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94-524: Smartwings was founded in 1997 originally under the name Travel Service and focused on operating charter flights mainly for Czech tour operators. Its first airplane was a Tupolev Tu-154M . In 2000, Travel Service received its first Boeing 737-400 . Since then the airline has been operating a mainly Boeing fleet. In 2004, Travel Service launched its low-cost brand Smartwings. Travel Service leased two Boeing 737-500s from Lufthansa which were primary intended for Smartwings flights. Both aircraft were painted in

188-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in

282-651: A lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and

376-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to

470-531: A 45,000-hour service life (18,000 cycles), but capable of 80,000 hours with upgrades, it was expected to continue in service until 2016, although noise regulations have restricted flights to Western Europe and other regions. The Tu-154 was developed to meet Aeroflot's requirement to replace the jet -powered Tu-104 and the Antonov An-10 and Ilyushin Il-18 turboprops . The requirements called for either

564-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate

658-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but

752-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between

846-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it

940-561: A new company, which was taken over by Icelandair's creditors. Chinese investment group CEFC China Energy then held a 49.9% stake in Travel Service. In 2013, Travel Service cancelled its order for a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and purchased a Boeing 737 MAX 8 instead. Travel Service owned 98 percent of Czech Airlines ; it bought 64% from Prisko and Korean Air in 2017. Before, it owned 34%, bought in 2014. After Czech Airlines went through business restructuring Smartwings retained 30% of

1034-419: A payload capacity of 16–18 t (35,000–40,000 lb) with a range of 2,850–4,000 km (1,540–2,160 nmi) while cruising at 900 km/h (490 kn), or a payload of 5.8 t (13,000 lb) with a range of 5,800–7,000 km (3,100–3,800 nmi) while cruising at 850 km/h (460 kn). A take-off distance of 2,600 m (8,500 ft) at maximum takeoff weight was also stipulated as

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1128-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in

1222-462: A relatively high thrust-to-weight ratio , giving the type excellent performance, though at the expense of lower fuel efficiency . This became an important factor in later decades as fuel costs grew. The cockpit is fitted with conventional dual yoke control columns . Flight control surfaces are hydraulically operated. The cabin of the Tu-154, although of the same six-abreast seating layout, gives

1316-709: A requirement. Conceptually similar to the British Hawker Siddeley Trident , which first flew in 1962, and the American Boeing 727 , which first flew in 1963, the medium-range Tu-154 was marketed by Tupolev at the same time as Ilyushin was marketing its long-range Ilyushin Il-62 . The Soviet Ministry of Aircraft Industry chose the Tu-154, as it incorporated the latest in Soviet aircraft design and best met Aeroflot's anticipated requirements for

1410-495: A special permission. As of June 2015, the remaining operators are: In January 2010 Russian flag carrier Aeroflot announced the retirement of its Tu-154 fleet after 40 years, with the last scheduled flight being Aeroflot Flight 736 from Yekaterinburg to Moscow on 31 December 2009. In December 2010, Uzbekistan Airways also declared that it was retiring its Tu-154s. In February 2011, all remaining Iranian Tu-154s were grounded after two incidents. On 27 December 2016,

1504-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,

1598-423: Is a three-engined , medium-range , narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s and manufactured by Tupolev . A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Russian airlines for several decades, it carried half of all passengers flown by Aeroflot and its subsidiaries (137.5 million/year or 243.8 billion passenger-km in 1990), remaining the standard domestic-route airliner of Russia and former Soviet states until

1692-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under

1786-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of

1880-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this

1974-614: Is becoming obsolete with the retirement of the oldest Soviet-era planes. The latest variant (Tu-154M-100, introduced 1998) includes an NVU-B3 Doppler navigation system, a triple autopilot , which provides an automatic ILS approach according to ICAO category II weather minima, an autothrottle , a Doppler drift and speed measure system, and a "Kurs-MP" radio navigation suite. A stability and control augmentation system improves handling characteristics during manual flight. Modern upgrades normally include modernised TCAS , GPS , and other systems (mostly American- or EU-made). Early versions of

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2068-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to

2162-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There

2256-570: Is currently in storage at the military airport in Mińsk Mazowiecki . It was operated by 36th Special Aviation Regiment , but after the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash of the Tu-154 101, the Regiment has been disbanded and the plane was grounded. It was fully operational, but the government decided not to use or sell it until the investigation into the Smoleńsk crash is finished. As of June 2021

2350-573: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially

2444-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which

2538-521: Is powered by three rear-mounted, low-bypass turbofan engines arranged similarly to those of the Boeing 727 , but it is slightly larger than its American counterpart. Both the 727 and the Tu-154 use an S-duct for the middle (number-two) engine. The original model was equipped with Kuznetsov NK-8-2 engines, which were replaced with Soloviev D-30KU-154s in the Tu-154M. All Tu-154 aircraft models have

2632-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and

2726-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to

2820-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in

2914-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using

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3008-470: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population

3102-699: The Alexandrov Ensemble , an official army choir of the Russian Armed Forces . In October 2020 ALROSA , the last Russian passenger airline to operate this aircraft, retired its last remaining Tu-154. Latavio Between 1970 and December 2016 there were 110 serious incidents involving the Tu-154, including 73 hull losses, with 2,911 fatalities. Of the fatal incidents, five resulted from terrorist or military terrorist action (two other wartime losses were non-fatal), several from poor runway conditions in winter (including one in which

3196-1000: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian

3290-657: The Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as

3384-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in

3478-509: The Russian Defence Ministry grounded all Tu-154s in Russia pending investigation into the 25 December 2016 Tupolev Tu-154 crash which killed 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble , an official Red Army Choir of the Russian Armed Forces . Related development Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Related lists Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to

3572-577: The Russian Ministry of Defence announced that it had grounded all of its Tu-154s until the end of the investigation into the December 2016 crash of a 1983 Tupolev Tu-154. This was followed by the grounding of all Tu-154s in Russia. The Tu-154 had crashed into the Black Sea just after takeoff from Sochi , Russia, on 25 December 2016 killing all 92 people on board, including 64 members of

3666-584: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On

3760-721: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to

3854-671: The 154M model was still occurring as of January 2009, despite previous announcements of the end of production in 2006. In total, 1025 Tu-154s have been built, 214 of which were still in service as of 14 December 2009. The last serial Tu-154 was delivered to the Russian Defense Ministry on 19 February 2013 from the Aviakor factory, equipped with upgraded avionics, a VIP interior, and a communications suite. The factory has four unfinished airframes in its inventory, which can be completed if new orders are received. The Tu-154

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3948-572: The 1970s and 1980s. The first project chief was Sergey Yeger  [ ru ] ; in 1964, Dmitryi S. Markov  [ ru ] assumed that position. In 1975, the project lead role was turned over to Aleksandr S. Shengardt  [ ru ] . The Tu-154 first flew on 4 October 1968. The first deliveries to Aeroflot were in 1970 with freight (mail) services beginning in May 1971 and passenger services in February 1972. Limited production of

4042-519: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as

4136-471: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home

4230-541: The Czech Airlines brand, while Czech Airlines was restructured as a holding company . Smartwings serve over 40 destinations in 15 countries from their hub at Václav Havel Airport Prague . Additionally, some flights are operated from Brno and Ostrava airports. The airline primarily focuses on leisure destinations across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Smartwings has codeshare agreements with

4324-532: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,

4418-590: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this

4512-466: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of

4606-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated

4700-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from

4794-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian

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4888-663: The Tu-154 (B variant) until the fatal fire incident in Surgut had been investigated. Its operation in Iran ceased in February 2011 due to a number of crashes and incidents involving the type (almost 9% of all Tu-154 losses have occurred in Iran). This grounding compounded the effects of US embargo on civil aircraft parts, substantially decreasing the number of airworthy aircraft in the Iranian civil fleet. In 2010 there were two fatal losses of

4982-516: The Tu-154 cannot be modified to meet the current Stage III noise regulations , so are no longer allowed to fly into airspace where such regulations are enforced, such as the European Union, but the Tu-154M's D-30 engines can be fitted with hush kits , allowing them to meet noise regulations. Many variants of this airliner have been built. Like its Western counterpart, the Boeing 727, many of

5076-541: The Tu-154 due to pilot error and/or weather conditions (a Polish presidential jet attempting a rural airfield landing in heavy fog, the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash , and a Russian-registered plane that suffered engine stall after a crew member accidentally de-activated a fuel transfer pump). Following these accidents, in March 2011 the Russian Federal Bureau of Aviation recommended a withdrawal of remaining Tu-154Ms from service. On 27 December 2016,

5170-455: The Tu-154s in service have been hush-kitted, and some converted to freighters. As of August 2017, there were 44 Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft of all variants still in civil, governmental or military service. A 45th aircraft has been sighted flying with Air Kyrgyzstan in 2017, but is not listed by the airline as part of its fleet. A 46th aircraft, a Polish Tu-154 with operational number 102,

5264-467: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of

5358-492: The aircraft is not flying, and it is unlikely to come back into service, since the government operates a fleet of brand-new, more fuel-efficient jets like the Gulfstream G550 and the Boeing 737 NG . In 2020 it was revealed by the investigation team, led by Antoni Macierewicz , that the aircraft was structurally damaged. The access to the aircraft was restricted by the general prosecutor, and entering its hangar requires

5452-516: The airplane struck snow plows on the runway), cargo overloading in the lapse of post-Soviet federal safety standards, and mid-air collisions due to faulty air traffic control . Other incidents resulted from mechanical problems, running out of fuel on unscheduled routes, pilot errors (including inadequate flight training for new crews), and cargo fires; several accidents remain unexplained. On 2 January 2011, Russia's Federal Transport Oversight Agency advised airlines to stop using remaining examples of

5546-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter

5640-413: The carrier, and purchased further shares to bring its holding up to 80% by April 2008. In December 2008 it reduced its holding to 66% by selling shares to the other shareholders, Unimex. In 2009 their stake was further diluted to 50.1% through a new share issue; they also sold a portion of their stake to fellow owners, reducing their holding to 30%. In 2009 Icelandair spun its 30% stake in Travel Service into

5734-474: The company. In October 2017 it was announced that Travel Service planned to transfer its branding from an airline to a holding company, and would move all of its operations under the Smartwings brand. In 2018, it was announced that the Travel Service livery would be replaced by the Smartwings livery. Also in that year, deliveries of the new Boeing 737 MAX began. Travel Service was renamed to Smartwings,

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5828-485: The contemporary Boeing 727 have dihedral (upward sweep). The anhedral means that Russian airliners have poor lateral stability compared to their Western counterparts, but also are more resistant to Dutch roll tendencies. Considerably heavier than its predecessor Soviet-built airliner, the Ilyushin Il-18 , the Tu-154 was equipped with an oversized landing gear to reduce ground load, enabling it to operate from

5922-572: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language

6016-555: The end of the month, the first European airline to resume operations following the flying ban lasting over 20 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2024, then owner CITIC - which bought its shares from CEFC - sold all of its shares in Smartwings to Czech-owned Prague City Air, which also owns the majority in Czech Airlines . In October 2024, Smartwings took over all flight operations of Czech Airlines, operating under

6110-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,

6204-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or

6298-548: The following airlines: As of November 2024, the Smartwings fleet consists of the following aircraft: Smartwings and formerly Travel Service also operated the following aircraft types: Smartwings also operates business jets that are available for private air charter . As of January 2017 the business jet fleet consists of the following aircraft: [REDACTED] Media related to Smartwings at Wikimedia Commons Tupolev Tu-154 The Tupolev Tu-154 ( Russian : Tyполев Ту-154 ; NATO reporting name : " Careless ")

6392-692: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to

6486-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and

6580-490: The impression of an oval interior, with a lower ceiling than is common on Boeing and Airbus airliners. The passenger cabin accommodates 128 passengers in a two-class layout and 164 passengers in single-class layout, and up to 180 passengers in high-density layout. The layout can be modified to a winter version where some seats are taken out and a wardrobe is installed for passenger coats. The passenger doors are smaller than on its Boeing and Airbus counterparts. Luggage space in

6674-512: The mid-2000s. It was exported to 17 non-Russian airlines and used as a head-of-state transport by the air forces of several countries. The aircraft has a cruising speed of 850 km/h (460 kn; 530 mph) and a range of 5,280 km (3,280 mi). Capable of operating from unpaved and gravel airfields with only basic facilities, it was widely used in the extreme Arctic conditions of Russia's northern/eastern regions, where other airliners were unable to operate. Originally designed for

6768-488: The name of its former low-cost subsidiary, in December 2018. In March 2019, Smartwings announced plans to create a German subsidiary by late 2019, and to transition its Czech Airlines subsidiary to an all Boeing 737 fleet. However, as of 2022 these plans have not materialized, and Czech Airlines maintains its Airbus fleet. In February 2021, Smartwings announced the return of their stored Boeing 737 MAX to service by

6862-473: The new Smartwings livery. Former Czech president Václav Klaus attended the opening ceremony, which was held on May 1, 2004. In 2007, the company carried 2.2 million passengers, and a year later about 2.3 million passengers. In 2014, it carried 4.3 million passengers, about 1.2 of them on regular flights under the brand name Smartwings. On 18 September 2007, the Icelandair Group acquired 50% stake in

6956-524: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of

7050-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to

7144-461: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,

7238-517: The overhead compartments is very limited. Like the Tupolev Tu-134 , the Tu-154 has a wing swept back at 35° at the quarter- chord line. The British Hawker Siddeley Trident has the same sweepback angle, while the Boeing 727 has a slightly smaller sweepback angle of 32°. The wing also has anhedral (downward sweep) which is a distinguishing feature of Russian low-wing airliners designed during this era. Most Western low-wing airliners such as

7332-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held

7426-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or

7520-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian

7614-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in

7708-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration

7802-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,

7896-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed

7990-415: The same runways. The aircraft has two six-wheel main bogies fitted with large, low-pressure tires that retract into pods extending from the trailing edges of the wings (a common Tupolev feature), plus a two-wheel nose gear unit. Soft oleo struts ( shock absorbers ) provide a much smoother ride on bumpy airfields than most airliners, which very rarely operate on such poor surfaces. The original requirement

8084-679: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In

8178-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to

8272-786: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic  * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature

8366-511: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to

8460-697: The world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has

8554-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian

8648-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of

8742-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between

8836-427: Was to have a three-person flight crew – captain , first officer , and flight engineer – as opposed to a four- or five-person crew, as on other Soviet airliners. A fourth crew member, a navigator , was soon found to be still needed, and a seat was added on production aircraft, although that workstation was compromised due to the limitations of the original design. Navigators are no longer trained, and this profession

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