Kyrgyzstan Wants To Derussify Toponyms Of Capital

Russians are reacting nervously.

Kyrgyzstan wants to decommunize and derussify the names of districts in its capital Bishkek. Parliament speaker Nurlan Shakiyev, in particular, has proposed this. Russia, meanwhile, responded by saying the state was "stepping onto Ukraine's path".

The Russian radio station of Govorit Moskva reported that Svetlana Zhurova, a representative of the chairman of the international committee of the lower house of the Russian parliament, called Shakiyev's statement "the first step towards a complete rejection of the Russian language" in Kyrgyzstan and added that "events in Ukraine started with such a thing".

"This is done for a purpose. These are the first small steps to squeeze out the Russian language completely in the end. I don't doubt that for a second. ... This will certainly violate the rights of Russian people in Kyrgyzstan, a lot of whom live there. Our connection is lost in this way. And then the next stage will be schools and then something else and it will be like in Georgia where young people, unfortunately, do not speak Russian at all. We know that this is how it started in Ukraine, too. To protect, it would seem, the national state language, but at the same time to make people gradually realize that they will no longer speak Russian," she expressed her excitement about the priority of the Kyrgyz language in Kyrgyzstan.

The deputy added that this issue will be discussed at the highest level of the government and may be submitted to Putin to "admonish the Kyrgyz president".

It should be noted that Bishkek's districts still have their Soviet names - Pervomaisky, Sverdlovsky, Zhovtnevyi and Leninsky.