Despite the pro-Western course of the Lithuanian government, many investors in the Baltic republic are still Russian, which has led to a conflict of interest.
As News Front reported earlier, in Lithuania, as well as in other Baltic countries, the government is conducting an intensive Russophobic campaign. First and foremost the victim of this approach is Russian-speaking education. For example, Vilnius has introduced unified criteria for assessing Lithuanian language skills in Lithuanian language schools and national minority schools. And over the years of independence, the number of schools with the Russian language of instruction has tripled.
However, if the Government was proud of such “achievements”, a crisis had arisen in the labour market. According to the press service of Vilnius University, Russian companies need personnel with knowledge of the Russian language. In addition, business organizations are interested in such personnel. Even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has faced a shortage of Russian-speaking diplomats.
Pavel Lavrinets, Head of the Department of Russian Philology, suggested taking a look at the ads that are published on the Internet. The trend is that Russian language is in second place after English in the requirements for the applicant. In every fifth advertisement, knowledge of Russian is mandatory.
Lavrynets considers the problem justified, because tourism is an important sector of the country’s economy. And since the republic most often attracts only Russians or Belarusians, Russian-speaking workers in the hotel sector, catering and transport services, as well as in museums, become worth their weight in gold.
“If we want tourists to come for more than one night and then come back, we must provide them with the best quality services, including communication in their native language”, – concluded Lavrynets.