Russia worried about loss of Russian language in former USSR republics

The status of Russian language in Ukraine is tragic, tragic!
What a joy. If the Russkies don't like it, Russia is just over the
border. No one forces them to stay in Ukraine.

In Canada, even though Quebec is just a province, it's only official
language is French, and if someone wants to live in Quebec, he/she
better learn French. But Russians living in Ukraine and other CIS
countries or in the Baltics think that they should be entitled to use
their own language. They should realize that the time of Imperial
Russia and of the Evil Soviet Empire are over.

Yuri

http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/363/10964_language.html

Russian Language in CIS: Life After Death 
09/25/2003 16:45 
Russia is seeking the official status for the Russian language on the
whole of the post-Soviet territory
First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Eleonora
Mitrofanova delivered a lecture to students of Moscow's International
University. She said: "The Foreign Ministry intends to work actively
on strengthening the positions of the Russian language abroad. We want
to seek the status of an official language for Russian in majority of
CIS countries and on those territories of the former Soviet Union
where Russian-speaking population is considerable enough."
 
Eleonora Mitrofanova emphasizes that majority of the CIS countries now
prefer national languages to Russian. She thinks that another serious
problem is that schools where lessons are taught in the Russian
language are often closed, and the usage of Russian is restricted in
the education sphere and in public life. The number of TV and radio
programs in Russian is insignificant there; the usage of
Russian-language literature is also decreasing. 

The first deputy foreign minister says that support of the Russian
language is one of the main objectives in supporting Russians abroad.
Budgetary financing appropriated for these purposes in 2003 makes up
210 million rubles. Part of the sum will be spent to deliver text
books to the CIS countries, to improve professional skills of the
Russian language teachers and to give children an opportunity to spend
vacations in Russian recreation centers. Eleonora Mitrofanova says
that Russia will appropriate 252 million rubles for these purposes. 

For the time being, the Russian language has the status of an official
language only in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. Some progress with respect to
the Russian language has been achieved in Moldova and Uzbekistan. But
other former Soviet republics don't do this favor to the
Russian-speaking population as they treat the very idea of giving the
official status to the Russian language as threat to their
independence. They insist that a language spoken by the ethnic
majority must be the official language of the republic.
 
So, the present-day situation is rather sad because studying of the
Russian language as the native or non-mother language has considerably
decreased. Within the past ten years, the CIS and Baltic countries
have created extremely unfavorable conditions for studying of the
Russian language. However, the Russian language is experiencing a
particularly tragic period in Ukraine where it is being crowded out of
different communication spheres including mass media. If Russian is
still studied at some of educational institutions, the time meant for
studies is 20 times less than for other foreign languages. As for the
cultural sphere, the usage of the Russian language is being
purposefully reduced as well. Russian is the mother tongue for many
people living in the CIS or Baltic countries, but the system of the
Russian language study at schools and higher education institutions is
destroyed. 

It's time to put the words into practice. As the Russian diaspora
makes up about 40 per cent of the population in many of the CIS
countries, then the Russian policy with respect to Russians living
abroad must protect all interests of everything related to the very
notion "Russian". The Russian government must demand that attitude to
Russians living in former Soviet republics must be adequate because
they make up a great share of the local population. This doesn't imply
any specific privileges or russianization of these countries. It means
that Russian people living in the CIS countries must be given the
opportunity to study and use the Russian language which is in fact the
legal right fixed in the constitutions of each of the CIS countries. 
 
Dmitry Chirkin

Read the original in Russian:
http://politics.pravda.ru/politics/2003/1/1/5/13865_MID.html
(Translated by: Maria Gousseva)