Well, sadly, there is a bit of prejudice in Europe (in this case I am talking about the UK) against people from places like Africa, India and the Middle East. They are not given recognition to the same degree, for learning English, as others get.

For example, I worked in a pan-European company a while back, however the software development was done in India. I was travelling a lot on the European continent, often together with my two bosses, an Englishman and an American. They were commenting a lot on peoples' English. In the case of most people that the liked across Europe, the comments were positive. For example when someone who spoke bad English would apologise for it, they would say, "no, no it's fine", or the standard answer "well your English is better than my [insert language]".

I also worked with some guys who were based in England but were originally from various Eastern European countries, Ukraine, Serbia and Russia. They spoke bad-to-passable English but they too were told their English was fine and the communication with them was completely problem-free. (that was around the time decided to take up Russian).

The English skills of the Indians however, were also pretty good, but with regards to them, there were always complaints that it was hard to speak with them, to hear what they were saying, that there were cultural problems etc. They never got any appreciation for the fact that they spoke English as a second language. I agree in a way. It WAS harder to deal with them and I did not always understand the logic of their behaviour. They did not understand me sometimes. I developed a way of communicating with them that worked, but I did not enjoy that way of working and I still was not always able to understand everyone I spoke with. With other Europeans we could joke about the problems and find a way around them, but with the Indians it was always hard work.

The same thing happens when English people complain about immigrants speaking poor English. They are certainly not referring to the millions of Europeans (including even, Polish people) who live in the UK. They are almost guaranteed to be speaking about Pakistanis, Indians and middle eastern people. Somehow it is much worse when such people speak bad English than when a Polish or French person does it.

Probably somebody will now think that I am a racist for saying all this. I am not, I am just explaining the reality as it is.

Marcus, if your language is Russian and you talk and behave like a Russian, then that's what you'd be treated like. Very few people are hung up on the actual race. It's the cultural differences that are causing problems, not the skin colour. There are lots of Indians who have grown up in the UK, with them there are never any problems, speaking with them is just like anyone else, no difference.

Perhaps something similar exists in Russia, with peole from Caucasus and Central Aisa.