Abstract

2007 was declared by Vladimir Putin, former President of the Russian Federation, «Year of the Russian Language» (Decree n. 1488 of 29.12.2006. In Italy, the first important initiative undertaken at the national level was the Russian Language Week in Italy (October 27 – November 2006), organized by the «Foro di Dialogo Italo-russo delle società civili» held in Verona, Bologna, Florence, Perugia, Siena and Rome. Following the Italian Presidential Decree, the Centro Linguistico dei Scientifico-Didattici della Romagna (CLIRO) – University of Bologna, which in the past had organized events and created didactic resources for Russian language learning for many years (TORFL’s certification from 2005: www.torfl.it, creation of multimedia self-learning courses like Kraski A1, Kraski A2: www.kraski.it), organized the international convention: L'Europa delle lingue e il russo: certificazione, istituzioni e strumenti per una nuova mediazione (CIEURUS) held in Forlì on February 26 – 27, 2008. Topics for discussion within the CIEURUS considered position of the Russian language within a multilingual Europe in order to promote intercultural mutual understanding and to encourage relations between Italy and Russia by means of a constant dialogue on common interests. International experts interested in the current state of Russian language didactics, certifications (TORFL) and language learning came from the Russian Federation, Poland, Czech Republic, Kazakhstan and Armenia to participate at the convention. The active participation of some of the most important Russian language institutions representatives gave space to a lively and concrete debate. Some of these representatives were: Yury Cheban , General Director of the Russian Language Head Testing Center for Non-Native Speakers, Claudia Lasorsa Siedina, President of AIR and Member of MAPRYAL, Stefano Garzonio, President of AIS and Igor Lysenko, representing RUSINTERCENTER at the Russian Federation Embassy.