The Russian language was perhaps the main bait used by pro-Kremlin forces to catch Crimean vatniks long before the annexation. The dream has come true: for the past eleven years, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages have been effectively banned from schools on the peninsula. But the occupiers don't stop, and now English has been declared an enemy language. The trend was announced at this year's “Great Russian Word” festival. This event is being held in Crimea for the eighteenth time. It was launched to foster pro-Russian sentiment among the educated part of the population, and at the same time to create a television image “Crimea is Russia.” However, even the organizers of the festival admit that it has not lost its relevance. 

“We have achieved a lot in Crimea now, compared to what we had during the Ukrainian period. But even today, the Russian language and Russian civilization continue to be attacked because it interferes with everything. Therefore, the relevance of the festival has not been lost, it is still very acute today,” the head of the Kremlin-controlled Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, proclaimed at the opening of the event. And then he called for “closing the window to Europe” and stopping “drawing their rotten, rancid water from there.”

The audience met the metaphor with bewildered silence, and then the speaker explained that it was time to ban Anglicisms in the language and Latin in the names. As a decisive response to the imposition of foreign words by the West, Konstantinov presented a brochure whose authors collected common English words and translated them into the “original language.” “Thoughtless use of slang leads to the destruction of the Russian language. Many of these words, the meaning of which is incomprehensible to the majority of the population without dictionaries, have analogues in our native language,” Konstantinov said.

The Crimeans were quite amused by the speaker's speech, as Konstantinov's business empire is called "Consol". “This endless cynicism is amazing,” one of the Simferopol entrepreneurs does not hide his irritation. “You start with yourself! Call your company Ogloblya, not "Consol", and then go around telling people about the insidious West. And at the same time, switch from the German “BMW” to the native automotive industry, since you have already decided to close the window to Europe. We don't have any more problems, except to think about how to avoid using a foreign word in our speech! I wouldn't be surprised if they start fining us for this soon,” the Crimean resident is indignant, and his assumption is quite realistic. The idea of fines, as well as the first dictionary of substitutes for English words, were presented by Konstantinov back in 2021. Then this “ideologue” proposed to fine citizens for using foreign words by 5 thousand rubles (about 2500 hryvnias), and legal entities by half a million rubles. He was also supported by Gaulier Sergei Aksyonov, who said that Crimea needs “complete cleansing of foreign meanings,” primarily from English words in speech and in the educational process.

Crimean educators say they would not be surprised, but so far they have not received any specific methodological recommendations on how to refuse foreign words. “Maybe the developers of the programs, unlike these clowns, understand that the language develops as it is convenient for it? The reason is not in the intrigues of the damned West - we have been with it for three hundred years. The reason is that the main technologies come from English-speaking countries, and certain words follow them,” shares her hopes the deputy director of a school in Eastern Crimea.

Crimean business, unlike educators, is full of the gloomiest expectations. At the end of last year, a pilot campaign to combat Western influence was already conducted in Krasnogvardeysky district: all signs on shops, hotels, restaurants, and hairdressers were forced to be replaced. And in mid-April, the experience was extended to Alushta, Feodosia, Leninsky, Nizhnohirsky, Rozdolne, and Chornomorsky districts.

“I received a letter from the district administration saying that they had made a decision there and I now had to replace the sign made in Latin with Cyrillic. Later I wondered whether I had to translate the name or just change the font. I'm not even interested for myself, but for Polonsky (Aksyonov's former associate - Ed.). Is he going to rename his well-promoted campsite “Olenivka Village” into the “Olenivka Village Tent Camp”? The district administration could not answer anything intelligible,” the owner of a mini-hotel in the Chornomorsk district comments on the new whim of the occupiers. According to him, many entrepreneurs reacted negatively to the campaign to abandon the Latin alphabet. After all, it's not just about the cost of new signs. For many years, the owners have been investing in advertising their brands, and now they will have to start all over again. The occupiers traditionally do not care about these problems, and they habitually lie about the general admiration for the innovation and everything else.

“People are understanding, there is no resistance or indignation from entrepreneurs. Russian is our official language and our alphabet is Cyrillic. This is especially important for Crimea, because the Cyrillic alphabet was created in Crimea by Saints Cyril and Methodius. That is why it is strange to see signs in Latin. "We need to fight this in a meaningful way,” Vice Speaker of the Parliament Serhiy Tsekov was struck by the unconventional historical thought. 

“It's quite clear where these howls are coming from,” smiles a resident of Simferopol, a political scientist by training. “They have long been using language as a weapon, and they are afraid that someone will start fighting them using their own methods. But what to do with the letters Z and V? Somehow they forgot about Cyril and Methodius when they were plastering them all over Crimea.”