On December 26, 2022, the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced the high role of the Russian language in the CIS. He expressed confidence that awarding St. Petersburg the official status of the cultural capital of the Commonwealth in 2023 will serve to strengthen cultural ties between the CIS countries.
Recall that in June 2022, K.Tokayev expressed confidence that the position of the Russian language in Kazakhstan has not undergone any deterioration.
“Those who claim that the position of the Russian language in Kazakhstan has decreased, narrowed, and even more so have become flawed, are very much going against the truth. These are all arguments from the evil one in order to politicize a particular situation. Why is this done? This is another question, I, in principle, know the answer to it, but now this is not the subject of our conversation. In general, the position of the Russian language in Kazakhstan has not undergone any deterioration. I am sure of it,” the president said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel.
He stressed that the number of schools where instruction is conducted in Russian has remained the same.
In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for supporting the Russian language in the republic.
“I would also like to note with satisfaction that Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich has taken the initiative to create an international organization under the auspices of the CIS to support and promote the Russian language,” Putin said at an informal summit of CIS leaders in St. Petersburg.
According to him, Russia supports the proposal of the President of Kazakhstan and, for its part, will “do everything to implement it as soon as possible,” including taking into account the fact that 2023 has been declared the Year of the Russian Language as the Language of Interethnic Communication in the CIS.
Also in October, at a meeting of the heads of Government of the CIS Council, an action plan for The Year of the Russian language in the CIS. The action plan was developed in pursuance of the Council’s decision to declare 2023 the Year of the Russian Language as the Language of Interethnic Communication in the CIS. The document contains more than 150 points.
Source: https://cis.minsk.by/news/24650/v_sng_2023_god_objavlen_godom_russkogo_jazyka_kak_jazyka_mezhnacionalnogo_obschenija
