Zhirinovsky Wants Fines For Using Foreign Words

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: January 23, 2013 (Issue # 1743)

MOSCOW — The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said his party is preparing legislation that would impose fines on officials who use foreign words at work when there is a Russian equivalent.

“The Russian language must be freed from trash and foreign words,” Zhirinovsky told journalists, Interfax reported.

The legislation also stipulates dismissal from one’s job in certain cases.

He said lawyers are currently examining the bill, after which it will be submitted to the State Duma for consideration by lawmakers.

When asked what sanctions would be imposed on officials who violate the rules set out in the bill, Zhirinovsky said: “Fines and dismissal from your job — they’re obliged to adhere to the norms of the Russian language.”

“Why say ‘dealer’ when there is ‘posrednik,’ or ‘performance’ instead of ‘predstavleniya’ — soon they’ll even force us to use English pronunciation,” he said.

It was unclear Tuesday whether the legislation would also apply to other workers in the public sphere.

Zhirinovsky’s proposal is the latest in a series of moves taken by the Duma in recent months to extirpate foreign influence.

The so-called “Anti-Magnitsky Law” passed late last year bans adoptions of Russian orphans by U.S. families, and a law passed earlier last year requires nongovernmental organizations that conduct “political activity” and receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents.”

A proposal has also been put forward to ban officials from owning property abroad or sending their children to study in foreign countries.

Lawmakers have taken on less politically charged areas of foreign influence as well. Duma Deputy Sergei Zheleznyak of United Russia called for movie theaters that show foreign films to face a tax that all other movie theaters would be exempt from. That same bill also called for a quota on foreign films.