Orenburg state university

OSU as the site for sharing experience in promoting the Russian language in Central Asia

On November 27, OSU hosted the international video conference «The Russian language as a tool for developing international competencies». It was organized by the OSU Research Institute of History and Ethnography of the Southern Urals, Khujand State University (Tajikistan) — OSU’s partner and autonomous non-profit organization «Commonwealth of Peoples of Eurasia».

Thanks to the collaborative efforts, the discussion united more than 40 professionals from 13 universities of 9 cities and 5 countries. Heads of Russian training programs in Central Asia, directors of Russian language and culture centers, educators and researchers, philologists and literary critics from Orenburg (Russia), Alma-Ata, Uralsk (Kazakhstan), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), Dushanbe and Khujand (Tajikistan), Tashkent, Namangan and Ferghana (Uzbekistan) studied the status and perspective development of the Russian language in Central Asia.

The conference members confirmed that all countries in the region were going through a complex and sometimes contradictory, but objective and natural experience, when a state language in each country was becoming more active and important in all spheres of life. Another tendency in the region is having more and more partner universities from Turkey, China, South Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom with their own languages and interests.

However, despite of the factors mentioned, the Russian language is still in high demand in the countries of Central Asia as it is a competitive advantage for getting a high-quality education, successful employment and career promotion and access to the Russian science and culture.