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Tag Archives: former USSR

News in Russian: Kazakhstan President Steps Down (Sort Of) Posted by on Mar 25, 2019

Nursultan cityscape

A big story from the post-Soviet region (постсове́тское простра́нство) is that the president of Kazakhstan (Казахста́н) has resigned after nearly 30 years in power. Since Russian has official status in Kazakhstan and since this story is being widely covered in Russian-language media in several countries, I thought we should look at how it’s being reported…

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School News in Russian from Countries Other Than Russia Posted by on Sep 5, 2018

girl using a tablet

Oftentimes, the Russian language is primarily—or solely—associated with the country of Russia. At the same time, as I wrote before, Russian is also used, to varying degrees, in other countries. This time, let us take a look at news stories in Russian about schools in countries other than Russia. Story from Kyrgyzstan: Making Kyrgyz a…

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Who Gets Called “Russian”? Posted by on Feb 5, 2018

Buryat wrestling

How often have you heard the phrase “So-and-so is Russian”? What was meant by “Russian” in that case? Was the person a citizen of the Russian Federation? Did they live in any of the neighbo(u)ring countries? Did they speak Russian? This post will examine the many ways “Russian” (русский and other related words) is used…

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5 Non-Russian Languages of Russia Posted by on Jan 15, 2018

bilingual sign in Russian and Tatar

Russian is not the only language spoken in Russia. According to Wikipedia, there are more than 150 languages speaking in Russia, with varying numbers of speakers. It is impossible to cover all languages of Russia in one post, so let us look at five common ones and their current status. This post is not meant…

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