Latvia’s Minister of Culture Nauris Puntulis (National Alliance) has issued an order requiring institutions under the Ministry of Culture to remove the use of the Russian language from the public sphere, the minister’s adviser Agnese Vārpiņa told the LETA news agency.
Under the order, the Ministry of Culture, its subordinate institutions and state-owned companies must comply with the requirements governing the use of the official state language by excluding the use of Russian in activities related to the performance of official functions, including all types of international events, strategic documents, advertising materials and official websites.
The Minister of Culture justified the decision by referring to the Constitutional Court’s finding that the state has a duty to strengthen the use of the Latvian language in the public sphere and promote a unified Latvian information space. According to the ministry, the order was issued “on the basis of the Constitution, which establishes Latvian as the official language of the Republic of Latvia, and taking into account the Constitutional Court’s judgment of 30 March 2026, which once again emphasized the importance of Latvian as the country’s only official language for the existence of the Latvian state, the functioning of a democratic society, and the promotion of social cohesion.”
The restrictions introduced by the Ministry of Culture do not apply to professional artistic activities where the original creative work is in Russian.
The institutions concerned must implement the new requirements by 30 July.
Meanwhile, the Ministry’s Parliamentary Secretary, Ivars Āboliņš (National Alliance), wrote on social media that Puntulis’ order means that the “absurd projects promoting the use of the Russian language” approved during the tenure of former Culture Minister Agnese Lāce (Progressives) “will no longer be able to continue.”
Asked which projects he was referring to, Āboliņš, through Vārpiņa, told LETA that the ministry intends to revise several projects funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) in which Russian has been designated as the intermediary language. The Ministry of Culture serves as the delegated authority responsible for integration projects financed by the fund in Latvia.
Among the projects cited is the “Cultural Bridges: From Stranger to One of Us” initiative implemented by the NGO Sadarbības platforma, which has received €84,600 in funding. The project envisages reaching third-country nationals in Russian.
Another example is the project “Appendix – A Turn into Parallel Layers”, implemented by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, which has received €99,999 in funding and plans to publish comic books in Russian, something Āboliņš also criticized.
Āboliņš also pointed to the “World Dance Evenings” project run by the Fon Stricka Villa Association, which has received €69,549 and provides for communication in an intermediary language.
He also mentioned the Riga Circus project “Social Circus”, aimed at integrating children from third-country nationals’ families. The project has received €99,023 and includes communication in Russian.
Another project highlighted by Āboliņš is the Cultural Diversity Festival organized by the NGO I Want to Help Refugees, which has been awarded €99,954. The project envisages using the foreign languages most commonly spoken by third-country nationals. According to Āboliņš, all of these projects can be reviewed and amended before 30 July.
As previously reported, politicians from the National Alliance recently criticized a Russian-language advertisement displayed on the façade of the Mikhail Chekhov Riga Russian Theatre.
The National Alliance cited Article 21 of Latvia’s State Language Law, which stipulates that information intended for the public and provided by state and municipal institutions, courts, institutions belonging to the judicial system, state and municipal enterprises, as well as companies in which the state or municipalities hold a majority stake, must be provided exclusively in the official state language, except in specific cases. The Cabinet of Ministers determines the situations in which foreign languages may be used alongside Latvian in publicly accessible information.
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