Quote Originally Posted by waxwing
Could we make a list of how much Russian is spoken, and how it's perceived, in each of the ex-Soviet states?
As I know Ukrainians and Belarussians wide use Russian language - about Ukraine I know it from my friend, his cousin from Kiev came in my city last summer, I didn't notice any accent, his prononcation was close to moscow's pronouncation. About Belarus - my wife's friend's relatives came in my city a couple of years ago, they're living in Minsk and as I remember my wife didn't tell me about their accent. My friend's wife is from Tajikistan, she is half-tajic and half-korean and she speak perfect russian and Tajick languages. Her relatives - her sister, a sister's little son and thier nephew came from Dushanbeh 2 years ago - all of them speak russian absolutely normal.
There are a lot of kazakh here on the markets. They are not well educated people so they speak with accent but one of my friend went to Kazakhstan last year and she didn't tell me about some special Kazakh pronouncation - they all speak good russian in the cities.