LANGUAGE

The country’s official language is Ukrainian, but in practice the situation is much more complex. In the 2001 census more than 85% of ethnic Ukrainians declared Ukrainian as their mother tongue. This is certainly an encouraging sign, but the average foreigner on the streets of Kiev won’t be hearing the Ukrainian language anywhere near that often. A big part of the population speaks Russian since in the former USSR the official language was Russian.

Severe restrictions on the use of Ukrainian were imposed by Imperial Russia and then the Soviet Union, almost turning it into a foreign language in its native land. Since independence in 1991, it has become much more popular and widespread. Still, Russian is heavily used in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, and only in western regions is Ukrainian truly predominant.

At any rate, all people do understand Russian. Here I present some useful expressions for you to pick up some language before traveling to Ukraine. Please remember that Russian words are given in transliteration, and in the right-hand column I present their transcription (how they are pronounced).