June 6 is Russian Language Day, established by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation in 2011. The date was not chosen by chance: it was on June 6, 1799 that the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was born, whose 225th birthday is celebrated this year.
The international scientific and practical seminar “Russian Language is a Language that Unites Peoples”, organized by the UN Information Center in Moscow together with the Moscow State Linguistic University, was traditionally held on this day.
The moderator of the seminar was the Director of the Centre for Ibero-American Programmes, professor at Moscow State Linguistic University, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Yan Burliai. Olga Evtushenko, professor of the Department of Russian Language and Theory of Literature of the Faculty of Translation, made a report on the topic “The Russian Language in Movement Along the path Chosen by Pushkin.”
The seminar was also attended by the Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, Andrey Vorobyev, who made a presentation on the topic “Multilingualism on the Internet.” In his report, he said that the Russian language is in 9th place on the Internet - it is used by 255 million people, and the Russian domain .РФ is the largest of all Cyrillic domains. He emphasized that collaboration between the technical community, universities, international organizations and language experts is critical to ensuring an inclusive and multilingual Internet, in particular to address the challenges of universal acceptance of non-Latin domain names and email addresses.
“The Coordination Center and MSLU have a long-term cooperation. We traditionally take part in this seminar on Russian Language Day and emphasize the importance of educational programs and educational projects aimed at increasing the level of digital literacy and training specialized specialists,” Andrey Vorobyev said.
“The Russian language is not just a means of communication, it is part of our identity, our heritage and our pride. This is a wealth of words and expressions that allows you to convey the subtlest shades of emotions and thoughts. Let the Russian language continue to unite millions of people around the world and serve as an unquenchable source of inspiration for future generations!” – he added.
The Head of Special Projects of the Center, Evgeniy Pankov, and the Chairman of the Youth Council of the Center, Andrey Aleinikov, held a quiz “Study the Internet & Govern It!”, with questions devoted to Cyrillic domains, Universal Acceptance and the nuances of encodings. Then, foreign students of MSLU read poems by great Russian classics, and the event concluded with the “Pushkin Quiz”.
