The Russian language policy: Posly Russkogo Yazyka V Mirye in Kyrgyzstan

Posly Russkogo Yazyka v Mirye/Posly Russkogo Yazyka V Mire/'Russian Language Ambassadors in the World' is an international volunteer project aimed to share the passion to pass on drive and devotion to those who would like to master the Russian language. This international volunteer project has been organized by the Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin State Institute since 2015. Russian language ambassadors went on educational expeditions to Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan. Their educational expeditions in Kyrgyzstan explicitly mentions that this program is one of Russia's strategies to strengthen and maintain its power. In addition to being an attempt by the Russian Federation government to apply the Russian Federation's Foreign Policy Concept of 2013, Russian Language Ambassadors of the World program is the Russia's exercise of its soft power. With its persuasive quality, soft power exercised by the Russian Federation in the form of the Russian Language Ambassador program is different from the hard power that rests on commands and forces. The purpose of this chapter is to explain the implementation of language policy as the implementation of soft power since the activities of the Russian Language Ambassador program are an embodiment of how the Russian Federation applies it soft power. There can be said that the attractiveness of the Russian World's Ambassador program indirectly complements the attractiveness of the Russian Federation, allowing the latter to achieve its objectives of soft power implementation. In addition, this chapter also examines the factors behind the program along with the impact of its application in Kyrgyzstan. The theoretical basis which underlies this research is the soft power theory proposed by Joseph S Nye and the usage of language politics proposed by S. N Kuznetsov. Applying qualitative research methods, this chapter reveals that the Russian Federation applies soft power through language policy in the form of Posly Russkogo Yazyka v Mirye /Posly Russkogo Yazyka V Mire/Russian Language Ambassadors in the World in order to build Kyrgyz interest in Russia.