"Shop" becomes "Rasprodasha" Putin bans foreign-language advertising in public spaces

From March 2026, publicly visible signs and billboards in Russia may only be in Russian. Putin wants to ban foreign words from the streetscape and protect the language.

Vladimir Putin wants to rid his country of "vulgar and mechanical foreign borrowings". They would "not enrich the Russian language but, on the contrary, pollute and distort it".

By this he means that he no longer wants to see any foreign terms - "in public spaces", as he says. In other words, mainly in squares, shop windows, on signs, display boards or in residential complexes.

The Kremlin leader said this at the beginning of a meeting of the Russian Language Council, as the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" writes.

Many Russian stores have been advertising with the words "Shop", "Coffee", "Sale" or "Open" since the 1990s. Russia moved with the times. But it has now changed again.

At the meeting, Putin demanded that historical Cyrillic letters be used from now on and that "no mishmash of Latin and other symbols" be allowed.

Linguists criticize the law

The proposal for the new law was first presented around two years ago. After that, nothing happened for a long time. This was because linguists criticized the law. The reason: they said that language is constantly changing and that there have always been words from other languages.

In addition, companies were concerned that they could lose international customers. Nevertheless, the Federation Council approved the law. And Putin was the last person to sign it. It is due to come into force in March 2026.

According to the new law, all signs and advertisements that can be seen outside must be written in Russian. "Sale" will therefore become "rasprodascha". It is permitted to add another language, but the text must mean the same as in Russian and must not be larger.

There is hardly any criticism - or no one dares to voice it.