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This study investigates the interrelations between bilingual development (German/Russian), immigration and integration in the host society. Participants are Russian-Germans, that is, ethnic Germans who have repatriated to Germany from the former Soviet Union. They were part of a longitudinal study dedicated to the integration of multi-generation Russian-German families in Germany. The paper focuses on eight Russian-Germans who moved to Germany between the ages of five and eight and are now young adults. The analysis is based on interviews conducted in the twentieth year of their life in Germany in German and Russian, A semi-structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on the main stages of integration, the use of the languages, the attitudes towards German and Russian, and an assessment of the current situation. The obtained data were used to make an initial assessment of the oral language competencies of the participants and as sources of information about the objective facts and subjective attitudes that determined linguistic and social integration.
In spring 2002, we celebrated the inauguration of the first German-Russian-Jewish kindergarten in Berlin. Nowadays, there are seven bilingual German-Russian kindergartens with 4 60 places and 78 bilingual kindergartens with other combinations of languages [SENBWF]. Maybe it is not enough, taking into account the large proportion o f immigrants in the population of Berlin1. And yet, much progress has been achieved, endorsing the fact that German society has begun to change its attitude towards other languages on its territory. The initial request for German monolingualism first changed into societal tolerance of multilingualism and eventually to the recognition o f the value of multilingualism. This process is a very slow one, and it is not yet complete. In my article, I would like to look at the development in the last few years of the political framework that has made possible, on the one hand, the opening of bilingual kindergartens in Berlin, and on the other hand, to consider what has hampered this process until now. I would like to emphasise three most important political spheres: linguistic, educational and integrational.