In mid-June, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Ukraine forbade the country's educational institutions to work together with “Russkiy Mir” foundation and its partner organizations - “Russian-Language Ukraine”, “Russian Unity”, “One Motherland” and “Russian School” (along with a magazine of the same name). According to Deputy Minister Pavel Polyansky, these organizations supposedly “advocate a hostile ideology alien to Ukraine's needs”. In his interview with “Izvestiya”, Vladimir Kochin, executive director of “Russkiy Mir” foundation, talks about how the foundation works not only in the Ukraine, but in other countries.
— Did you really have to close down your projects in the Ukraine after this ban?
— In reality, nothing changed – we're continuing to work with our partners (those mentioned in this document, and other ones). There are a lot of Russian language teachers in the Ukraine, and they should be supported while it's possible. We were able to bring children from the Ukraine, as well as other CIS countries, to “Europe's Youth for Peace” camp, that was held by Minsk, Belarus, in honor of the Victory anniversary.
— «Russkiy Mir» and its partner organizations were accused of pro-Russian propaganda. Do you think these accusations are based on anything?
— We are not involved with political propaganda. The goal of the foundation is to support projects that promote Russian Language and Russian culture abroad. We cannot force or ask our diasporas to participate in public actions in support of Russia – we'd be shut down that very day. But we can provide our compatriots with first-hand information about Russia. Almost all of our centers use the Integrum system, that provides online access to Russian media. Someone in Canada can read a new Izvestiya issue on the same day as you or I.
— How many Ukrainian “Russkiy Mir” Centers are left?
— There were 14. We got official notice about one closing down – the one in Kherson. They wrote that they cannot continue to work under present conditions. It's important to remember, that strictly speaking these centers are not our representative branches. We're a non-profit organization and we cannot have offices overseas. We base everything on agreements with local universities, libraries, societies. We sign general cooperation agreements, and implement projects as part of those agreements. So, we can't really manage these Centers. We can only try and talk to them.
— What's daily life like in your Centers?
—We sign an agreement, let's say, with a local university. In accordance with that agreement, our partners give us space and internet access, hire staff that take care of the day-to-day activities, for instance, organize Russian language courses, not only for students, but for anyone who wants to learn Russian. In turn, we provide equipment for the Center, literature, access to Russian media, TV channels. But this is just one of the directions the foundation works in.
— Do you rely on other similar organizations' experiences – for example, the American USAID agency (the American Agency for International Development) ?
— USAID is more comparable to Rossotrudnichestvo. We're closer to British Council or the Goethe-Institut. We're the youngest of such organizations. Goethe-Institut, for example, was opened back in the 1950s, while we started in 2007. What we had to work with when we started was quite different, so we have a lot of catching up to do. Of course there are things we get jealous of! Goethe-Institut has a world-wide and well-developed network. They have over 40 centers in Russia alone – in almost all Russian universities where German is taught. And our budgets are quite different. We approve grants only for one out of ten applications – we simply don't have the budget to give out more.
— It recently became known that the Ministry of Education and Science plans to spend 3.75 billion rubles in the next 5 years on promoting Russian language abroad. Is that also not enough?
— Promoting Russian language is a complex task, we won't be getting any of that money. If we could get that money, the Russian flag would be all over the world! (laughs). We have a yearly fixed budget, and due to budget cuts it's been decreased to 427 million rubles. Starting this year, the Ministry of Education will be giving out grants, and as a non-profit organization, we can apply for a grant – that's the only legal way for us to be involved in the educational projects. We're not asking money for ourselves, we've drastically cut down upkeep budgets this year as is.
— What's the percentage of private donations in the foundation's overall budget?
—Unfortunately, very small. About 2-3% of the overall sum. For some reason our entrepreneurs don't want to invest even in those projects that are directly related to their business interests. We have so many joint ventures and subsidiaries abroad! Our foreign partners have asked, “Let's create a professional school, so we can prepare Russian-speaking staff”. It's a good idea, but we cannot swing that project alone, only with help from Russian businesses. But so far – we've had no reaction from them.
— How do you divide the workfield with Rossotrudnichestvo?
— We don't. Of course, we run into each other, and they always support us. Their agency is an official branch of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry is one of our founders. But the work we do is very different. They officially propagandize the Russian political position. We work with popularizing the Russian language, Russian culture.
Besides, we have our benefits, a lot more freedom, for example. Rossotrudnichestvo has offices all over the world, but almost everywhere they're in capital cities only. We can afford to work in remote regions, since we rely on our partners. Our centers are located in libraries and universities in different corners of the world, not necessarily in capitals. They exist wherever the local people are interested, wherever they show initiative and desire to learn Russian language, to teach their children Russian.
— In your line of work, do you feel that there's been a change in the attitude towards Russia after the events of the last year and a half?
—Even in the same country, the attitude may be very different among different groups. In some European countries it's worsened because of official propaganda, but there have been no drastic changes in attitude or in teaching Russian. The number of bi-lingual schools in the world is increasing. Even when universities change their plans on teaching Russian, it mostly has to do with the demographic situation of the last few years, or with having less students in general.
In some regions there's actually been a surge of interest in Russia. For instance, Russian is being introduced as compulsory in Syrian schools, we're going to help them prepare teachers. We recently started teaching Russian in Sumatra – for the first time in the history of Indonesia. At first we got one hundred students, and half of them is going to come to Russia to continue their studies. This year we also have another joint project with the Ministry of Education – Cuban students will come to Russia, to study in Russian. We are paying their way here, while the Ministry is providing them with a free-of-charge education. And that's very important – practice shows that out of those who've studied in Russia, 99% remain pro-Russian later in life.
