ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Russian language in post-Soviet states

Okay kiddo, let's learn about the Russian language in post-Soviet states!

So a long time ago, there was a big country called the Soviet Union. It was made up of lots of different countries, and they all spoke different languages. But the most important language in the Soviet Union was Russian.

After a while, the Soviet Union broke apart into smaller countries, and they became known as post-Soviet states. Even though the Soviet Union was gone, a lot of people still spoke Russian in these new countries.

But some people in these countries didn't want to keep speaking Russian because they wanted to show that they were their own separate countries, not just part of the old Soviet Union. They wanted to speak their own languages, which were different from Russian.

So some post-Soviet states made laws that said Russian couldn't be the only language that people had to speak. These laws said that people could speak their own languages and still be citizens of the country.

But even though some people stopped speaking Russian, there are still a lot of people in post-Soviet states who speak it. This is because Russian is a very useful language for things like business and politics. So even if people want to show that they are their own separate countries, they still might need to speak Russian sometimes to get things done.

Overall, the Russian language is still important in post-Soviet states, but people are also proud of their own languages and want to speak them too.