Russian is mostly spoken in Russia and is an East Slavic language. It is a member of the Indo-European language family and is spoken as a first language by the Russian people. It belongs to the larger Balto-Slavic language family and is one of the four East Slavic languages still spoken today. Russian is spoken widely as a lingua franca throughout Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic republics. It is also an official language in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to Russia itself.