On October 17 - 21, the 8th International Conference ”Features of Modern Integration Processes in the Post-Soviet Space" was held in the sanatorium ‘Russia’ in Yalta. The event was attended by politicians, scholars and experts from Russia, France, Italy, Lebanon, Turkey, Nicaragua, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries.
Azerbaijan was represented by the candidate of historical sciences, the lecturer of the Department of State Service and Personnel Policy of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the member of the Union of Journalists of the Russian Federation and the International Federation of Journalists, Ulker Mehdiyeva. Speaking at the session "The Russian Language and Media Sphere as the Factors of Humanitarian Integration," she noted that studying in Russian is preserved to the full in Azerbaijan, both in secondary general education schools and in higher educational institutions. Mehdieva also stated that in August the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan signed an order to continue the project entitled ‘’Intensive learning of the Russian language’’ in 2017-2018 academic year, spreading to 50 Azerbaijani schools, 35 of which are located in Baku, and 15 are peripheral.
The lecturer of the the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan told that on September 27, Russia-24 TV channel broadcasted a story entitled ‘’Intensive learning of the Russian language is being introduced in Azerbaijan", and on October 18 an article ‘With Love to Russia’ was published in Russian Newspaper. Mehdiyeva stressed that the preservation of the Russian-speaking space in Azerbaijan became possible largely due to the corresponding policies pursued by the leadership of the Republic. She also added that in the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, where the state authorities and local self-governments’ cadres are studying, teaching is maintained both in Azerbaijani and Russian.
Speaking about the role of the Russian language in the media environment, Mehdiyeva noted that since 2003, Interfax-Azerbaijan news agency has been operating in Azerbaijan, and Sputnik Azerbaijan started functioning in May 2015. This year, the news agency is in the top ten most popular online publications of the AR, according to the Liveinternet rating.
The Director of the First CIS Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Evdokimov, the Deputy Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Alexei Drobinin, the Chairman of the Federation Council Commission for Protection of State Sovereignty and Prevention of Interference in Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Andrei Klimov, also spoke at the conference.
The series of conferences held in Yalta are the international forums on the problems of the CIS and Eurasian space. The organizer of the conferences is International Life magazine with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The Council of the magazine is headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov. It should be noted that Azerbaijan took part in the Yalta Conference for the first time.
