The village of Nyzhnya Apsha in Transcarpathia recognized Romanian language as regional

August 14, the village council of Bila Tserkva in Rakhiv district, where almost 100 percent of the population is Romanian, gave Romanian language status of the regional language in the village. As time went on, the other villages remained indifferent about the great changes. But finally, the largest village, Nyzhnya Apsha, gave up. October 18, at regular session of the village council, the chairman Mr. Oleksandr Borka and 26 deputies unanimously gave Romanian language the status of the regional language in the village.

"And it’s only natural, said Mr. Borka, for almost 100% of the village population are Romanians. Although we do not know yet how the decision will be implemented in reality.  We do not have money for new documents and the village seal in 2 languages: Romanian and Ukrainian". Head of Socio-Cultural Community of Transcarpathian Romanians Ion Botosh said he hoped that now Apsha young people who graduated from universities and have no work home, could work as translators. Overall, Mr. Botosh noted two historical events in the life of the village: the return of historical name of the village (formerly Dibrova), and now the recognition of the status of the native language. "No one can turn back the history – said Mr. Botosh – when we, Romanians, had to go to schools with Moldovan language of learning in Cyrillic."

And the same day in the village of Solotvyno, a unique place in Ukraine, where representatives of Romanian, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Russian nations for centuries have lived in harmony and mutual understanding, the session of village council granted regional status three languages at once: Romanian, Hungarian and Russian. Mr. Yuri Ukhal, the chairman of the village council: "It has to be this way, we can not give preference to only one of the languages. Although Romanians are more than 50% of the population here, they are not offended if their neighbors receive the right to use their native language. And we, Romanians, – he said – have been and will be at home on this land. And we will preserve our native language. This is not negotiable."

The Law on language policy adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on July 3, 2012, entered into force on 10 August 2012.  Under the new law, within the framework of the European Charter, 18 languages have the right to be used in Ukraine. Russian language received the status of regional in cities of Ismail, Odesa, Sevastopol, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolayiv, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk, in Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.