Russian linguists note Armenia's growing interest in Russian

Armenians have shown an increasingly greater interest in learning Russian in recent years. Armenian schools have been holding Russian language Olympiads and the republic issues the Russian Language in Armenia magazine. Vyacheslav Belousov, a professor with Moscow State Linguistic University, said this as addressing a press conference at the RIA Novosti news agency on Thursday.

Russian is still out of favour in Ukraine, noted Mr Belousov. There are as few as 10-12 Russian schools in Kiev as of today, and none in the Kiev region. Estonia, on the contrary, has a sufficient number of Russian schools. There are a few of them in Tallinn alone, said Mr Belousov.

Yuliya Safonova, chief editor of the Gramota.ru educational site, said, on her part, that Georgians spoke very good Russian, and learning Russian was prestigious. Yet, there are no Russian schools in the republic.

Belarus and Trans-Dniestria (self-proclaimed republic on Moldova's territory) are the only former Soviet republics residents of which are not deterred from learning Russian, summed up the linguists.