Comment by vbezhenar

I'm ethnical Russian living in Kazakhstan and I think that it's not a very wise decision. As correctly written in the article, overwhelming majority of Kazakhstani citizens speak and write Russian well. I just don't see any point with this change, but costs are tremendous, you have to rewrite every single book including learning books, you have to replace every street plate. When overwhelming majority of people speak Russian and Russia is the most important trade partner, I think that it's only logical to have Russian as one of the official languages in the country (with Kazakh language, of course). Instead Russian language has strange status as a "language of international communication" and basically they are trying to suppress its usage, many plates are not include Russian translations, etc. For example in Canada only 38% of population speak French, nevertheless French is an official language.