This news caused a protest of thousands of residents of the country who on November 16 came out in the streets of Riga, protecting the right of training their children in Russian. They are categorically against transfer of schools of ethnic minorities into Latvian as a language of learning.

According to one of the organizers of protest, the cochairman of the Latvian Russian union Miroslav Mitrofanov, the action purpose is to achieve preservation and development of education in Russian. "We are not against the state language, we are for that children knew it perfectly and used in all spheres of life. And it certainly shows our respect for the state language, but at the same time we consider that the main objects, such as mathematics, history have to be taught in the native language, in Russian", - he emphasized.

Besides, on the official portal of public initiatives of Latvia there is a petition against transfer of Russian-language schools of Latvia into the state language of education. The author of the initiative, the journalist Denis Bartetsky is sure that in case of realization of the reform on transfer of Russian schools into Latvian education will be irreparably harmed.

It should be noted that Russian in Latvia is the second language according its expansion, it is spoken by about 40% of population. At the same time the authorities of the country have been making numerous attempts to limit its functioning for many years. The situation is very similar to that one that occurs in the sphere of language policy in Ukraine now.