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171-634: This article details the geographical distribution of Russian-speakers . After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the status of the Russian language often became a matter of controversy. Some Post-Soviet states adopted policies of derussification aimed at reversing former trends of Russification , while Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko and the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin reintroduced Russification policies in

342-646: A Russian -based Cyrillic script to a modified Latin alphabet , and in 1997, Uzbek became the sole language of state administration. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia , and is compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . Australian cities Melbourne and Sydney have Russian-speaking populations, most of which live in

513-572: A 2011 study. Orthodox interpretations of Halakha recognize only matrilineal descent. However, the Law of Return qualifies anyone who has a Jewish grandparent, or is married to a Jew. As a result of this discrepancy, the immigration wave included people who were not considered Jews by the Israeli Rabbinate , such as children of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, grandchildren of Jews, or non-Jewish spouses of Jews, who were eligible under

684-611: A Russian nationalist group, held an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow. The authorities did not break up the demonstration and even kept traffic out of the demonstrators' way while they marched to an impromptu meeting with Boris Yeltsin. On 25 July 1987, 300 Crimean Tatars staged a noisy demonstration near the Kremlin Wall for several hours, calling for the right to return to their homeland, from which they were deported in 1944; police and soldiers looked on. On 23 August 1987,

855-474: A Soviet-era law. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 450,000 native speakers of Russian in the country and 1.9 million active speakers. 50% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family or friends or at work. According to the 2014 census, Russian is the native language of 9.68% of Moldovans, and the language of first use for 14.49% of

1026-542: A choice between multiple candidates, elected by secret ballot. However, the party delegates at the Plenum watered down Gorbachev's proposal, and democratic choice within the Communist Party was never significantly implemented. Gorbachev also radically expanded the scope of glasnost and stated that no subject was off limits for open discussion in the media. On 7 February, dozens of political prisoners were freed in

1197-441: A distinct Russian-Israeli culture. This culture is characterized to a great extent by the combination of characteristic elements from the Soviet Union and Israel. This mixture created a new secular culture which speaks both Hebrew and Russian, and which puts a great emphasis on high culture activities in the fields of education, science and technology, literature, music, theater, etc. Russian immigrants are much more likely to go to

1368-527: A foreign language. Only 3% used it as the main language with family or friends or at work, though. English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as the first foreign language. Russian is still available to take in some schools in Lithuania, but is not mandatory like during the Soviet period. They have options to take German, French, etc. In contrast to

1539-470: A hard line towards Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Arabs based upon the view that they do not support the right of Jews to maintain a Jewish state in the Middle East. This party gained a relative success in the elections of 1999 , in which they won four mandates and later united with the right wing party " The National Union " which gained 7 mandates in the 15th Knesset and in the 16th Knesset. During

1710-572: A native language, including 419,000 ethnic Russians, and 63,200 from other ethnic groups, for a total of 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, 49.6% of the population in that age group. Russian remains the dominant language of business and upper levels of government. Parliament sessions are only rarely conducted in Kyrgyz and mostly take place in Russian. In 2011, President Roza Otunbaeva controversially reopened

1881-869: A new central legislature, the Congress of People's Deputies (although the ban on other political parties was not lifted until 1990). On 1 July 1985, Gorbachev sidelined his main rival by removing Grigory Romanov from the Politburo and brought Boris Yeltsin into the Central Committee Secretariat . On 23 December 1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party , replacing Viktor Grishin . Gorbachev continued to press for greater liberalization . On 23 December 1986 Andrei Sakharov ,

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2052-741: A new organization called the Popular Front of Azerbaijan , loosely based on the Estonian Popular Front . On 17 September, when gun battles broke out between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis near Stepanakert , two soldiers were killed and more than two dozen injured. This led to almost tit-for-tat ethnic polarization in Nagorno-Karabakh's two main towns: the Azerbaijani minority was expelled from Stepanakert , and

2223-495: A new supreme legislative body called the Congress of People's Deputies . Frustrated by the old guard's resistance, Gorbachev embarked on a set of constitutional changes to attempt separation of party and state, thereby isolating his Party opponents. Detailed proposals for the new Congress of People's Deputies were published on 2 October 1988, and to enable the creation of the new legislature. The Supreme Soviet, during its 29 November – 1 December 1988, session, implemented amendments to

2394-521: A notable decline in the popularity of Russian language in Finnish society. There was steadily-increasing demand for the knowledge of Russian in the workplace, which was also reflected in its growing presence in the Finnish education system, including higher education. In Eastern Finland , most prominently in its border towns, Russian has already begun to rival Swedish as the second most important foreign language due to high tourism rate from Russia throughout

2565-614: A positive effect on the Israeli economy and credited them for ending a recession that came as a result of the First Intifada , but claimed that Israel's high-tech success was mainly due to subsidies from the IDF. According to Zeira, though the Russian aliyah had a positive effect on the economy, "Israel would still be a Western country with a prospering industrial sector, with them or without them." The overall contribution and potential of

2736-423: A positive element to the demographic cocktail that is Israel. [...] Or so we thought. Uri Avnery , 2013. The demand to gain political power which would comply with their unique needs caused a growth of "Russian parties" – in which the party Yisrael BaAliyah gained most popularity in the leadership of Natan Sharansky . The party gained a great success in the elections of 1996 and received 7 mandates. In

2907-511: A public meeting lacking official permission at Ivan Franko State University . On 13 November 1988, approximately 10,000 people attended an officially sanctioned meeting organized by the cultural heritage organization Spadschyna , the Kyiv University student club Hromada , and the environmental groups Zelenyi Svit ("Green World") and Noosfera , to focus on ecological issues. From 14 to 18 November, 15 Ukrainian activists were among

3078-670: A result of emigration, participation in Russian cultural centers like the State Academy Bolshoi Theatre in Uzbekistan has seriously declined. In the capital, Tashkent , statues of the leaders of the Russian Revolution were taken down and replaced with local heroes like Timur , and urban street names in the Russian style were Uzbekified. In 1995, Uzbekistan ordered the Uzbek alphabet changed from

3249-486: A revised delegate list. Authorities attempted to disperse the rally in front of Druzhba Stadium. On 7 July, 10,000 to 20,000 people witnessed the launch of the Democratic Front to Promote Perestroika. On 17 July, a group of 10,000 gathered in the village Zarvanytsia for Millennium services celebrated by Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk. The militia tried to disperse attendees, but it turned out to be

3420-463: A roof, within two years about 430 caravan sites were set up across Israel, comprising 27,000 caravans. The largest caravan site was founded in Beersheba , consisting of 2,308 housing units. After that period, the immigrants dissipated throughout Israel. But this immigration wave exhibited a phenomenon common to previous Israeli immigration waves: the efforts of the state to transfer the immigrants to

3591-564: A seat on the Supreme Soviet, and in the summer he formed the first opposition, the Inter-Regional Deputies Group , composed of Russian nationalists and liberals . Composing the final legislative group in the Soviet Union, those elected in 1989 played a vital part in reforms and the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union during the next two years. On 30 May 1989, Gorbachev proposed that local elections across

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3762-698: A significant proportion of Mizrahi Jews also made aliyah from the Soviet Union's Asian territories during this time, such as the Mountain Jews , the Georgian Jews , and the Bukharan Jews , among others. The overwhelming majority of these immigrants were successfully integrated into the Israeli economy : in 2012, the average salary of Israelis originating from the post-Soviet aliyah was comparable to that of born-and-raised Israelis . Following

3933-531: A spike occurred in 1999 when 66,848 immigrants arrived in Israel. This decline continued into the 2000s. In 2000 50,817 immigrants arrived followed by 33,601 in 2001, and after that immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union declined to less than 20,000 per year. As the wave of emigration began, Soviet Jews who wanted to emigrate left the Soviet Union for various European countries and began gathering at transit points, from which they were flown to Israel, and

4104-476: A thousand police to stop the march, with the resulting clashes leaving two Azerbaijanis dead. These deaths, announced on state radio, led to the Sumgait Pogrom . Between 26 February and 1 March, the city of Sumgait (Azerbaijan) saw violent anti-Armenian rioting during which at least 32 people were killed. The authorities totally lost control and occupied the city with paratroopers and tanks; nearly all of

4275-696: A violent protest action in the capital on 28 October, many of Songalia's remaining holdovers within the CPL either resigned or retired in protest of the police brutality of that day. On 20 February 1988, after a week of growing demonstrations in Stepanakert , capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (the ethnically Armenian-majority area within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic ),

4446-458: A year - with the relatively liberal Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas . In October 1988, Brazauskas bowed to pressure from Sąjūdis members, and legalized the flying of the historic yellow-green-red flag of independent Lithuania, and in November 1988 he passed a law making Lithuanian the country's official language; also, the former national anthem, " Tautiška giesmė ", was later reinstated. Following

4617-416: Is co-official in the breakaway republics of Abkhazia , and South Ossetia . Germany has the highest Russian-speaking population outside the former Soviet Union, with approximately 3 million people. They are split into three groups, from largest to smallest: Russian-speaking ethnic Germans ( Aussiedler ), ethnic Russians, and Jews. The 1922 Constitution of Latvia , restored in 1990, enacted Latvian as

4788-505: Is only spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang province and the northwestern Xinjiang province. Russian is also spoken in Israel by at least 1,000,000 ethnic Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union , according to the 1999 census. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian, and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in

4959-490: Is rapidly decreasing among younger Estonians and is primarily being replaced by the command of English. For example, 53% of ethnic Estonians between 15 and 19 claimed to speak some Russian in 2000, but among the 10- to 14-year-old group, command of Russian had fallen to 19%, about one third the percentage of those who claim to command English in the same age group. In 2007, Amnesty International harshly criticized what it termed Estonia's "harassment" of Russian-speakers. In 2010,

5130-540: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 15,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 1 million active speakers. 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family or friends or at work. Russian is spoken by 1.4% of

5301-590: Is spoken by about 1.4% of the population of Finland , according to a 2014 estimate from the World Factbook. Making Russian language one of the most-spoken immigrant language in Finland. Until 2022 the popularity of Russian language was growing because of an increase in trade with and tourism from the Russia and other Russian-speaking countries and regions. However after the year of 2022, various statistics show

Geographical distribution of Russian speakers - Misplaced Pages Continue

5472-402: The 1977 Soviet Constitution , enacted a law on electoral reform, and set the date of the election for 26 March 1989. On 29 November 1988, the Soviet Union ceased jamming all foreign radio stations, allowing Soviet citizens – for the first time since a brief period in the 1960s – to have unrestricted access to news sources beyond Communist Party control. In 1986 and 1987, Latvia had been in

5643-562: The Arab–Israeli conflict , and held hawkish positions in the issues of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and counter-terrorism . Although most of the Soviet immigrants supported the liberal policies in the subjects of religion and state, because this immigration wave was secular in its majority, they avoided support for the Israeli left-wing parties which consisted of similar positions, as a result of them being in favor of compromise with

5814-511: The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union lasted until 24 January 1989. For the next month, selection among the 7,531 district nominees took place at meetings organized by constituency-level electoral commissions. On 7 March, a final list of 5,074 candidates was published; about 85% were Party members. In the two weeks prior to the 1,500 district polls, elections to fill 750 reserved seats of public organizations, contested by 880 candidates, were held. Of these seats, 100 were allocated to

5985-607: The First Chechen War were evacuated to Israel in a rescue operation conducted by the Israeli government and Jewish Agency lasting several months. During the War of Transnistria in Moldova , Jews fleeing the war area went to cities such as Chișinău and Odessa , from where they were flown to Israel. The abruptness and extensiveness of this immigration wave brought about an immediate severe shortage of housing in Israel, in

6156-683: The Freedom Monument , shouting, "Soviet Russia out! Free Latvia!" Security forces confronted the marchers, and several police vehicles were overturned. The Jeltoqsan ('December') of 1986 were riots in Alma-Ata , Kazakhstan , sparked by Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Kunaev , the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh , who was replaced with Gennady Kolbin , an outsider from

6327-506: The Gush Dan area in particular, and a corresponding drastic rise in the prices of residential apartments. As a result, Ariel Sharon , then Israel's Minister for Housing Construction, initiated several programs to encourage the construction of new residential buildings, which partly included the concession of different planning procedures. When those resources were inadequate to the growing immigration wave, and many immigrants remained lacking

6498-729: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968. Gorbachev abandoned the oppressive and expensive Brezhnev Doctrine , which mandated intervention in the Warsaw Pact states, in favor of non-intervention in the internal affairs of allies – jokingly termed the Sinatra Doctrine in a reference to the Frank Sinatra song " My Way ". Poland was the first republic to democratize following

6669-467: The Law of Return . In 1988, a year before the immigration wave began, 58% of married Jewish men and 47% of married Jewish women in the Soviet Union had a non-Jewish spouse. Some 26%, or 240,000, of the immigrants had no Jewish mother, and were thus not considered Jewish by Halakha , or Jewish religious law, which says a Jew is someone whose mother is Jewish or formally converted to Judaism. This may cause problems with their future marriage in Israel . At

6840-605: The NKVD performed secret killings in Kurapaty. Initially the Front had significant visibility because its numerous public actions almost always ended in clashes with the police and the KGB . Spring 1989 saw the people of the Soviet Union exercising a democratic choice, albeit limited, for the first time since 1917, when they elected the new Congress of People's Deputies. Just as important

7011-702: The Politburo on 11 March 1985, just over four hours after his predecessor Konstantin Chernenko died at the age of 73. Gorbachev, aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo. His initial goal as general secretary was to revive the stagnating Soviet economy , and he realized that doing so would require reforming underlying political and social structures. The reforms began with personnel changes of senior Brezhnev-era officials who would impede political and economic change. On 23 April 1985, Gorbachev brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov , into

Geographical distribution of Russian speakers - Misplaced Pages Continue

7182-617: The Romanian language and return to the Latin alphabet. The transition from "movement" (an informal association) to "front" (a formal association) was seen as a natural "upgrade" once a movement gained momentum with the public, and the Soviet authorities no longer dared to crack down on it. On 26 April 1988, about 500 people participated in a march organized by the Ukrainian Cultural Club on Kyiv's Khreschatyk Street to mark

7353-557: The Russian SFSR . Demonstrations started in the morning of 17 December 1986, with 200 to 300 students in front of the Central Committee building on Brezhnev Square . On the next day, 18 December, protests turned into civil unrest as clashes between troops, volunteers, militia units, and Kazakh students turned into a wide-scale confrontation. The clashes could only be controlled on the third day. On 6 May 1987, Pamyat ,

7524-653: The Samtskhe-Javakheti region, which has a majority Armenian population, are generally in Russian only or Georgian and Russian. In the Kvemo Kartli i borderline region, which has a majority ethnic Azerbaijani population, signs and advertising are often in Russian only, in Georgian and Azerbaijani, or Georgian and Russian. Derussification has not been pursued in the areas outside Georgian government control: Abkhazia and South Ossetia . The Russian language

7695-546: The Six-Day War in 1967, many Soviet Jews began applying for exit visas and demonstrating for their right to leave. This was accompanied by a worldwide campaign calling on the Soviet government to allow Jews to emigrate. The ban on Jewish immigration to Israel was lifted in 1971, leading to the 1970s Soviet Union aliyah . Individual citizens of the Soviet Union who wanted to emigrate had to obtain exit visas. Many who sought exit visas were denied . Those who tried to escape

7866-651: The Spitak earthquake struck, killing an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 people. When Gorbachev rushed back from a visit to the United States, he was so angered with being confronted by protesters calling for Nagorno-Karabakh to be made part of the Armenian Republic during a natural disaster that on 11 December 1988, he ordered that the entire Karabakh Committee be arrested. In Tbilisi , the capital of Soviet Georgia , many demonstrators camped out in front of

8037-558: The Theater Square , by 22 February, there were 100,000, the next day 300,000, and a transport strike was declared, by 25 February, there were close to a million demonstrators—more than a quarter of Armenia's population. This was the first of the large, peaceful public demonstrations that would become a feature of communism's overthrow in Prague, Berlin, and, ultimately, Moscow. Leading Armenian intellectuals and nationalists, including

8208-554: The United States and Germany , respectively. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , 26% of olim and olot from the former Soviet Union did not have their Jewishness recognized by the halakhic definition , but were still eligible for Israeli citizenship due to patrilineal Jewish descent or through marriage to a Jew. While most of the immigration wave was made up of Ashkenazi Jews ,

8379-528: The educational system , which is particularly effective because nearly half the Uzbek population is of school age or younger. Since the Uzbek language became official and privileged in hiring and firing, there has been a brain drain of ethnic Russians in Uzbekistan. The displacement of the Russian-speaking population from the industrial sphere, science and education has weakened those spheres. As

8550-475: The elections of 1999 its power descended by one mandate whereas in the elections of 2003 it only gained two mandates and was integrated into the Likud party. Many see the fall of the party of the immigrants as a positive sign to the intertwining in the Israeli society and to the fact that they do not need their own party anymore. The founder and leader of the " Yisrael BaAliyah " party, Natan Sharansky, said after

8721-422: The melting pot perception (which was strong until the 1980s) brought more tolerance from the Israeli society to the attempts of the Russian immigrants to preserve their culture. In tandem, many of the immigrants saw themselves as delegates of Russian culture, and they considered it superior to Israel's largely Levantine culture. These parallel trends, combined with the separate immigrant neighborhoods, helped create

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8892-764: The nuclear launch codes —to Yeltsin, who was now the first president of the Russian Federation . That evening, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the Russian tricolor flag . The following day, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union's upper chamber, the Soviet of the Republics, formally dissolved the Union. The events of the dissolution resulted in its 15 constituent republics gaining full independence which also marked

9063-417: The periphery primarily affected immigrants of lower socio-economic status, while those from higher socio-economic levels, who had the resources to resist these efforts, moved to residential areas of their own choice instead, mostly in Gush Dan. (Additional cities to which many of the immigrants moved (willingly and unwillingly) were Haifa and the Krayot urban area, Petah Tikva , Ariel and Ashdod .) Thus

9234-423: The revolutions of 1989 in which Soviet-imposed socialist regimes of the Warsaw Pact were toppled peacefully ( with the notable exception of Romania ), which in turn increased pressure on Gorbachev to introduce greater democracy and autonomy for the Soviet Union's constituent republics. Under Gorbachev's leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to

9405-409: The 100 human-, national- and religious-rights advocates invited to discuss human rights with Soviet officials and a visiting delegation of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (also known as the Helsinki Commission). On 10 December, hundreds gathered in Kyiv to observe International Human Rights Day at a rally organized by the Democratic Union. The unauthorized gathering resulted in

9576-450: The 14,000 Armenian residents of Sumgait fled. Gorbachev refused to make any changes to the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, which remained part of Azerbaijan. He instead sacked the Communist Party Leaders in both Republics in response – on 21 May 1988, Kamran Baghirov was replaced by Abdulrahman Vezirov as First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party . From 23 July to September 1988, a group of Azerbaijani intellectuals began working for

9747-419: The 1990s and 2000s, respectively. After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, derussification occurred in the newly-independent Poland , Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania and the Kars Oblast , the last of which became part of Turkey . The new Soviet Union initially implemented a policy of Korenizatsiya , which was aimed partly at the reversal of the Tsarist Russification of the non-Russian areas of

9918-450: The 1990s the voting of the immigrants in the elections was characterized by consistently being against the present authority. In reality, the immigrants had a considerable part in the falls of the governments of Yitzhak Shamir , Shimon Peres , Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak . With the start of the Second Intifada , a big part of the Soviet immigrants tended towards the right-wing of the political spectrum in their opinions concerning

10089-423: The 2,250 CPD seats were filled. In district races, run-off elections were held in 76 constituencies on 2 and 9 April and fresh elections were organized on 14 and 20 April to 23 May, in the 199 remaining constituencies where the required absolute majority was not attained. While most CPSU-endorsed candidates were elected, more than 300 lost to independent candidates such as Yeltsin, the physicist Andrei Sakharov and

10260-464: The 48th anniversary of the secret protocols of the 1939 Molotov Pact , thousands of demonstrators marked the occasion in the three Baltic capitals to sing independence songs and attend speeches commemorating Stalin's victims. The gatherings were sharply denounced in the official press and closely watched by the police but were not interrupted. On 14 June 1987, about 5,000 people gathered again at Freedom Monument in Riga , and laid flowers to commemorate

10431-611: The 542-member Supreme Soviet passed the measure 254–85 (with 36 abstentions). The decision required a constitutional amendment, ratified by the full congress, which met 12–25 December. It also passed measures that would allow direct elections for presidents of each of the 15 constituent republics. Gorbachev strongly opposed such a move during debate but was defeated. The vote expanded the power of republics in local elections, enabling them to decide for themselves how to organize voting. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia had already proposed laws for direct presidential elections. Local elections in all

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10602-400: The Armenian minority was expelled from Shusha . On 17 November 1988, in response to the exodus of tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, a series of mass demonstrations began in Baku 's Lenin Square, lasting 18 days and attracting half a million demonstrators in support of their compatriots in that region. On 5 December 1988, the Soviet police and civilian militiamen moved in, cleared

10773-432: The CPSU, 100 to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions , 75 to the Communist Youth Union ( Komsomol ), 75 to the Committee of Soviet Women, 75 to the War and Labour Veterans' Organization, and 325 to other organizations such as the Academy of Sciences . The selection process was done in April. In the 26 March general elections, voter participation was an impressive 89.8%, and 1,958 (including 1,225 district seats) of

10944-482: The Estonian Popular Front and legalized the flying of the old blue-black-white flag of Estonia, and agreed to a new state language law that made Estonian the official language of the Republic. On 2 October, the Popular Front formally launched its political platform at a two-day congress. Väljas attended, gambling that the Front could help Estonia become a model of economic and political revival, while moderating separatist and other radical tendencies. On 16 November 1988,

11115-409: The Israeli government ordered the national airline El Al to put every available plane at the disposal of the immigrants. Some Soviet immigrants also came by sea on chartered ships. Direct flights from the Soviet Union to Israel carrying immigrants took place in January and February 1990. The first direct flight, which carried 125 immigrants, departed Moscow on January 1, 1990. On February 22, 1990,

11286-475: The Israeli left-wing initially thought the Soviet immigrants would give a boost to their political parties and their secularist , progressive ideas within Israeli society. The gap between the right-wing positions of the majority of this public as opposed to its anti-religious positions was filled by the Shinui party, a significant secular and anti-orthodox party, which gained a great popularity among ex-Soviet immigrants, as in spite of its left-wing tendency,

11457-439: The Latvian Popular Front and legalized flying the former carmine red-and-white flag of independent Latvia, and on 6 October he passed a law making Latvian the country's official language. The Popular Front of Lithuania, called Sąjūdis ("Movement"), was founded in May 1988. On 19 October 1988, Gorbachev replaced Ringaudas Songaila , the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Lithuania - who had been in office for nearly

11628-410: The National Union party. The logic that stood behind this decision was that in spite of the similarities between the positions of "Yisrael Beiteinu" and National Union party, the two parties have two separate target audiences: while Yisrael Beiteinu turns mainly to the Russian voters and to the right-wings seculars, the National Union party turns mainly to the religious national public and to the public of

11799-550: The Pact began to dissolve itself. The last of the countries to overthrow Communist leadership, Romania , only did so following the violent Romanian Revolution . Aliyah from the Commonwealth of Independent States in the 1990s Between 1989 and 2006, about 1.6 million Soviet Jews and their relatives left the country. About 979,000, or 61%, were received by Israel under the Law of Return , which allows Jews and their non-Jewish spouses to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship. Another 325,000 and 219,000 immigrated to

11970-565: The Palestinians, and their association of left-wing with Soviet communism . Therefore, for example, Ehud Barak was helped in his election campaign by the distribution of a Russian-language book lauding him as an Israeli war hero. Many political commentators claimed after the elections, that this book had a decisive effect in the victory of Barak in the elections. Likewise, the popularity of Ariel Sharon among ex-Soviet immigrants had much to do with his extravagant militaristic record and his tough, aggressive image. These things have been linked to

12141-445: The Politburo as full members. He kept the "power" ministries favorable by promoting KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member and appointing Minister of Defence Marshal Sergei Sokolov as a Politburo candidate. The freedom of speech brought by Gorbachev's reforms allowed nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Soviet Union to be expressed and grow into dominant political movements. It also led indirectly to

12312-915: The Regional Soviet voted to secede and join with the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia . This local vote in a small, remote part of the Soviet Union made headlines around the world; it was an unprecedented defiance of republican and national authorities. On 22 February 1988, in what became known as the " Askeran clash ", thousands of Azerbaijanis marched towards Nagorno-Karabakh, demanding information about rumors of an Azerbaijani having been killed in Stepanakert. They were informed that no such incident had occurred, but refused to believe it. Dissatisfied with what they were told, thousands began marching toward Nagorno-Karabakh, killing (or injuring?) 50. Karabakh authorities mobilised over

12483-406: The Russian minority, such as Russian language and literature classes. In the 1992 Constitution of Lithuania , Lithuanian was declared as the sole state language. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or any other legal status, but the use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population (63% as of 2011), especially the older generations, can speak Russian as

12654-478: The Shinui party was not identified with the left. A study done in the 90s, asked Russian immigrants to choose their favorite party political program, with the party name being deleted. Not knowing what party the program belongs to, most immigrants chose the program of the left-wing Meretz (who were then surprised once told about the left-wing party's platform). In the elections of 2006 Yisrael Beiteinu parted from

12825-415: The Soviet Union . It also brought an end to the Soviet Union's federal government and General Secretary (also President ) Mikhail Gorbachev 's effort to reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political stalemate and economic backslide . The Soviet Union had experienced internal stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years,

12996-566: The Soviet Union by the Act of 11 March 1990 with its Baltic neighbors and the Southern Caucasus republic of Georgia joining it over the next two months. During the failed 1991 August coup , communist hardliners and military elites attempted to overthrow Gorbachev and stop the failing reforms. However, the turmoil led to the central government in Moscow losing influence, ultimately resulting in many republics proclaiming independence in

13167-637: The Soviet Union itself collapsed. Eventually, every city in the former Soviet Union with a large Jewish population became a staging point for direct flights. In the aftermath of breakup of the Soviet Union, a series of wars erupted in areas of the former Soviet Union, and Jewish refugees from these war-torn areas were evacuated to Israel with the help of the Jewish Agency . During the War in Abkhazia , all Jews who wished to flee Abkhazia were evacuated and resettled in Israel. Jews from Chechnya fleeing

13338-414: The Soviet Union that year). Approximately 148,000 more Soviet immigrants arrived in Israel in 1991. Immigration to Israel dropped off significantly from then on but remained steady between 1992 and 1995. In 1992, 65,093 Soviet immigrants arrived in Israel, followed by 66,145 in 1993, 68,079 in 1994, and 64,848 in 1995. From then on, Soviet immigration dipped below 60,000 per year for the next few years, though

13509-803: The Soviet Union, which were variously suppressed or tolerated. The CTAG ( Latvian : Cilvēktiesību aizstāvības grupa , lit.   'Human Rights Defense Group') Helsinki-86 was founded in July 1986 in the Latvian port town of Liepāja . Helsinki-86 was the first openly anti-Communist organization in the U.S.S.R., and the first openly organized opposition to the Soviet regime, setting an example for other ethnic minorities' pro-independence movements. On 26 December 1986, 300 Latvian youths gathered in Riga's Cathedral Square and marched down Lenin Avenue toward

13680-412: The Soviet Union. According to a 2012 Eurobarometer survey, 19% of the population understands Russian well enough to follow the news, television, or radio. Native Russian speakers are 0.24%. In Estonia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 470,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 500,000 active speakers, 35% of

13851-636: The Soviet government suspended the direct flights. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had ordered the direct flights stopped following a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in the Jerusalem neighborhood and settlement of Neve Yaakov , a predominantly Russian immigrant neighborhood over the Green Line , hinting that Soviet immigrants would be housed in Israeli settlements . Direct flights were resumed in August 1991. In December 1991,

14022-574: The Soviets began allowing Jews to emigrate in limited numbers annually starting in 1968, officially for "family reunification". Initially, most went to Israel, but after 1976, the majority began immigrating to the United States , which had a policy of treating Soviet Jews as refugees under the Jackson-Vanik amendment . In total, some 291,000 Soviet Jews were granted exit visas between 1970 and 1988, of whom 165,000 immigrated to Israel and 126,000 to

14193-486: The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR adopted a declaration of national sovereignty under which Estonian laws would take precedence over those of the Soviet Union. Estonia's parliament also laid claim to the republic's natural resources including land, inland waters, forests, mineral deposits, and to the means of industrial production, agriculture, construction, state banks, transportation, and municipal services within

14364-506: The USSR, and did not succeed, called Refuseniks , were often branded traitors, fired from their jobs, and subject to public harassment. Those who received exit visas lost their Soviet citizenship and had to pay an exit tax . Under the Communist regime , real estate assets such as apartments usually belonged to the state, and emigrants had to cede those assets in the majority of cases. After

14535-557: The Ukrainian Cultural Club hosted its own observances in Kyiv at the monument to St. Volodymyr the Great , the grand prince of Kyivan Rus . On 16 June 1988, 6,000 to 8,000 people gathered in Lviv to hear speakers declare no confidence in the local list of delegates to the 19th Communist Party conference, to begin on 29 June. On 21 June, a rally in Lviv attracted 50,000 people who had heard about

14706-467: The United States. In 1989, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev decided to lift restrictions on emigration. That same year, 71,000 Soviet Jews emigrated, of whom only 12,117 immigrated to Israel. In Vienna , a major transit point for immigration to Israel, some 83% chose to go to the United States. In October 1989, the US government stopped treating Soviet Jews as refugees, as another country, Israel,

14877-481: The adjacent park harboring Aleea Clasicilor (The " Alley of Classics [of Literature]"). On 15 January 1988, in a tribute to Mihai Eminescu at his bust on the Aleea Clasicilor, Anatol Șalaru submitted a proposal to continue the meetings. In the public discourse, the movement called for national awakening, freedom of speech, the revival of Moldovan traditions, and for the attainment of official status for

15048-622: The anniversary of Stalin 's mass deportation of Latvians in 1941. The authorities did not crack down on demonstrators, which encouraged more and larger demonstrations throughout the Baltic States. On 18 November 1987, hundreds of police and civilian militiamen cordoned off the central square to prevent any demonstration at Freedom Monument, but thousands lined the streets of Riga in silent protest regardless. On 17 October 1987, about 3,000 Armenians demonstrated in Yerevan complaining about

15219-424: The average salary of an immigrant from the former Soviet Union was comparable to that of a native-born Israeli Jew, meaning that the economic gap between the Soviet immigrants and the rest of Israeli Jewish society had essentially closed. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics about 1/3rd of the 1990s immigrants got their former education recognized in Israel as higher education. But less than half of

15390-463: The beginning of Yeltsin's rebranding as a rebel and rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure. The following four years of political struggle between Yeltsin and Gorbachev played a large role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 11 November, Yeltsin was fired from the post of First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party . In the years leading up to the dissolution, various protests and resistance movements occurred or took hold throughout

15561-686: The cases, the different sides reached a compromise and the pork stores were moved to the industrial regions of the cities. The majority of the Jewish immigrants were Ashkenazi Jews ; however, Mizrahi groups such as the Mountain Jews , Georgian Jews , and Bukharan Jews also immigrated in great numbers to Israel during the collapse of the USSR following a previous wave of immigration. They were more traditional and brought their culture, food, and music to Israel. Many immigrants Hebraized their names, but most kept their Russian ones. However, Russian parents largely gave their children Hebrew first names, and

15732-716: The condition of Lake Sevan , the Nairit chemicals plant, and the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant , and air pollution in Yerevan. Police tried to prevent the protest but took no action to stop it once the march was underway. The following day 1,000 Armenians participated in another demonstration calling for Armenian national rights in Karabakh and the proposed unification of both Nakhchivan and Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The police tried to physically prevent

15903-449: The country and 5 million active speakers. Russian is spoken by 14.2% of the population, according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. Throughout the country, there are still signs with Uzbek and Russian. After the independence of Uzbekistan in 1991, Uzbek culture underwent the three trends of derussification, the creation of an Uzbek national identity, and westernization . The state has primarily promoted those trends through

16074-460: The country and 8 million active speakers; 77% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family or friends or at work. Initially, when Belarus became independent in 1991 and the Belarusian language became the only state language, some derussification started. However, after Alexander Lukashenko became president, a referendum held in 1995 , which

16245-588: The country was made up of 15 top-level republics that served as the homelands for different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and Gorbachev continuing the waning of centralized power, the leaders of three of its founding members , the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian SSRs, declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed . Eight more republics joined their declaration shortly thereafter. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991 and what

16416-576: The country, scheduled for November 1989, be postponed until early 1990 because there were still no laws governing the conduct of such elections. This was seen by some as a concession to local Party officials, who feared they would be swept from power in a wave of anti-establishment sentiment. On 25 October 1989, the Supreme Soviet voted to eliminate special seats for the Communist Party and other official organizations in union-level and republic-level elections, responding to sharp popular criticism that such reserved slots were undemocratic. After vigorous debate,

16587-558: The country. 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. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 4,200,000 native speakers of Russian in the country and 10 million active speakers. 63% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 46% used it as

16758-423: The country. Vladimir Lenin and then Joseph Stalin mostly reversed the implementation of Korenizatsiya by the 1930s, not so much by changing the letter of the law, but by reducing its practical effects and by introducing de facto Russification. The Soviet system heavily promoted Russian as the "language of interethnic communication" and "language of world communism". Eventually, in 1990, Russian became legally

16929-423: The criticism towards this wave was related to their cultural distinction, which included many negative stereotypes regarding Israeli society. Since that time, the immigrants have succeeded in blending into Israeli society in different fields, and contribute greatly to Israel. In 2009, Science Minister Daniel Hershkowitz said the immigration wave helped the Israeli universities, where one of every four staff members

17100-399: The debate about Kyrgyz getting a more dominant position in the country. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of interethnic communication under the Constitution of Tajikistan . According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 90,000 native speakers of Russian in the country and 1 million active speakers. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as

17271-695: The detention of local activists. The Belarusian Popular Front was established in 1988 as a political party and cultural movement for democracy and independence, similar to the Baltic republics' popular fronts. The discovery of mass graves in Kurapaty outside Minsk by historian Zianon Pazniak , the Belarusian Popular Front's first leader, gave additional momentum to the pro-democracy and pro-independence movement in Belarus. It claimed that

17442-410: The elections that the reason for the fall of his party was actually in its success to obtain its objectives of intertwining the immigrants in the Israeli society. In 1999, the politician Avigdor Lieberman (who immigrated with his parents in 1978) established the party Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel is our home”), as a competitor of Yisrael BaAliyah. Yisrael Beiteinu focused on the national issues and took

17613-756: The enactment of the April Novelization , as agreed upon following the Polish Round Table Agreement talks from February to April between the government and the Solidarity trade union. The Polish Solidarity Union, as established through the 1980 August Accords, presented Lech Wałęsa as their candidate, who became the first democratically elected president of Poland. The elections in Poland inspired other Eastern European Soviet Nations to pursue peaceful democratic transitions, and soon

17784-607: The end of 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. This was also the year that CNN became the first non-Soviet broadcaster allowed to beam its TV news programs to Moscow. Officially, CNN was available only to foreign guests in the Savoy Hotel , but Muscovites quickly learned how to pick up signals on their home televisions. That had a major effect on how Soviets saw events in their country and made censorship almost impossible. The month-long nomination period for candidates for

17955-565: The fall of the Soviet Union and the establishment of capitalism in Russia and other former Soviet republics, those laws were canceled. On July 1, 1991, a change in Soviet law came into effect under which emigrants would no longer have to forfeit their Soviet citizenship. From then, emigrants who left the Soviet Union and its successor states after the fall of the Soviet Union were able to keep their assets, and those from successor states which allowed dual citizenship were able to retain their citizenship. In response to growing international pressure,

18126-401: The fear which were related to this immigration wave were the fear of that there may be a percentage of religious and cultural non-Jews amongst the immigrants, and the apprehension that the new immigrants would take jobs away from the veteran population. Another additional reason for negative attitudes is connected to the general characteristic of a migratory society, the inhospitable attitude of

18297-696: The first group release since the Khrushchev Thaw in the mid-1950s. On 10 September, Boris Yeltsin wrote a letter of resignation to Gorbachev. At the 27 October plenary meeting of the Central Committee, Yeltsin, frustrated that Gorbachev had not addressed any of the issues outlined in his resignation letter, criticized the slow pace of reform, and servility to the general secretary. In his reply, Gorbachev accused Yeltsin of "political immaturity" and "absolute irresponsibility". Nevertheless, news of Yeltsin's insubordination and "secret speech" spread, and soon samizdat versions began to circulate. That marked

18468-530: The following days and months. The secession of the Baltic states was recognized in September 1991. The Belovezha Accords were signed on 8 December by President Boris Yeltsin of Russia , President Kravchuk of Ukraine , and Chairman Shushkevich of Belarus , recognizing each other's independence and creating the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan

18639-446: The former Soviet Union to Israel. By contrast, there were only 30,000 engineers and 15,000 doctors in Israel in 1989. When they arrived in Israel, many Soviet immigrants, including highly educated and skilled professionals, initially took menial and semi-skilled jobs and lived in poverty. In 1992, 56% of Soviet immigrants were in the poorest third of the Israeli population, either poor or at risk of falling into poverty, while 10% were in

18810-523: The future first president of independent Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian , formed the eleven-member Karabakh Committee to lead and organize the new movement. On the same day, when Gorbachev replaced Baghirov with Vezirov as First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, he also replaced Karen Demirchian with Suren Harutyunyan as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia , however, Harutyunyan quickly decided to run before

18981-513: The history of the conflict) in Russian, but when we received only one sole answer, we were discouraged. Obviously, the Russians did not give a damn for the history of this country, about which they do not have the slightest idea. In the Israeli elections of 2009 , Yisrael Beiteinu gained 15 Knesset members, its highest ever. The weakening of the Zionist ethos coupled with the disappearance of

19152-507: The immigrants having internalized the perception that they are "less Jewish" than the rest (especially given that many not considered Jewish by the rabbinate and therefore have reduced rights), and therefore compensating by "aligning themselves with the Jewish majority against the Palestinians in the territories and by doing that, making themselves feel like they belong", according to former RTVi journalist Assia Istoshina. Ironically,

19323-481: The immigrants that have contributed to the State of Israel and to Israeli society as scientists, doctors, academics, in technology, research and the arts were of key importance to the overall culture and economy of Israel. Of the immigrants who arrived between 1989 and 1990, 60% were college-educated, then twice the number of college-educated Israelis. From 1990 to 1993, 57,000 engineers and 12,000 doctors immigrated from

19494-605: The immigration wave had a clear ethnic aspect: while the majority of the immigrants originating from the European areas of the Commonwealth of Independent States moved to the center of Israel, most of the immigrants who moved to the periphery were from the Central Asian Republics and the Caucasus . The absorption laws changed with time. The basic government grants given to each immigrant changed rapidly from

19665-687: The infusion of almost a million new consumers allowed hundreds of companies across a wide range of industries to increase their market by up to 20%, and this increase in consumption greatly increased imports and exports. The emerging Israeli high-tech industry was greatly boosted by highly educated Russian immigrants, together with skilled IDF veterans. In addition, Maoz credited the Russian immigrants, who tended to be more ambitious and highly educated than native Israelis, with indirectly boosting native Israelis' productivity by causing more of them to work harder and pursue higher education in order to compete. Economist Yosef Zeira acknowledged that Russian immigrants had

19836-416: The language inspectorate stepped up inspections at workplaces to ensure that state employees spoke Estonian at an acceptable level. That included inspections of teachers at Russian-medium schools. Amnesty International continues to criticize Estonian policies: "Non-Estonian speakers, mainly from the Russian-speaking minority, were denied employment due to official language requirements for various professions in

20007-471: The largest gathering of Ukrainian Catholics since Stalin outlawed the Church in 1946. On 4 August, which came to be known as "Bloody Thursday", local authorities violently suppressed a demonstration organized by the Democratic Front to Promote Perestroika. Forty-one people were detained, fined, or sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. On 1 September, local authorities violently displaced 5,000 students at

20178-604: The late 1980s to the late 1990s. Most of the immigrants initially located on the periphery and later dispersed to the "Russian" neighborhoods. There were cities, mainly in the medium and lower socio-economic levels, in which immigrants constituted over 50% of all the residents. Many of the immigrants integrated into the Israeli labor market , but the majority remained confined in their own communities. The closed nature of this immigration wave may have been due to its large size, which resulted in neighborhoods of sometimes tens of thousands of people. Also, many immigrants failed to adapt to

20349-408: The law also stated that all minority ethnic groups in the country have the right to choose the language in which they want their children to be educated. Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca of Turkmenistan in 1996. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 150,000 native speakers of Russian in the country and 100,000 active speakers. Russian is spoken by 12% of

20520-421: The lawyer Anatoly Sobchak . In the first session of the new Congress of People's Deputies (from 25 May to 9 June), hardliners retained control but reformers used the legislature as a platform for debate and criticism, which was broadcast live and uncensored. This transfixed the population since nothing like such a freewheeling debate had ever been witnessed in the Soviet Union. On 29 May, Yeltsin managed to secure

20691-455: The leading rebel republic. On 5 July 1988, when a contingent of troops was sent in to remove demonstrators by force from Yerevan's Zvartnots International Airport , shots were fired and one student protester was killed. In September, further large demonstrations in Yerevan led to the deployment of armored vehicles. In the autumn of 1988 almost all of the 200,000 Azerbaijani minority in Armenia

20862-518: The literate population of workers works in the field of their expertise. At first the reaction of Israeli society to the Jewish Soviet Union immigration wave was very positive, and the common phrase "with every immigrant, our strength rises" was used amongst the locals. This positive attitude changed with time as a result of fears in parts of Israeli society to the effects the massive immigration wave would have. The two central reasons for

21033-469: The main language with family or friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. After independence, Tajik was declared the sole state language, and until 2009, Russian was designated the "language for interethnic communication". The 2009 law stated that all official papers and education in the country should be conducted only in the Tajik language. However,

21204-426: The main language with family, friends or at work. According to a 2001 estimate from the World Factbook, 95% of the population can speak Russian. Large Russian-speaking communities still exist in northern Kazakhstan, and ethnic Russians comprise 25.6% of Kazakhstan's population. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of the population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian and understand

21375-550: The main language with family, friends or at work. 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. Georgianization has been pursued with most official and private signs only in the Georgian language , with English being the favored foreign language. Exceptions are older signs remaining from Soviet times, which are generally bilingual Georgian and Russian. Private signs and advertising in

21546-861: The major conclusion of the Revolutions of 1989 and the end of the Cold War . In the aftermath of the Cold War , several of the former Soviet republics have retained close links with Russia and formed multilateral organizations such as the CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the Union State , for economic and military cooperation. On

21717-489: The march and after a few incidents, dispersed the demonstrators. In 1988, Gorbachev started to lose control of two regions of the Soviet Union, as the Baltic republics were now leaning towards independence, and the Caucasus descended into violence and civil war. On 1 July 1988, the fourth and last day of a bruising 19th Party Conference, Gorbachev won the backing of the tired delegates for his last-minute proposal to create

21888-440: The mid-1990s the opening of stores selling merchandise which was prevalent in the USSR, notably non-kosher meat such as pork . Even though the sale of pork is allowed in Israel, and there are even pig farms in kibbutz Mizra, the marketing of the meat in cities with a high rate of religious or traditional residents constituted as a contravention of the secular-religious status quo in Israel, and caused many confrontations. In most of

22059-422: The most prominent Soviet dissident , returned to Moscow shortly after receiving a personal telephone call from Gorbachev telling him that after almost seven years his internal exile for defying the authorities was over. At the 28–30 January Central Committee plenum , Gorbachev suggested a new policy of demokratizatsiya throughout Soviet society. He proposed that future Communist Party elections should offer

22230-1207: The multichannel television in Israel during the 1990s, many Russian channels started being rebroadcast in Israel. And in November 2002, a new Israeli-Russian channel, Israel Plus , emerged. Seven Russian newspapers were also established. However, by 2012 Israeli-Russian media was declining, as the children of Soviet immigrants rely far less on it than their parents do. Though Hebrew courses are offered to every immigrant, many Russian immigrants prefer to speak Russian. As of 1995, only 51% of them were proficient in Hebrew, while 39% could not read Hebrew or had poor Hebrew literacy, and 26% could barely speak or could not speak Hebrew at all. Some 48% spoke only Russian at home, 6% at work, and 32% with friends, while 8% spoke only Hebrew at home, 32% at work, and 9% with friends. The rest spoke in an amalgamation of Russian and Hebrew. The immigrants were overwhelmingly secular. A 2016 poll found that 81% self-identified as secular, as compared to 49% among all Israeli Jews, and only 4% were Haredi , although 55% expressed some level of religious belief. Their rate of intermarriage and cohabitation with non-Jewish partners

22401-575: The nationalist wind and on 28 May, allowed Armenians to unfurl the red-blue-orange First Armenian Republic flag for the first time in almost 70 years to mark the 1918 declaration of the First Republic. On 15 June 1988, the Armenian Supreme Soviet adopted a resolution formally approving the idea of Nagorno-Karabakh's unification as part of the republic. Armenia, formerly one of the most loyal republics, had suddenly turned into

22572-510: The official all-Union language of the Soviet Union , with constituent republics having the right to declare their own regional languages. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, about 25 million Russians (about a sixth of the former Soviet Russians) found themselves outside Russia and were about 10% of the population of the post-Soviet states other than Russia. Millions of them later became refugees from various interethnic conflicts. In Armenia , Russian has no official status but

22743-596: The originating culture and welcoming the absorbing culture, or to intertwine. The immigrants' Israeli-born children, however, have completely assimilated into Israeli society. These people, we [= the Israeli left] told ourselves, have been educated for 70 years in an internationalist spirit. They have just overthrown a cruel dictatorial system, so they must be avid democrats. Many of them are not Jews, but only relatives (sometimes remote) of Jews. So here we have hundreds of thousands of secular , internationalist and non-nationalist new citizens, just what we need. They would add

22914-482: The other hand, the Baltic states and all of the other former Warsaw Pact states became part of the European Union (EU) and joined NATO , while some of the other former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova have been publicly expressing interest in following the same path since the 1990s, despite Russian attempts to persuade them otherwise. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by

23085-405: The other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). Unlike Latvia or Estonia, Lithuania has never implemented the practice of regarding some former Soviet citizens as non-citizens . In Moldova , Russian has a status similar to the other recognized minority languages; it was also considered to be the language of interethnic communication under

23256-400: The overall immigration were considered Jewish during these recent years. The immigrants integrated relatively successfully in the Israeli economy, and they are characterized as having a higher rate of participation in the work market. The Israeli high tech field went through a small revolution with inculcation of several business incubators which were set up to provide employment for

23427-400: The past decades. In Georgia , Russian has no official status but is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 130,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 1.7 million active speakers. 27% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 1% used it as

23598-421: The population according to a 2009 estimate from the World Factbook. In 2010, in a significant pullback to derussification, Armenia voted to re-introduce Russian-medium schools. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status but is a lingua franca of the country. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 250,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 2 million active speakers. 26% of

23769-448: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 25% used it as the main language with family or friends or at work. Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook. Ethnic Russians are 25.5% of the country's current population and 58.6% of the native Estonian population is also able to speak Russian. In all, 67.8% of Estonia's population could speak Russian. The command of Russian, however,

23940-481: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family or friends or at work. Research in 2005–2006 concluded that government officials did not consider Russian to be a threat to the strengthening role of the Azerbaijani language in independent Azerbaijan. Rather, Russian continued to have value given the proximity of Russia and strong economic and political ties. However, it

24111-485: The population, according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. Russian television channels have mostly been shut down in Turkmenistan, and many Russian-language schools were closed down. In Uzbekistan , Russian has no official status but is a lingua franca and a de-facto language throughout the country. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 1,200,000 native speakers of Russian in

24282-538: The population. Russian has a co-official status alongside Romanian in the autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria . Dissolution of the Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration № 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of

24453-578: The private sector and almost all professions in the public sector. Most did not have access to affordable language training that would enable them to qualify for employment." The percentage of Russian speakers in Estonia is still declining, but not as fast as in the most of ex-Soviet countries. After overcoming the consequences of 2007 economic crisis , the tendency of emigration of Russian speakers has almost stopped, unlike in Latvia or in Lithuania. Russian

24624-583: The proportion was: Jews according to halakha – 47%, non-Jewish spouses of Jews – 14%, children from Jewish father and non-Jewish mother – 17%, non-Jewish spouses of children from Jewish father and non-Jewish mother – 6%, grandchildren with one Jewish grandparent – 14% and non-Jewish spouses of grandchildren with one Jewish grandparent – 2%. According to a leaked document from the Population and Immigration Authority, between 2016 and 2021, 34.3% of Russian olim , 30% of Ukrainian olim, 93.7% of USA olim and 56% of

24795-405: The receiving society and the society's expectancy that they change to facilitate their social absorption. Many of the new immigrants found that their former education was not recognized by many Israeli employers, though it was recognized by institutions of higher education. Many had to work in jobs which did not match their expertise, or undergo retraining. Some of the immigrants chose to stick to

24966-731: The republic's legislature in November 1988 calling for Georgia's independence and in support of Estonia's declaration of sovereignty. Beginning in February 1988, the Democratic Movement of Moldova (formerly Moldavia) organized public meetings, demonstrations, and song festivals, which gradually grew in size and intensity. In the streets, the center of public manifestations was the Stephen the Great Monument in Chișinău, and

25137-587: The republics had already been scheduled to take place between December and March 1990. The six Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe, while nominally independent, were widely recognized as the Soviet satellite states (along with Mongolia ). All had been occupied by the Soviet Red Army in 1945, had Soviet-style socialist states imposed upon them, and had very restricted freedom of action in either domestic or international affairs. Any moves towards real independence were suppressed by military force – in

25308-652: The second anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, carrying placards with slogans like "Openness and Democracy to the End". Between May and June 1988, Ukrainian Catholics in western Ukraine celebrated the Millennium of Christianity in Kyivan Rus in secret by holding services in the forests of Buniv, Kalush , Hoshi, and Zarvanytsia. On 5 June 1988, as the official celebrations of the Millennium were held in Moscow,

25479-465: The second state language of Latvia, but 821,722 (75%) of the voters voted against and 273,347 (25%) for. There has been criticism that about 290,000 of the 557,119 (2011) ethnic Russians in Latvia are non-citizens and do not have the right to vote. Since 2019, instruction in Russian is gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities , as well general instruction in public high schools except for subjects related to culture and history of

25650-519: The settlers. This assumption became clear after "Yisrael Beiteinu" gained alone 11 mandates and became the second largest right-wing party after the Likud, which received only 12 mandates, while most of the mandates it received arrived of course from the target audience of the party – the immigrants from the Russian Federation. The organization to which I belong, Gush Shalom , once distributed 100,000 copies of our flagship publication (“Truth against Truth”,

25821-436: The sole official language. Despite large Russian-speaking minorities in Latvia (26.9% ethnic Russians, 2011), the Russian language has no official status. According to Russian sources, 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family or friends or at work. A constitutional referendum , held in February 2012, proposed amendments to the constitution of Latvia to make Russian

25992-529: The southeast of Melbourne , particularly the suburbs of Carnegie and Caulfield . Two-thirds of them are actually Russian-speaking descendants of Germans , Greeks , Jews , Azerbaijanis , Armenians or Ukrainians , who either were repatriated after the Soviet Union collapsed or are just looking for temporary employment. In Belarus , Russian is co-official alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 3,243,000 native speakers of Russian in

26163-457: The spoken language. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian is an official language per Article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 600,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 1.5 million active speakers. 38% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 22% used it as the main language with family or friends or at work. The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as

26334-486: The square by force, and imposed a curfew that lasted ten months. The rebellion of fellow Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh had an immediate effect in Armenia itself. Daily demonstrations, which began in the Armenian capital Yerevan on 18 February, initially attracted few people, but each day the Nagorno-Karabakh issue became increasingly prominent and the numbers swelled. On 20 February, a 30,000-strong crowd demonstrated in

26505-405: The start of the mass immigration, almost all those immigrating from the former USSR were considered Jews by Halakha. The proportion of those who were not considered Jewish by Orthodox interpretations of Halakha among the immigrants consistently rose throughout the immigration wave. For example, in 1990 around 96% of the immigrants were Jews and only 4% were non-Jewish family members. However, in 2000,

26676-449: The strategy of dissimilation, keeping the originating culture and rejecting the absorbing culture. Other groups of immigrants (the political leadership and younger people) chose to stick with the strategy of intertwining, involving themselves in the surrounding culture while conserving their original culture. These strategic choices were different from those of the previous immigration waves, which commonly chose either to assimilate, rejecting

26847-625: The territory of Estonia's borders. At the same time the Estonian Citizens' Committees started registration of citizens of the Republic of Estonia to carry out the elections of the Congress of Estonia . The Latvian Popular Front was founded in June 1988. On 4 October, Gorbachev replaced Boris Pugo , the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Latvia , with the more liberal Jānis Vagris. In October 1988 Vagris bowed to pressure from

27018-412: The theater or to classic music concerts than Israel-born people, and in literature the Russian aliyah introduced the " fantasy " realism genre into Israeli literature, as opposed to "dry" realism. The Russian immigrants brought the battle reconstruction hobby into Israel, founding a few clubs. Due to demand from the new immigrants, many Russian language newspapers appeared, and with the development of

27189-420: The thousands of the scientists and the engineers which came through this immigration wave. This immigration wave has also been credited with boosting Israel's economy, and helping grow the country's famous high-tech industry in particular. Israeli economist Shlomo Maoz said about the Russian aliyah: "The Russians saved Israel, big time. The aliyah improved our situation almost on every parameter". According to Maoz,

27360-409: The trend steadily rose throughout the 1990s into the 2000s. Many children of Russian immigrants have been given Biblical first names which are recognized as Israeli but are also common in other countries. While the immigrants themselves did not completely integrate into Israeli culture and hold on to part of their Russian identity, their children are entirely integrated into Israeli society, according to

27531-517: The vanguard of the Baltic states in pressing for reform. In 1988, Estonia took over the lead role with the foundation of the Soviet Union's first popular front and starting to influence state policy. The Estonian Popular Front was founded in April 1988. On 16 June 1988, Gorbachev replaced Karl Vaino , the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Estonia , with the comparatively liberal Vaino Väljas . In late June 1988, Väljas bowed to pressure from

27702-407: The veteran group towards the population of immigrants. In this respect, negative stereotypical rumors started to spread about the new immigrants. This inhospitable attitude intensified also because—in contrast with the previous immigration waves to Israel—many of the immigrants from this wave kept their culture and language, without trying to blend their customs with their new lives in Israel. Much of

27873-426: The wealthiest third of society. The Soviet immigrants integrated into the Israeli economy, which during the 1990s was experiencing a boom that doubled the country's GDP per capita and caused the unemployment rate to decline despite the massive increase in the labor force the immigration brought on. By 2010, only 38% of Soviet immigrants were in the poorest third of society, and 27% were in the wealthiest third. In 2012,

28044-447: Was also found to be higher, with 10% of them married to or cohabiting with a partner who was a non-Jew, as compared to 2% among all Israeli Jews. However, the children of the immigrants are considerably more religious than their parents, with only 60% identifying as secular, 70% expressing some religious belief, and 14% being Haredi. The secular character of this immigration wave and their attempts to preserve their eating habits caused in

28215-555: Was considered fraudulent by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe , included a question about the status of Russian. It was made a state language, along with Belarusian. In most spheres, the Russian language is by far the dominant one. In fact, almost all government information and websites are in Russian only. Bulgaria has the largest proportion of Russian-speakers among European countries that were not part of

28386-537: Was expelled by Armenian nationalists, with over 100 killed in the process. That, after the Sumgait pogrom earlier that year, which had been carried out by Azerbaijanis to ethnic Armenians and led to the expulsion of Armenians from Azerbaijan, was for many Armenians considered an act of revenge for the killings at Sumgait. On 25 November 1988, a military commandant took control of Yerevan as the Soviet government moved to prevent further ethnic violence. On 7 December 1988,

28557-454: Was left of the Soviet parliament voted to dissolve the union. The process began with growing unrest in the country's various constituent national republics developing into an incessant political and legislative conflict between them and the central government. Estonia was the first Soviet republic to declare state sovereignty inside the Union on 16 November 1988. Lithuania was the first republic to declare full independence restored from

28728-445: Was seen as self-evident that to be successful, citizens needed to be proficient in Azerbaijani. The Russian language was co-official in the breakaway Armenian-populated Republic of Artsakh . In the 1920s, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party sent influential figures to study abroad in the Soviet Union, including Deng Xiaoping and Chiang Ching-kuo , who both were classmates and fluent in Russian. Now, Russian

28899-428: Was the last republic to leave the Union, proclaiming independence on 16 December. All the ex-Soviet republics, with the exception of Georgia and the Baltic states, joined the CIS on 21 December, signing the Alma-Ata Protocol . Russia, as by far the largest and most populous republic, became the USSR's de facto successor state . On 25 December, Gorbachev resigned and turned over his presidential powers—including control of

29070-433: Was the uncensored live TV coverage of the legislature's deliberations, where people witnessed the previously feared Communist leadership being questioned and held accountable. This example fueled a limited experiment with democracy in Poland , which quickly led to the toppling of the Communist government in Warsaw that summer and in turn sparked uprisings that overthrew governments in the other five Warsaw Pact countries before

29241-552: Was willing to accept them unconditionally. However, granting refugee status to Soviet Jews persisted in some form, as the Lautenberg Amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (Section 599D) required the executive branch to establish refugee processing categories for Jews, Evangelical Christians, Ukrainian Catholics, and Ukrainian Orthodox Church members and give members of these categories an enhanced opportunity to qualify for refugee status. In 1990, 185,227 Soviet immigrants arrived in Israel (out of about 228,400 Jews who left

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