By Vestnik Kavkaza
In early May best young reciters of Russian literary works travelled to Washington from all over the US to participate in the American final of the recital contest ‘Living Classics.’ The head of the jury, Marina Dalling, told RIA Novosti that children of 10-12 came from California, Texas and Oklahoma to the US capital this year. There are several Russian-speaking schools in Washington and its suburbs.
More than 3 million Americans declared their Russian roots several years ago. More than 700 thousand Americans consider the Russian language their native language. In New York the Russian language has the status of an official one during elections. There is a special act which allows Russian to be used in election campaigns. This fact almost made Russian an official language of the city.
According to Elena Sutormina, chairwoman of the commission on the development of public diplomacy and support for compatriots abroad, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, today about 20 million compatriots live in the CIS countries, and about 10 million in other countries.
In recent years an important direction of state policy is support for Russian culture and language in the Russian world abroad. “The Public Chamber and the Russian Peace Foundation are implementing ‘The Russian Corner’ project. The information support of the project is provided by the Russia Today international news agency. In the context of the project, we have distributed multimedia textbooks that help to teach the Russian language in the South-East of Ukraine, in Arizona USA, as well as sending special equipment to schools in Georgia. A test center of the Russian language was opened last autumn in Osh, Kyrgyzstan,” Sutormina says.
She thinks it is extremely important to extend it till 2016-2020. “Huge funds are allocated for work with non-governmental organizations. The important task is to work with nongovernmental organizations in the context of Eurasian integration. For the first time, the National Foundation will allocate presidential grants for the development of public diplomacy, and humanitarian cooperation of non-governmental organizations in the Eurasian economic area. That is very important.
The fund of protection of compatriots’ rights has been working since January of 2012. It is responsible for monitoring compliance with the legal, ethnic, cultural and human rights of Russians abroad and provides them with legal assistance. It also operates a state program for assistance for the voluntary resettlement to the Russian Federation of compatriots who live abroad. It has been operating since 2007,” Sutormina reminds.
