Popov: No bilingualism in Kyiv

“Kyiv City State Administration will never raise the question of
bilingualism in Kyiv at its level,” he reported at the civil forum in
Kyiv on Tuesday.

At the same time Popov noted that Kyiv City Council is authorized to
adopt a decision on declaring Russian a regional language, and called on
the participants of the forum to address the capital’s deputies with a
corresponding appeal on the language issue.

“I think that your authoritative opinion concerning this problem and
official direction to the Kyiv Council is a pledge that nobody will ever
raise this question and in the near future we’ll balance our objective
opinion about how Kyiv should live,” administration’s head said.

“Kyiv isn’t just a political capital, and not just administrative
center, it’s also the cultural capital of Ukraine, and certainly [a
place where] there can be discussion about the Ukrainian language,”
Popov said.

The second sitting of Kyiv Civil Forum took place at the Kyiv mayor’s
office on Tuesday, and involved representatives of 104 enterprises and
127 public organizations of Kyiv.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a bill on the state language
policy initiated by the Regions Party on July 3. On Aug. 8, Ukrainian
President Viktor Yanukovych signed it, and the law came into force on
August 10. It foresees a possibility of official bilingualism in regions
where the number of speakers of national minority languages exceeds
10%.

Odesa regional and state councils, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv,
Zaporizhia, Sevastopol, Dnipropetrovsk and Luhansk city councils,
Chervony Promin town council (Luhansk region), Zaporizhia, Donetsk,
Kherson, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regional councils have already
decided to accept the Russian language as a regional one. Moreover, the
Crimean parliament charged on Oct. 10, 2012, to prepare and introduce
a proposal on implementation of the language law for the consideration
of the Crimean deputies.

The Hungarian language became a regional language in the town of
Berehove (Zakarpattia), and Moldavian became a regional one in the
village of Tarasivtsi in Chernivtsi region.