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Are there Russian speakers living in Poland?


Meathead 5 | 469
26 Mar 2014 #1
I've been reading where in the Ukraine Russian speakers occupy the eastern half of Ukraine. I also read where Russian speakers occupy Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and

Belorussia. Are there pockets of Russian speakers in Poland? If not, why not?
Ziutek 9 | 160
26 Mar 2014 #2
No. The main reason is that it was never part of the Soviet Union.
Usrnmedsntmtr
26 Mar 2014 #3
Some do. Definitely not nearly as many as in Ukraine though. There is not that big of a permenant population of Russians in Poland, though very many people come from Russia and Ukraine to Poland on weekends.
TaiCat 1 | 30
26 Mar 2014 #4
my mother who was born just after war, is very fluent in Russian. My dad who's younger, not so much.
I think the circumstances were different, her father was a Party member so maybe she tried to impress his superiors, but my dad was a rebel and maybe, not very good at languages? but yeah, for people 50+ it was a compulsory second language
Bieganski 17 | 888
26 Mar 2014 #5
There are Russian speakers living in Poland but they are not a significant number at all in comparison to the total population of Poland.

According to the 2011 census (page 96) there were almost 20,000 who claimed they spoke Russian in their households but there were only 1,136 where Russian was their sole language:

stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/LUD_ludnosc_stan_str_dem_spo_NSP2011.pdf

Also, on page 98 of the same report, only 17,000 reported Russian to be their native language and on page 260 only 8,000 identified themselves as being primarily ethnic Russian.

Looking more broadly, a 2007 BBC news report borrowed from Poland's Rzeczpospolita said that there was a rekindled interest in learning Russian but this was a knee-jerk reaction among Polish job seekers only because many Western companies at the time were requiring Russian language skills from their applicants. However, the article also said that only "...around 6% of secondary school students in Poland now matriculate in Russian - six times more than in French, but some way behind English and German."

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6233821.stm

Russia is not Poland's primary trading partner. Russia has not been a desired or required destination either for most Poles who have relocated for work over the past decade. It is highly unlikely you will ever see a sudden influx of hundreds of thousand or millions of Russian speakers come to Poland. Therefore the Russian language itself will never become a dominate language on Polish territory ever again unless Poland had some reason to annex lands to the East.
Wulkan - | 3,187
26 Mar 2014 #6
Russian speakers occupy the eastern half of Ukraine. I also read where Russian speakers occupy Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and
Belorussia.

Those Russian speakers are simply Russians

Are there pockets of Russian speakers in Poland?

No

why not?

Because we have never been part of the Soviet Union so thanks God Russians were not allowed freely travel and settle in Poland like it happened in the Soviet Union states during the cold war.
Monitor 14 | 1,818
26 Mar 2014 #7
Yes there is big group of Ukrainians temporary working and living in Poland. Most of them must know Russian.
Kowalski 7 | 621
26 Mar 2014 #8
Meathead:
Russian speakers occupy the eastern half of Ukraine. I also read where Russian speakers occupy Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and
Belorussia.

Those Russian speakers are simply Russians

Not all of them. Ukrainians who identified themselves as ethnic Russians constituted less then 20 % of the population
The simple truth is that the majority of Ukrainians speak both Russian and Ukrainian. Most of them speak Russian at work, and use Ukrainian at home. Citizens living in urban areas primarily speak Russian and those in the rural areas speak primarily Ukrainian or mixed Russian-Ukrainian
Ziutek 9 | 160
26 Mar 2014 #9
There's a good map here: bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26713975

As you might expect, the former Soviet republics bordering Russia generally have the highest proportions of ethnic Russians.
this ugly world - | 3
26 Mar 2014 #10
I've been reading where in the Ukraine Russian speakers occupy the eastern half of Ukraine. I also read where Russian speakers occupy Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Belorussia.

Occupy is a rather unfortunate term to use here, given that there are a considerable amount of ethnic Ukrainians who merely speak Russian as a mother tongue.


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