"When speaking in public, including to the media, members of the government must not use foreign currency terms ... to give information about the cost of goods, work, services, property, the sums of closed deals, budget indexes at any level of the Russian budget system, state and municipal borrowings, or state and municipal debts," the bill said.
The bill was passed by a 368-1 vote, against a required minimum of 226.
The bill was proposed by Yevgeny Velikhov, the head of the Russian Public Chamber, a new body set up to act as a bridge between the pubic and the authorities, and was later backed by the pro-presidential United Russia faction.
Half of Russians questioned in a nationwide poll in mid-June said they favored a proposed ban on setting domestic prices in dollars.
Following parliament's first initiatives to promote the national currency, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the government was unlikely to look on the bill favorably, adding that customs statistics and duties in Russia had been fixed in euros and its foreign debt was counted in foreign currency.
Kudrin rubbished the original idea, saying it would be ridiculous to talk about global economic matters in rubles. "This issue is absolutely unreasonable and absolutely absurd in its current form," he said in May.
But MPs passed the first reading, defying the government's assessment.
