Language Research

According to the National Statistics Agency, in the period covering 1989-1996, around 600,000 persons left the country. Since 1991, Kyrgyzstan has experienced its largest decrease in the Russian-speaking population. The massive emigration of Russian-speakers has considerably changed the ethnic composition of Kyrgyzstan. While in 1989 Russians constituted 21.5% of the population with 916,558 persons, by 1996 their share was 15.7%, representing only 707,750 persons. Between 1989 and 1995, the number of Ukrainians decreased from 108,000 (2.5% of the total population) to 75,700 (1.7%). As for Belarusian, their number decreased from 9,200 in 1989 (0.2% of the total population) to 7,000 in 1995 (0.16%). This has had dire repercussions on the national economy.

One of the most frequently mentioned reasons for migration was the language issue. This emigration caused in a shortage of skilled personnel in many areas during the crucial period of transition to market economy. Ultimately this resulted in a dramatic decrease in industrial production, factory closures and mass unemployment.

This in turn forced the Government to adopt extraordinary measures to rectify the situation. In June 1994 the President of Kyrgyzstan adopted the Decree #120 "On Measures on Migration Processes Regulation in the Kyrgyz Republic". For the Russian speaking population the language issue was one of the reasons for leaving the country. Therefore, to establish some additional guarantees for them, the Decree gave Russian the status of an official language in entities, where the majority of members are Russian-speakers, in those spheres, where use of Russian is "inevitable" (health care, technical sciences) and also in those parts of the country, where Russian speaking people comprise the majority.

As a result, in the following years of 1996 and 1997, the level of emigration to Russia considerably decreased. The Russian language has been reintroduced again into all areas of the Kyrgyz society, both at the official and the non-official level. Concurrently, the remaining Russian-speakers try to adjust to the new realities, learn the Kyrgyz language and actively participate in the social and political life in modern Kyrgyz society.

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