In March 2014, the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea adopted a declaration of independence, and in a referendum held a little later, most of its participants voted to join Russia. After the republic became part of Russia, the state languages of the Crimea were officially proclaimed Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar.
Some statistics and facts
- Greek and Italian, Armenian and Turkish-Ottoman languages played a significant role on the territory of the peninsula in different periods of history.
- Almost 84% of Crimean residents named Russian as their native language during the 2014 census.
- Crimean Tatar is preferred in communication by 7, 9%, Tatar - by 3, 7%, and Ukrainian - only by 3, 3% of residents of the republic.
- The poll showed that almost 80% of Ukrainians living in Crimea consider Russian to be their native language.
Russian and Russian
The Russian language in Crimea is the main language for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the peninsula. This trend developed in the middle of the 19th century, and since then Russian in Crimea has a long and complex history. It lost its position as a state language in 1998, when only Ukrainian was enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine as the only state language of Crimea. The language problem was one of many that caused the residents of the republic to want to hold a referendum on joining Russia.
Modern realities
Today, in Crimea, there are three languages on equal terms, which is guaranteed by the opportunity to choose education at school in one of them. For tourists from other regions of Russia, Crimea has created favorable and comfortable conditions for recreation - menus in restaurants, price tags in stores and street and road signs are made in Russian.
The hotel staff speaks Russian and Ukrainian, excursions to sights and memorable places can also be ordered in any of the official languages of Crimea.
