- Why I speak Russian
The reason I now speak Russian is that I used to speak Turkish too well as a child. (I don’t speak Turkish AT ALL right now.)
Until age 3, I spoke Turkish better than Azerbaijani or Russian, watching so much Turkish TV that I spoke Turkish to my parents.
My parents found it outrageous that I spoke Turkish better than Azerbaijani and worried it might be troublesome for me to later learn Russian.
The next day, technicians came and fully removed Turkish TV channels, replacing them with Russian ones. I was enrolled in a Russian-speaking kindergarten class.
Within 2 years, I spoke Russian so well that I couldn’t even imagine attending anything other than a Russian-speaking class in my new school.
14 years later, I speak no Turkish. Forcing me to learn Russian was, in my opinion, one of my parents’ best decisions.
- Nihad Badalov
2025-11-10