Russia: Officials in Lenin's birthplace ordered to learn English

[Harold Schiffman]

 March 24, 2008,  10:02 am Officials in Lenin's Birthplace Ordered to Learn
English

By Peter Piatetsky<http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/author/peter-piatetsky/>
 [image: INSERT DESCRIPTION]Lenin (Photo: Pavla Yeats)

Before the fall of the Soviet Union, people would often make pilgrimages to
Ulyanovsk, the city about 600 miles east of Moscow that birthed Lenin. These
days, the Lenin museum struggles while the city tries to lure foreign
investment with an unusual plan. The Moscow Times
reported<http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2008/03/20/001.html>that
the regional governor, Sergey Morozov, has ordered all high level
government officials to learn English so they can do a better job of selling
the region to foreign companies. The officials will have to take an exam to
show their proficiency. And keep taking it, until they pass.

According to ULpressa.ru <http://ulpressa.ru/?section=2&newsid=48172>, the
governor's drive for better English was prompted by his dismay at the
results of a visit by an Ulyanovsk delegation to a real estate conference in
Cannes, France. Members of the delegation had difficulty interacting with
others at the conference because of their poor or nonexistent English. The
governor described the situation with an old Russian saying, "We are like
dogs, we understand everything, but we can't say anything." According to an
aide, the governor will share his subordinates' pain and take lessons,
because his English "is not so good."The city of 600,000 people was once
called Simbirsk, but was renamed Ulyanovsk during Communism in honor of
Lenin, whose given last name was Ulyanov. Unlike other cities — such as St.
Petersburg, the former Leningrad — it has not reverted to its czarist name.

The governor's initiative has not been well received among some officials,
one of whom said, "Nothing sensible will result from this idea … We already
work till nightfall, now it seems we'll be here till
morning."<http://ulpressa.ru/?section=2&newsid=48172>A member of the
local legislature, Professor Isaac Greenberg, said that "if
the governor thinks a bureaucrat needs more education, then why hire someone
who is unqualified?" Locals, in fact, have gotten used to the governor's
innovative ideas. He has already tested officials on their knowledge of
local history and Russian language and threatened to test them on their
computer skills. "What's next?," one newspaper mused, "are they going to
make them retake advanced math or even worse,
biology?"<http://www.rokf.ru/carera/2008/03/19/120621.html>

Unlike on the regional level, many Kremlin officials speak decent English,
including the president-elect, Dmitri A. Medvedev. President Vladimir V.
Putin, who served as a K.G.B. officer in East Germany in the 1980's, speaks
excellent German, though his English is not considered to be strong. Mr.
Putin did win praise for giving a speech in English to Olympic officials in
2007 <http://youtube.com/watch?v=_aNo3DxWaW4&feature=related>, a tactic that
was believed to have helped Russia win the right to host the Winter Olympic
Games in Sochi in 2014.

However, according to the 2002 census, Russia's leaders are in the minority.
Only 6 percent of Russians speak English, compared to 38 percent in the
European Union, 39 percent in neighboring Latvia and 29 percent in
Poland.<http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf>
The
level of English proficiency will likely increase as Russians continue to
embrace the language of capitalism, hoping that it will help their careers.
Many Russians have also come into regular contact with English through the
Internet. (Russians have to use Latin letters for their email addresses and
web site names because the Internet domain system does not yet recognize
Cyrillic.)

Teaching English in Russia is a booming
business<http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0505/teaching_english_in_russia.shtml>and
often the only requirement for getting such a job is not a college
degree or a teaching certificate, but simply being a native English speaker.
While it is doubtful that Lenin would approve of the proliferation of
capitalism in his home town, he might not have been against the English
lessons. Lenin spoke English and visited London six
times<http://www.21citizen.co.uk/collections/easteuropean/lenin.html>between
1902 and 1911, even finding time to admire the British Library.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/officials-in-lenins-birthplace-ordered-to-learn-english/index.html?hp



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