Speaking at a Federation Council hearing on November 14, State Duma Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy called for migrants from countries that don’t recognize Russian as a state language to be banned from working in the service industry, says Parlamentskaya Gazeta (Parliamentary Newspaper, a daily newspaper of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation).
Tolstoy reportedly said that former Soviet countries are increasingly embracing English as well as their own national languages, which he accused them of using to “supplant Russian speech.”
“If Russian isn’t a state language in your country, then sorry, citizens of these countries shouldn’t work in public spaces — as taxi drivers, cashiers, and especially not as Yandex food delivery workers,” he declared.
Outside of Russia, Russian has the status of a state language only in Belarus. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan recognize it as an “official language,” while Tajikistan recognizes it as a “language of interethnic communication.”
