Another major Russian city moves to ban foreign-language marketing

The mayor of Russia’s third-largest city has said that companies should be mandated to only use the Cyrillic script in street advertising campaigns.

“It is a good idea. I support it, and I think that the majority of the residents will support it as well,” Novosibirsk Mayor Anatoly Lokot told Radio Rossii on Thursday. “We must switch [to the use of] the Russian language.” 

According to Lokot, the measure is timely because many well-known foreign companies and global brands have left the Russian market in protest against Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, launched in February 2022. “They have nothing to advertise here,” he stated.

The mayor said officials would prepare a legal framework for the new regulation. He added that, although the change would require “some time,” the process has already been launched.

Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia, is set to follow the example of the city of Krasnodar in southern Russia, which banned businesses from using foreign language on billboards last month. 

In February, President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law that requires public institutions and advertisements to follow “the norms of modern Russian literary language.”