The President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, has asked the country’s authorities to switch from Russian to the use of documents in the Kyrgyz language, this was announced at a government meeting just a day after Vladimir Putin presented him with a gold ring, Interfax reports.

“The development of the state language should become one of the main directions in the activities of state departments. We must create conditions so that the citizens of the country can freely speak and write in the state language. Representatives of more than 100 nationalities live in the republic, the state language should become the basis of their unification,” Dzaparov said on Wednesday.

“It is wrong for documents to be distributed in Russian, being Kyrgyz. Document circulation in departments should be carried out in the state language in a percentage ratio of at least 50%,” he emphasized.

The Constitution of Kyrgyzstan recognizes Russian as the official language.

Although Japarov had previously spoken about the measure, he instructed his government to implement it just a day after attending an informal summit of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) heads of state, where he was presented with a gold ring from Russia by President Vladimir Putin.

Putin and the golden rings of St. Petersburg

The head of the Kremlin presented a golden ring to all the heads of state present in St. Petersburg at the summit of the CIS – an organization that includes 9 of the 15 former federal republics that were part of the Soviet Union.

In addition to Putin and Japarov, the heads of state of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were present at the meeting. The President of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, was absent from the summit, although the neighboring country is formally part of the CIS.

By the way, Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov announced on December 12 that “R. Moldova prefers not to participate in CIS summits.” “

Maia Sandu herself recently spoke on this topic and stated that, based on her pragmatic beliefs, the Republic of Moldova prefers not to leave the CIS. At the same time, it is known that she will not take part in the CIS summit,” Peskov said then when asked by Kremlin-accredited journalists on this topic.

On the other hand, Kyrgyzstan is part of both the CIS and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance led by Moscow.

Vladimir Putin on Tuesday presented each of the CIS leaders with a gold-encrusted ring engraved with the country’s coat of arms and the inscription “Happy New Year” as the New Year is less than a week away.

His gesture sparked a flurry of irony on social media, with many netizens mentioning that in the Lord of the Rings books and the movies that followed them, the dark lord Sauron created 9 golden rings “for mortals who are destined to die”, a story recently revived in the series Rings of Power streamed by Amazon.

Journalists of The Moscow Times write that although every head of state present received a ring, only the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko immediately put the gift from Vladimir Putin on his finger.