When you are planning a vacation to another country you are looking for more information on the Internet like currency exchange rates, language, political situation, interesting places and peculiarities of the population. As soon as you arrive in Ukraine you will face a language issue. Of course, these days you don’t need to hire an interpreter, because your smartphone has enough applications that will help you communicate, with maps and navigators you don’t need to ask how to get where you want, and many Ukrainians know English. But sometimes, even if you want to use an online translator, you have to choose the language, and here you can get confused! Ukrainians are bilingual people, they speak both Russian and Ukrainian. The residents of eastern and southern Ukraine are historically very connected with Russia. In the times of the Russian Empire such Ukrainian cities as Donetsk, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro were developing both culturally and financially very fast due to cooperation with Russia, in the times of the Soviet Union already Russified regions were exposed to propaganda, Ukrainian cultural figures were sent to prison simply for writing books in Ukrainian, and those who supported the independence of Ukraine were killed. The central, northern and western parts of Ukraine were less susceptible to propaganda and influence from the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. They advocated independence and integration with Western culture, despite the rather tense relations with Poland in some periods, they sought friendly relations with Poland, in fact, as well as eastern Ukraine sought friendly relations with Russia.
Thus, thanks to those brave people from the past, modern Ukrainians have a choice of communication in the language they want, one in Russian, the other in Ukrainian. Both of these languages use Cyrillic. For a foreigner it is harder to learn Russian, Ukrainian is easier, and, by the way, is one of the most beautiful languages in the world (2nd place). So, if you are going to Ukraine and can’t understand in which language to set up your application-response, in what you want. In any case, you will be understood. By the way, in 2014 the Ukrainian language officially became the only official language. This was done because of the Russian aggression in the east of Ukraine and in order to popularize the Ukrainian language, and radio stations are obliged to increase the percentage of music playing on the radio and it has yielded great results! Ukrainian people are in general very talented and the music of Ukraine is considered the best among the CIS countries now!
However, every Ukrainian has the right to choose which language to speak. But be prepared for a surprise, it is possible that you will ask in Russian, you will be answered in Ukrainian. This is not a matter of principle, it’s just convenient for a person. On TV you can see a strange interview -the journalist asks the artist in Ukrainian, and he answers in Russian. Both people raise each other and have no problems with communication and it does not matter what language is the official in Ukraine, it’s just a formality. People living in Ukraine appreciate their traditions and traditions of their families and if they have spoken Russian since childhood, they will continue to speak Russian, if they speak Ukrainian, they will fight for the right to speak their native language even if their freedom is at stake!
Which is not strange, because the question of language, like many others, is just a matter of politics. For example, when thousands of people and were burned in Western Europe to eradicate traditional paganism, Ukrainians, being baptized in 988, continued their traditions. Baptism was beneficial for political connections and when Ukrainians were driven into the icy water of the Dnipro River, there was an extravagant right to hold their traditional holidays and Ukrainians believed in the forest deities, spirits of the lake, ghosts of the fields for a long time, jumping over a fire, telling children horror fairy tales based on pagan mythology and traditional embroidery full of ethnic elements and they did not care that they were baptized. So, these sociable and cheerful people are able to cooperate, no one would be surprised if it turns out that Ukrainians are still hiding nuclear weapons.
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