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Article: Softer Russian Power.(World Affairs)(why former Soviet republics prefer to learn English)
- Article from:
- Newsweek International
- Article date:
- June 9, 2008
- Author:
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Byline: Owen Matthews; With Anna Nemtsova in Tbilisi
Moscow once extended its reach through schools and language. No more.
It's been more than a century since a member of the Mebagishvili family of Tbilisi, Georgia, grew up not speaking Russian. Like educated families all over the Russian Empire, the Mebagishvilis viewed the language of Pushkin and Tolstoy as essential for anyone who wanted to get ahead--or to be considered fully civilized. But 20-year-old Helen Mebagishvili, a philosophy and social-science student at Tbilisi's Ilia Chavchavadze University, has chosen English, not Russian, as her first foreign language. She's studying another, too: ...