Bolshaya Dmitrovka is one of the oldest streets in Moscow, the Kremlin is very close and the Duma is just around the corner. There are pretty 18th-century houses, modern boutiques – and also a major nuisance. At least that’s how Margarita Russetskaya feels, recently taking a leisurely stroll along where the poet Mayakovsky and the painter Rodchenko once met.
Russetskaya is a member of Vladimir Putin’s Russian Language Council, so she noticed that on that street there is a cafe called Tehnikum, a St. Petersburg clothing company’s store is called Gate31, a shoe store is called Kicks Town, and a beauty salon is called Faceology. . One shop is even called “Gulyaev – made in Russia”, which is why she is talking to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta wondering why the latter is in English and not in Russian: “сделано в России”? Russetskaya’s conclusion: “There are almost no Russian words on the Bolshaya Dmitrovka.”
Integrating English terms has also been popular in Russia for years. Laik, Chipster, Bisness-Zentr, Keschbek, Messendscher, Karschering – globalization has made it possible. But the times have changed. Three years ago, President Vladimir Putin announced the goal of protecting and promoting Russian. Now it’s getting concrete.
This week, the Duma adopted a bill at first reading that aims to protect the Russian language from too much foreign influence. In essence, the law proposes that foreign words should no longer be used in state authorities, courts, even in the media, cinemas and advertising. Unless there is no Russian word for it.
The leader of the Fair Russia party, Sergey Mironov, said that thanks to the new law, the state authorities would ensure that the Russian language was not “defaced and taken over” by foreign languages. With the zeitgeist of politics, the director of the Moscow Pedagogical University claimed that Alexey Lubkovin the Rossiyskaya Gazeta: “Many states openly want to destroy the Russian world: uproot the Russian language, the culture, the traditions.” It’s Russian entrepreneurs and PR people who like to adopt foreign words and call hip new buildings townhouses.
“I don’t think language can be regulated,” replies economics professor Marina Koroleva. “In spite of everything, language is a miracle, a living system,” great writers and linguists have said. “It’s like the weather.”
Today it is English, in the days of the Tsars French was considered chic and had a great influence in Russia. Margarita Russetskaya also reminded of this during her walk on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. In the house where the Moscow Operetta Theater is now, a rich Russian merchant once owned a shop called “Au bon marché”.