Throughout May-June, a scandal unfolded in Tuva around the appeal to Putin of the public organization “Russians”, which announced the infringement of the rights of Russian speakers.
The appeal of the Union of Russian-speaking Citizens of Tuva “Russians”, which was widely circulated in the Russian media, gave rise to a number of publications devoted to the nuances of language policy, interethnic relations and even the economy of this republic. In particular, the letter to Putin talked about personnel policy and the situation with the language: “In the republic, out of 17 heads of regional administrations, only one is Russian, out of 37 members of the government, only three are Russian,” representatives of the social movement cite facts. “Even in government and In social institutions, the habit of communicating in the state language disappears, be it the post office or the police."
The first wave of messages, which covered major publications and news agencies, mostly simply quoted lines from the open letter, and in some cases gave the opportunity for representatives of the Tuvan government to speak briefly on the topic. In the second wave, criticism of the content of the appeal and its signatories prevailed, but major federal publications were largely unaffected by this “response.” Finally, towards the end of the small information war, several analytical publications appeared, including in the Western media.
This information confrontation is indicative for almost any “national region,” and for the purely Russian region in the outback in many nuances too. The capital’s media have an ineradicable tendency to grab onto news of a scandalous nature from the provinces, but at the same time consider the positive successes of the regions uninteresting for the federal scale. Every television worker in a provincial city knows about this, having at least once tried to interest some major metropolitan channel with his stories. Muscovites will take a daring bank robbery or a man-made disaster and “hang on the phone”, begging for footage of the most poignant scenes. They most likely won’t even watch a story about, say, the achievements of the local economy or culture. In recent years, this feature has begun to fade a little on federal television channels due to the allocation of hours for regional news, but in the media, which broadcast mainly on the Internet and on paper, it is quite tenacious.
In the case of conflicts based on language or nationality, metropolitan websites and newspapers will inevitably present information in such a way that it seems as if they passionately support one side of the conflict and are almost sure of the guilt of the other. However, the vast majority of editors and journalists in these media will not actually consider themselves to be acting this way. Such a course of events will not even be noticeable to them. They will simply first publish the news that such and such happened there, in this case - “in Tuva, Russian speakers declared that their rights were infringed,” but later refutations, statistics and analytics will be considered unnecessary, superfluous, too abstruse, for information their audiences. As a rule, there is no evil “international” intent here, but the pattern of interaction between the capital’s shark of the pen and information from all sorts of terrible bearish corners, which has been established over decades, works. The Tuvan news feed is practically a classic of this scheme.
Quite soon it became clear that the “Russians” society in Tuva had appeared a month earlier before the publication of the open letter to the President of the Russian Federation, that in Tuva itself it was little known not only to Tuvans, but also to Russian-speaking people, and finally, that there were only five signatories, of which one had been in the republic for a long time does not live. All this was posted on the website of the Tuvan government, but, of course, unlike the first news feed, it did not go too far outside of Tuva. Also on Tuvan websites, a response open letter from Russian-speaking citizens was published (in numbers far exceeding the number of signatories of the appeal of the Union “Russians”), which, among other things, listed measures to support the Russian language. This is such an impressive list that it makes sense to quote from the text:
“In the region there is a position of state inspector for the Russian language with the rank of Deputy Minister of Education, there are public inspectors for the Russian language in every region. The implementation of state policy in the field of the Russian language is monitored by deputy heads of municipalities for social policy. A grant has been established to attract native Russian-speaking teachers to work in rural areas. In the capital of the region, Kyzyl, free Russian language courses are organized for everyone, which are attended by people of various professions and ages. Finally, Tuvans massively supported the initiative to hold Russian language day every Wednesday.”
There is no doubt that many supporters, for example, of the Buryat language, reading this, warmly approve and openly envy. However, supporters of the Russian Union do not see the positive in all this, or do not feel the effect of the measures taken. Thus, Kommersant, one of the few federal media outlets that covered the conflict from different sides, published a statement by one of the authors of the “Russians” appeal, ex-member of the Tuvan parliament Zinaida Dekhtyar: “Look at our famous fighters: they give interviews to federal channels in the titular language with a translator. This is an indicator of the real state of affairs." The former deputy is categorically not satisfied with this state of affairs. Many other authors of online information platforms react even more sharply to what is happening in Tuva, which generally forms a certain background around the situation in this republic. The situation, of course, is far from ideal, but still, probably, not as sad as some observers portray.
As always lately, high-profile conflicts in the regions did not go unnoticed by Western observers, and some of them, in addition to describing the information confrontation that had occurred around Tuva, expressed their vision of the Tuvan issue as a whole. Thus, regular contributor to Eurasia Daily Monitor Valery Dzutsati (Dzutsev) noted that
“Tuva is completely isolated not only from the world, but also from the rest of Russia, with which it does not even have a railway connection. Due to its distance from Russia and proximity to Mongolia, Tuva has preserved its nomadic culture like no other region in the Russian Federation. Much of the Tuvan economy is self-sufficient and independent of Russia, so the republic operated to some extent independently of Moscow's policies. Another reason for Tuva's high level of political autonomy is that it officially became part of the Soviet Union only in 1944 and was less influenced by Russia than other territories...”
Further, the Eurasia Daily Monitor says some words about the possible growth of separatism in this region (however, such words have been heard constantly in recent years about different regions, which does not always mean the real state of affairs), mentions resistance to the idea of building a railway in Tuva , and unexpectedly summarizes: “Oddly enough, the Russian government will have difficulty controlling this territory, precisely because its infrastructure is so undeveloped.” Here, in discussions about the self-sufficiency of the Tuvan economy, the notorious “social programs” and subsidies from the federal budget are somehow too suddenly forgotten, but in general, the article once again shows that the neglect of the opinion of a remote region by the capital’s media will sooner or later be filled with exaggerated ones.
Today in Tuva the Year of the Russian Language officially starts, initiated by the head of the republic Sholban Kara-ool, emphasizing the enormous importance of the state language of Russia for the development of the region in the center of Asia. A Forum of Teachers and Teachers of Russian Language and Literature will be held in Kyzyl, which will also be attended by government officials, scientists, writers, and journalists. The forum will include a plenary session, discussion platforms and sections where participants will discuss issues of improving the quality of teaching the Russian language, various aspects of its functioning and development in the republic. Let us recall that the decision to establish the Year of the Russian Language was made at an expanded meeting of the Council of Civil Initiatives in June 2013, at which the issue of the state and development of the Russian language in the republic was discussed with the participation of leading teachers, government representatives and the public. “A weak Russian prevents our children from realizing themselves in life, and sometimes simply closes their path to success, to social relevance. Finally, excellent command of the Russian language is required by the economic interests of the republic,” said Sholban Kara-ool, speaking to the participants of the meeting. The Organizing Committee, created by order of the Government, included representatives of executive authorities, regional parliament, scientific and pedagogical communities. “It is necessary to imbue every business with the ideology of the Year of the Russian Language, be it grants to small businesses or competitive awards to public organizations - only with the help of such a comprehensive approach will we be able to achieve 
tangible results,” this is the demand of the head of the republic. The total amount of funding for the Year of the Russian Language events in 2014 will be 20 million 325 thousand rubles. Of these funds, 17 million will be grants to support native Russian-speaking teachers who have expressed a desire to go to work in rural schools. We are talking not only about teachers of Russian language and literature. Rural schools need teachers of various specialties who are fluent in Russian, regardless of nationality.
In 2013, in Tuva, the first of the Russian regions, on the initiative of the heads of the republic, the position of chief state inspector for the Russian language was introduced with the rank of Deputy Minister of Education and Science, under which a Public Council was created. The candidacy for this position was agreed upon at a meeting with Russian language teachers in August - on the eve of the new academic year. 36-year-old Tatyana Sharypova was appointed inspector. She graduated from the philological faculty of the Kyzyl Pedagogical Institute in 1999, and since then she has taught Russian language and literature at Kyzyl school No. 1 named after. Hero of the Soviet Union M.A. Bukhtueva. Teacher of the highest category, head of the city methodological association of young teachers. Has managerial experience - since 2005 
Deputy school director for educational work. In 2010, she graduated from the Academy of National Economy under the Government of Russia with a degree in educational management. Prime Minister Sholban Kara-ool set a task for the inspector for the near future: “First of all, I expect from you an in-depth analysis of the situation: in which areas the situation with the study of the Russian language is most difficult. Based on this analysis, we will take drastic measures, including sending native speakers to schools and economically stimulating this process.”
In October 2013, the Government of the Republic approved the State Program for the Development of the Russian Language in Tuva for 2014–2018. With its help, the current problems of the level of teaching the Russian language, the lack of teaching methods in a mono-ethnic environment, which today, for objective reasons, is the majority of rural schools in Tuva, must be solved. The program is designed for three years and includes three subprograms: “Functioning and development of the Russian language in the Republic of Tyva”, “Russian language in the system of continuous education of the republic”, “Advanced training of teaching staff in the republican education system”.
Changes have also been made to the republican target program “State 
support for scientific research in the field of humanities for 2013–2015”, it additionally provides for scientific research related to the functioning of the Russian language.
In January, on the eve of the opening of the Year of the Russian Language, a regional branch of the Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature of Russia was created. Nadezhda Sat, a teacher at the Tuva State Boarding School, was elected its chairman, who represented Tuva at the founding congress of the All-Russian Association, held in November 2013 in Moscow on the initiative of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation.
Also, in the third decade of January 2014, a new information resource began operating in Tuva - a Russian language website. Its author and administrator was the Laboratory of Problems of Teaching the Russian Language, operating under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic. According to Deputy Minister and Chief State Inspector for the Russian Language Tatyana Sharypova, the site was developed within the framework of the declared Year of the Russian Language in the Republic. It was created primarily to help teachers, teachers and students, but the authors expect to make the site attractive to everyone who is interested in the development of Russian as an official language and a language of interethnic communication.
Tags:In the summer I had a conversation with the Minister of Education of Tuva. They talked about the possibility of employment in Tuva for highly qualified refugees from Donbass, in particular Russian language teachers.
The minister said that there is no need for Russian language teachers in Tuva, even in rural areas.
Of course, he just lied. At that time, I had data from surveys of heads of rural areas - how many and what kind of teachers were missing in their areas.
But today: I’m watching the ticker on one of the local TV channels, and there’s an announcement: “ Russian language teachers required for school" (and a number of teachers of other disciplines).
Officials lie and don’t blush. At the same time, they most obviously oppose President Putin’s call to provide maximum assistance to refugees from Ukraine.
Where do they get such courage?
NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT STATEMENT ABOUT THE RIGHTS OF SMALL PEOPLES
Some time ago, a scandalous situation occurred in St. Petersburg involving a Tuvan. We won’t go into details, let’s just look at the gist.
According to the police, the Tuvan committed some kind of offense. In court, the Tuvan demanded a Russian-Tuvian translator, but the judge refused him.
According to the law, the Tuvan is right, the cops and the judge are wrong.
Now let's look at the essence of this law. Every citizen has the right to communicate with the court in his native language.
This law, in theory, should protect the rights of small peoples leading a traditional way of life. A person, for example, is a shepherd. He lives in his mountains and does not need the Russian language for his work with sheep and communication with his neighbors. Naturally, in court he must have the right to be heard and so that he himself can hear what is happening.
However, this law is usually used to “turn on the fool.” You can always say that the translation was incorrect, and therefore the judge heard the testimony incorrectly, etc.
In connection with this, I came up with such a hypothetical picture. A Russian is being tried in Tuva. The judge is Tuvan. This Tuvan has the right to an interpreter in court (if he himself is tried - sometimes this happens with judges). That is, it is assumed that he does not speak Russian well enough (otherwise he would not have the right to a translator). At the same time, this judge decides whether the Russian is guilty or not, listens to his testimony in Russian, the testimony of witnesses, etc.
How so? A person who supposedly speaks Russian so poorly that in court he himself needs an interpreter - this same person takes and determines the fate of a person who can only give testimony in Russian?
There is a clear violation of logic here. Or the judge speaks Russian perfectly and fully understands everything that is voiced in Russian during the trial. Either he doesn’t know it, doesn’t understand it - and only in this case does he, the judge, that is, have the right to a translator. But then he has no right to be a judge. Or a Russian defendant should have the right to demand a change of judge due to doubts about his linguistic competence. And these doubts should not be confirmed by expert assessments. THEY ARE ALREADY CONFIRMED BY THE FACT THAT THIS CITIZEN (JUDGE) HAS THE RIGHT TO AN INTERPRETER.
And here's another collision. A citizen of the Russian Federation, a Tuvan, who developed Rams in St. Petersburg, probably graduated from a Russian school. Education there is officially in Russian. He received some grades there in the Russian language. It would be interesting to conduct an investigation: what are his grades? If positive, then how could they be given to a person who does not speak Russian? Based on the results of the inspection, it would be possible to fire several teachers, the school director... and, as a good thing, external management could be introduced in the education sector of the republic. Because money is allocated for studying the Russian language, grades are given, but even those who have straight A’s don’t know the language.
Another funny situation, quite common. A Tuvan student studies two, three or four years somewhere in Novosibirsk. He studies like an ordinary Russian citizen. He passed the Unified State Exam, exams, got admitted, and is taking the exams. He has committed an offense, is brought to court - and it turns out that he does not know Russian, he needs a translator.
Is it necessary to disqualify all the teachers who graded him?
Or maybe it’s already clear that the law on translators in court is absurd?
Everything written above is not sweeping criticism. Now comes a constructive, very fair “offer that cannot be refused.”
I address this proposal to the head of the Republic of Tyva, Sholban Valerievich Kara-ool))) and our State Duma.
It is necessary to adopt a federal law according to which citizens of the Russian Federation, upon receiving a passport, voluntarily declare their proficiency or non-proficiency in Russian, the state language (without any exams, you have to trust the person himself). The first page of the passport is stamped “SPOKES RUSSIAN LANGUAGE”. Or another: “HE DOESN’T SKILL THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE, HAS THE RIGHT TO A TRANSLATOR.”
At the same time, it is natural that government positions, including the position of a judge, can only be held by a person who speaks the official Russian language. Also, in Russian universities, study on a general basis (how else can you study there according to a general program if you don’t speak Russian?). Those who do not speak Russian must study according to the same programs as foreigners.
A list of specialties should also be compiled (especially those related to public safety: engineers, law enforcement officers, etc.) for which work is prohibited for people who do not speak Russian.
Well, it's simple here. Here is a nuclear power plant. The chief engineer gives instructions to an employee in Russian. But he didn’t understand - and as a result there was a nuclear explosion. And then from the other world he says - I need a translator))) Or the field of medicine - the same thing. The surgeon's assistant does not understand Russian... And then, having killed the patient, he demands an interpreter at the trial.
These are the proposals. Are they fair?
I interviewed several dozen Tuvans. They believe that these proposals are fair.
But what does the head of the republic think? This is interesting... However, we are unlikely to know about it.