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106-527: The Mikhailovsky Palace ( Russian : Михайловский дворец , romanized :  Mikhailovskiy dvorets ) is a grand ducal palace in Saint Petersburg , Russia . It is located on Arts Square and is an example of Empire style neoclassicism . The palace currently houses the main building of the Russian Museum and displays its collections of early, folk, eighteenth, and nineteenth century art. It

212-649: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in

318-633: A lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and

424-510: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to

530-519: A final examination of the work on 28 February 1898, and pronounced themselves entirely satisfied. The museum officially opened on 7 March 1898. A detached building was constructed between the Freylinskiy wing and the Griboyedov Canal between 1910 and 1912 by architects Leon Benois and Sergei Ovsyannikov  [ ru ] , for temporary art exhibitions. It was founded on 27 June 1914, but work

636-495: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Fontanka River The Fontanka ( Russian : Фонтанка ), a left branch of the river Neva , flows through the whole of Central Saint Petersburg , Russia – from the Summer Garden to Gutuyevsky Island  [ ru ] . It is 6.7 kilometres (4.2 mi) long, with

742-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate

848-479: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but

954-572: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between

1060-516: A marble-decorated dancing Hall to the sitting rooms, and then the staterooms. While those of Grand Duchess Elena were particularly luxurious, the staterooms of Grand Duke Michael were more spartan. Ambassador Leveson-Gower wrote that "The only place the Grand Duke allowed splendour and luxury was in a rich and varied collection of weapons, armour, helmets, equipment, artillery and other guns in perfect condition." Albert Nikolayevitch Benois noted that "In

1166-607: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it

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1272-419: A new architectural ensemble, which would include not only a new palace, but a square and two new streets, Inzhenernaya  [ ru ] and Mikhailovskaya  [ ru ] . Two existing streets, Sadovaya and Italyanskaya , were to be extended and included in the overall architectural ensemble. In early April 1819, the "Commission for the construction of the palace of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich"

1378-678: A new site in Saint Petersburg. The palace, built in the neoclassic style, became the centrepiece of an ensemble that took in new streets and squares. It was lavishly decorated, with the interiors costing more than the main construction work. It was gifted to Grand Duke Michael and his new wife, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna , by the Emperor in 1825. The grand ducal family had comfortable apartments furnished to their individual tastes. Grand Duke Michael carried out some of his military duties there, while his wife hosted salons that brought together many of

1484-424: A plot of land for the construction of his own house. The palace was officially completed on 11 September [ O.S. 30 August] 1825, when the Emperor presented it to Grand Duke Michael and his heirs in perpetuity. Its construction had taken six years, at the expense of 7,875,000 rubles. Of this sum approximately 4 million rubles, more than half the total cost, was spent on its decoration. A grand banquet

1590-516: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in

1696-552: A separate museum in 1934. Between 2000 and 2002 the original decoration of the palace church was recreated. a. Two dates have been identified for the laying of the foundation stone: 17 April in The River Moyka Flows by Georgy Zuev and 14 July in Great Architects of Saint Petersburg by Yuri Ovsyannikov  [ ru ] . Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to

1802-502: A triangular pediment with armour decorations by Stepan Pimenov and Vasily Demut-Malinovsky . The entrance staircase is flanked by two Medici lions , specially cast for the palace in 1824. The arches and windows of the first floor are decorated with stone lion heads. The facade facing the Mikhailovsky Garden consists of a large loggia-colonnade, while Corinthian colonnades decorate the building's wings. The lower floor contains

1908-525: A width up to 70 metres (230 ft), and a depth up to 3.5 metres (11 ft). The Moyka River forms a right-bank branch of the Fontanka. Lined along the Fontanka Embankment stand the former private residences of Russian nobility . The river, one of 93 rivers and channels in Saint Petersburg, was once named Anonymous Creek (in Russian, Bezymyannyi Yerik , Безымянный ерик ). In Russian, yerik

2014-527: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,

2120-475: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under

2226-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of

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2332-593: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this

2438-540: Is a secondary or intermittent river -channel ( creek or brook). In 1719 the river received its present name, because water from it supplied the fountains of the Summer Garden . Until the mid-18th century the Fontanka River marked the southern boundary of Saint Petersburg. Along its banks stood the spacious messuages of members of the Russian Imperial Family and of the nobility, the most brilliant being

2544-485: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to

2650-613: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There

2756-505: Is completely lost. All boundaries disappeared, everything was full of light, gold, colors, reflections and an enchanting, magical illusion ... This palace seemed to be created for festivity ... I have never seen anything more beautiful anywhere." The Grand Duke's suite remained unaltered during his lifetime, though in the 1830s, Grand Duchess Elena ordered the reconstruction of her suite by Andrei Stackenschneider , in keeping with contemporary styles. The smaller staterooms were also updated over

2862-563: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially

2968-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which

3074-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 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. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and

3180-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to

3286-576: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in

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3392-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using

3498-461: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population

3604-966: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian

3710-631: The Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as

3816-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in

3922-653: The Nicholas Palace . Witte then suggested that the Mikhailovsky Palace would make a suitable home for a museum of Russian art in honour of Emperor Alexander III, which Nicholas agreed to. By this time the Hermitage held the works of mostly foreign artists, with only a single room allotted for domestic art. It was decided to establish a new institution dedicated to Russian art, and by personal decree on 13 April [ O.S. 25 April] 1895 Nicholas II established

4028-478: The Russian Museum of Ethnography , while a new extension, the Benois wing, was added in the 1910s. The palace was designed as a residence for Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich , youngest son of Emperor Paul I . At Paul's order, several hundred thousand rubles were to be set aside annually for the construction of the palace from 1798 onwards. In 1801, Paul was overthrown and killed in a palace coup , and his heir ascended to

4134-696: The Russian Musical Society and the Saint Petersburg Conservatory . Classes of the Society and Conservatory sometimes took place in the palace. Thursdays became the day when statesmen, scientists, writers, and artists came to meet at the palace. Otto von Bismarck was one attendee, while serving as the Prussian envoy to Russia, and at times Emperor Nicholas I visited, as did his successor Emperor Alexander II and his wife, Maria Alexandrovna . She

4240-679: The Summer Palace and the Anichkov Palace . In 1780–89, architect Andrey Kvasov supervised the construction of the granite embankments and approaches to the river. The river-bed was regularised as well. Examples of Baroque architecture along the banks of the river include the Sheremetev Palace , Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace , Naryshkin-Shuvalov Palace , and the Church of St Panteleimon (built 1735–1739). Notable Neoclassical structures from

4346-575: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On

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4452-694: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to

4558-506: The "Russian Museum of Emperor Alexander III" and placed the Mikhailovsky Palace complex in its possession. The museum was placed under the supervision of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich , with a committee established under Professor Mikhail Botkin to oversee the reconstruction of the palace into a museum by architect Vasily Svinin  [ ru ] of the Imperial Academy of Arts . The reconstruction produced considerable changes to

4664-580: The 18th century include the Catherine Institute  [ ru ] , the Anichkov Palace and the Yusupov Palace on Sadovaya Street  [ ru ] . Some of the mansions contain museums of the writers and composers who lived there: Gavrila Derzhavin (1743–1816), Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), Ivan Turgenev (1818–1833), Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) and others. Fifteen bridges span

4770-508: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as

4876-465: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home

4982-485: The Grand Duke by his brother, Emperor Nicholas I . Grand Duke Michael maintained close contact with his military life, often hosting commissions at the palace, and holding audiences with military personnel seeking posts. The servants were often military veterans, and for a time Major-General Dmitry Vasilchikov  [ ru ] of the Patriotic War of 1812 lived at the palace. Grand Duke Michael died in 1849, with

5088-519: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,

5194-578: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this

5300-546: The Manezhny wing, or the riding hall wing. A separate outbuilding by the Manezhny wing was used for stables , with another outbuilding, the Laundry House, placed at the corner of Inzhenernaya and Sadovaya streets. The palace faced Mikhailovsky Square, now Arts Square . Its facade consists of a rusticated lower floor below the piano nobile portico , a loggia with a three-quarter eight-columned Corinthian colonnade supporting

5406-515: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of

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5512-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated

5618-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from

5724-454: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian

5830-488: The United Kingdom asked the Russian emperor for a model of the palace. One was duly built by Nikolai Tarasov, measuring two metres in length and two in width, which was delivered to the king by Tarasov's brother Ivan. The Blue Gallery was entered through a doorway flanked with caryatides by Stepan Pimenov, which led on to the large dining room, with a vaulted ceiling with grisaille coffers . The passageway led through

5936-460: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of

6042-512: The [Grand Duke's] Study and Library were collections of rare books, gravures, numismatics, lots of magnificent art ... The walls of the hall were hung all over with trophies, mostly sabres, swords, banners, canvases of military subjects and portraits". Among the trophies were the three cannons which had played an important role during the accession crisis of 1825 , when they were used to clear the Decembrists from Peter's Square . They were gifted to

6148-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter

6254-562: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language

6360-515: The death of Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna on 30 April 1894, the palace passed to her children, Georg , Mikhail and Helena, Dukes and Duchesses of Mecklenburg-Strelitz . This created a political quandary as while the children were technically subjects of the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Mikhailovsky Palace was intended to be a possession of the Romanov family. Emperor Alexander III decided to buy

6466-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,

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6572-451: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or

6678-480: The former Freylinskiy wing, displays nineteenth century art, and examples of Russian folk art. Twentieth century art and temporary exhibitions are displayed in the Benois wing. The former Manezhny wing was demolished by Vasily Svinin, with a new building constructed between 1900 and 1911, which now houses the Russian Museum of Ethnography , initially the Russian Museum's department of ethnography, but established as

6784-505: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to

6890-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and

6996-443: The leading members of Saint Petersburg society and culture. The Grand Duchess continued this lifestyle after her husband's death in 1849, until her own death in 1873. The palace was passed on to the couple's daughter, Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna . Over the years of their residency, the family renovated and refurbished the palace's rooms in keeping with contemporary tastes. By the time of Grand Duchess Catherine's death in 1894,

7102-465: The music room in 1863. Georg Preiss was appointed as architect for the palace in 1859, while I. Jogansson and Veniamin Stukkei  [ ru ] fulfilled several commissions in the 1870s. Grand Duchess Elena died in 1873, and the palace passed to her third daughter, Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna, who had married Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg-Strelitz . A new suite of eight rooms for Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna and her daughter Helena

7208-407: The negotiations were carried out on behalf of his son Emperor Nicholas II , by Minister of Finance Sergei Witte . Nicholas gave it to the newly established Russian Museum , in honour of his father, with the remit that it collect and display domestic art. The palace was extensively renovated to fit its new role, with some of the interiors retained. One wing was demolished and rebuilt, later becoming

7314-427: The next two years. Grand Duke Michael married Princess Charlotte of Württemberg , who took the name Elena Pavlovna, in February 1824, and by the middle of the following year the work on the palace was largely completed. Emperor Alexander I visited the new palace and declared himself extremely pleased with the result, bestowing a diamond ring and the Order of Saint Vladimir Third Class order on Rossi. Rossi also received

7420-420: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. 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. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of

7526-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to

7632-455: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,

7738-487: The palace at public expense and establish the Kseniinsky Institute there, after his daughter, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna . Alexander died suddenly in 1894 before this could be carried, and it was his son and successor as Emperor Nicholas II who instructed Minister of Finance Sergei Witte to arrange the purchase of the Mikhailovsky Palace. A sum of four million rubles was agreed upon, and on 20 January 1895

7844-561: The palace passed back into the hands of the Romanovs. The departing family was allowed to take some of the decorations relating to the family history, as a result of which, many of the chandeliers, doors and fireplaces were removed. Witte suggested that Nicholas II might take up occupancy in the Mikhailovsky Palace, though Nicholas preferred to stay in the Winter Palace . Meanwhile, the proposed Kseniinsky Institute had already taken possession of

7950-417: The palace passing to his widow, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna. She became famous as a salon hostess, with her guests including poets Alexander Pushkin , Fyodor Tyutchev and Vasily Zhukovsky . She acted as a patron for artists such as Alexander Ivanov , Karl Bryullov and Ivan Aivazovsky . Another guest was Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay , who, with the help of Elena Pavlovna and Anton Rubinstein , established

8056-427: The palace's interior. Doorways were heightened, some were blocked off, and new passageways were created. Fireplaces, mantelpieces and mirrors were removed, as were wall paintings and mouldings, and smaller rooms were combined to create larger exhibitions spaces. The dance hall and large theatre were completely reworked, with windows being filled in and replaced with skylights. Few of Rossi's interiors were retained, though

8162-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held

8268-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or

8374-506: The period of her occupancy. Several famous architects were employed at different periods to carry out this work— Harald Julius von Bosse remodelled two sitting rooms and two studies of the Grand Duchess's suite in the 1840-50s, Ludwig Bohnstedt redeveloped the rooms of the couple's daughter, Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna in 1850; Aleksandr Yurkevich remodelled the palace's Upper Church in 1857 and Robert Goedike  [ ru ]

8480-455: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian

8586-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in

8692-588: The private apartments, the first floor held the official suites, ballrooms and staterooms. There was a house chapel to the Archangel Michael in the south-east corner of the mezzanine floor and kitchens on the ground floor. The entryway leads into a large vestibule with a bas-reliefs, a Corinthian colonnade, plafond and skylight. The design of the palace became internationally renowned and respected. After hearing reports from his ambassador to Russia, Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville , King George IV of

8798-475: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration

8904-466: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,

9010-426: The rarest flowers formed a fragrant bouquet ... Luxurious palm trees, banana trees and all sorts of other tropical plants, whose roots were hidden under a carpet of greenery, seemed to grow in their native soil, and it seemed that the procession of dancing couples had been transferred from the wild north to a distant tropical forest ... It is difficult to imagine the magnificence of this picture. The idea of where you are

9116-504: The reconstruction was carried out in the neoclassic style to fit with the original designs. Concrete ceilings were also fitted to protect against attic fires, and the central heating system was overhauled, as well as measures to improve the ventilation and water supply. The main building work was completed by spring 1896, after which work began on the interiors, which involved artists N. Blinov, N. Budakov, A. Boravsky; sculptors Amandus Adamson , and cabinetmaker S. Volkovisky. The committee made

9222-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed

9328-731: The site of the Mariinsky Palace . Both options were rejected by Alexander I as being unnecessarily expensive and complex, instead selecting a new site in the city centre for development. The site eventually chosen was a space that had previously seen little development, between the confluence of the Fontanka and Moyka Rivers , the Griboyedov Canal and Nevsky Prospect . It had been used as garden and hunting space, with Empress Elizabeth's Summer Palace , and later Emperor Paul's Mikhailovsky Castle being located nearby. Rossi set out to develop

9434-519: The staterooms were no longer in regular use—the family resided for the most part in the palace's wings. With the death of the Grand Duchess, the palace was inherited by her children, who were members of the family of the Dukes of Mecklenburg-Strelitz . Concerned about the palace passing out of the Romanov family , Emperor Alexander III decided to buy it back for the state. He died before this could be arranged, but

9540-675: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In

9646-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to

9752-510: The throne as Alexander I . The new emperor decided to carry out his father's wishes and gave his approval to the construction of the new palace when Michael was 21. By this time some 9 million rubles had been accumulated. The designs were drawn up by Carlo Rossi in 1817. At first the site of the Vorontsov Palace was proposed and then the site of the Chernyshev residence, which later became

9858-770: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic  * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature

9964-506: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to

10070-682: The world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has

10176-462: Was also renowned at hosting balls at the palace, the equal to those of the Imperial family. The Marquis de Custine recalled that "Grand Duchess Elena for each of the festivities she arranges, invents, as I was told, something new, original, not familiar to anyone ... Groups of trees, illuminated from above with a covered light, made a fascinating impression ... One and a half thousand tubs and pots with

10282-556: Was built in 1865 in the Manezhny wing, which became the main residence of the Grand Duchess Catherine until her death in April 1894. Catherine Mikhailovna's staterooms and the Freylinskiy had been renovated after Grand Duchess Elena's death. Preiss retired in 1888, passing his duties on to his son Konstantin. By the early 1890s the ducal family resided mostly in the wings of the palace, with the main staterooms largely unoccupied. With

10388-524: Was carried out between 1947 and 1963. In 1958, a passage was built linking it to the Freylinskiy wing, by now termed the Rossi wing. The Mikhailovsky Palace houses the main building of the Russian Museum and is used to display its collections of early artworks, and those from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Entrance and exits are through the lower floor, which contains the ticket offices, cloakrooms, shops, cafe, and other visitor facilities. The Rossi wing,

10494-467: Was common with Russian building projects, construction work was only carried out in the warm seasons to ensure the work was reliable and durable, while the winter was spent collecting building materials and working on designs and calculations. The main core of the palace was built between 1819 and 1820, with the wings added the following year; by the end of 1822 the bulk of the construction was finished. The interior designs and decorations were completed over

10600-545: Was created. The ceremonial laying of the foundation took place in summer that year, with construction beginning on 26 July. Architect Adam Menelaws also laid out a garden for the palace overlooking the Field of Mars , which became known as the Mikhailovsky Garden . The masonry was the responsibility of Foma Adamini  [ ru ] , Domenico Adamini  [ ru ] and Iosif Bernadazzi  [ ru ] . As

10706-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian

10812-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of

10918-409: Was held to mark the occasion, with Alexander departing the following day for his journey to the south, where he died. Grand Duke Michael and his new wife moved into their new home from their apartments at the Winter Palace . The palace consists of a central block with two wings, housing the service spaces. The western wing was termed the Freylinskiy wing, or the ladies-in-waiting wing, and the eastern,

11024-421: Was originally planned as the residence of Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich , the youngest son of Emperor Paul I . Work had not yet begun on the Mikhailovsky Palace, when Paul was overthrown and killed in a palace coup that brought Michael's elder brother to the throne as Alexander I . The new emperor resurrected the idea for a new palace by the time Michael was 22, and plans were drawn up by Carlo Rossi to develop

11130-590: Was suspended for the duration of the First World War , and was only completed in 1919. It was transferred to the Russian Museum in the early 1930s, and in November 1941, during the Siege of Leningrad , the building was struck by two high-explosive bombs. A statue of Alexander III that stood in the palace courtyard was also hit by a bomb during the war, but had been covered with sand and logs, and escaped damage. Restoration work

11236-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between

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