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The President laid flowers at a monument to the poet on the square in front of the main entrance, and was present during the defence of master’s degree theses.

Mr Medvedev met at the institute with academics and teachers, members of Russian linguists’ associations, staff from the Russian World Foundation, young Russian studies specialists, and specialists on promoting Russian language on the internet. The President announced at the meeting that he has signed an executive order making June 6 Russian Language Day.

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Friends, we are meeting today not simply at an institute named after Alexander Pushkin, but are meeting on what is a very special date. I want to congratulate all of you on this day, our great poet’s birthday, and I will explain in a minute just what we have to celebrate aside from the birthday itself. 

Present here today are people who are famous names in their fields, young linguists, representatives of the Russky Mir Foundation, along with the foundation’s head, and others. We will discuss the things that have brought us together, discuss the successes, including those of Russky Mir, and also talk about the problems. But I want to start by making one announcement concerning an executive order I have just signed.

I signed an order today establishing a new date in our calendar – Russian Language Day – which we will mark every year on June 6. I want to congratulate you all on this event, and I will give you a copy of this order. (Applause). I think there is no better date for marking Russian Language Day, and I did not hesitate for an instant in this choice.

”I signed an order today establishing a new date in our calendar – Russian Language Day – which we will mark every year on June 6.“

We need to look after our cherished Russian language, and not just on special dates of course, but all the time. The president can announce a symbolic event such as this, but looking after our language is something we all need to do every day, after all, every person living in our country uses the Russian language.

Starting from this year, the federal targeted programme Russian Language will receive 2.5 billion rubles over the coming five years. This may not be such an enormous amount of money, but it represents a substantial sum nonetheless, and I hope it will be spent properly and well.

We will continue of course to support the work of non-governmental and public organisations such as the Russky Mir Foundation, and the international and Russian associations of Russian language and literature teachers.

I know that present here today are not just teachers, but also students who won Russian language competitions. I would be interested to hear a bit from you about how you achieved your outstanding results, and what advice you can share with young people, who make far from always proper use of the Russian language.

I will stop here for now.

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