the appearance of an interactive game in the Yandex search engine. Interest in this topic surged sharply at the beginning of June: if users sent nearly 5,000 queries on June 3, the figure exceeded 23,000 the next day. According to Ixbt.com reports .

As a result, nearly 90 out of every million queries to the search engine were specifically about "pukhososy". Users actively showed interest in the existence of such robots, their photos and videos. Ironic queries such as "is pukhosos AI or not", "buy pukhosos" and "where to find pukhosos in Moscow" also increased.

In response to this trend, Yandex added an interactive game to its main search page. It allows users to "blow away accumulated poplar fluff" directly on the device screen. The mini-game activates automatically when the words "пухососы" or "пух тополя" are entered into the search bar.

The buzz was caused by a video that went viral on social media. It depicted high-tech "robot-pukhososy" supposedly cleaning the streets of Moscow. The footage looked so realistic that many perceived it as a genuine urban innovation, although the video was actually generated using a neural network.