Russian Language Day

United Nations celebrates Russian Language Day every year on 6 June to raise awareness of the history, culture and development of each of the six official languages of the UN: Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, English and French. The day is celebrated by UN as part of program to support and develop multilingualism and cultural diversity and to maintain the equality of all six official languages of the UN.

The day also honors Aleksandr Pushkin, a Russian poet who is considered the father of modern Russian literature. Russian Language Day is celebrated on the birthday of the great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin.  There are over 150 million native speakers of Russian in the world making it the most spoken language in Europe. There are also about 113 million non-native Russian speakers. Altogether, there are 267 million people in the world who speak Russian.

Facts about the Russian language:

• The Russian alphabet has 33 letters.
• There are only 500,000 words in the Russian language.
• Of these 500,000 words only about 2,500 are used frequently.

Events to celebrate the day include museum exhibits, meetings, and lectures on the works of Aleksandr Pushkin. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) founded Russian Language Day in 2010.