Why learn Russian?

Welcome to Russian!
Russia… hm-m-m. I hear something about Cold War and Soviet Communism.
But Russia is a big country, and there is, of course, more to it than that. Here are 5 facts you may not have known about the Russian Federation.

Russia is big

Actually, Russia isn’t just big. It’s the biggest country in the entire world. It expands across 40% of Europe and covers more than a ninth of the world’s land area. It has nine time zones. You thought the United States was a big place? Russia’s way ahead of you.
Despite Russia’s sheer size, it is only the ninth most populous country in the world, behind China, the United States, and India. This is thanks to the fact that many areas in Russia (particularly Siberia) are crushingly difficult to live in. Siberia itself is sparsely populated, with a population density of three people per km. Why so few? Well…

Russia is cold

Of course, we all know this one. But few people know the extent of it. When I say Russia is cold, I really do mean cold. Siberia’s most common climate is subarctic. The coldest town in the world is in Russia: Oymyakon, with a record lowest temperature of −71.2 °C (−96.2 °F). 65% of     Russian territory is underlined by permafrost.

Russia’s contributions to science are incredible

Most of us think of Russia’s contributions to the world as the large body of literary classics it has produced, like Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment or Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. And while it’s certainly true that Russia has produced many fine novelists, we mustn’t overlook its contributions to the sciences.
The Periodic table was created by Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev in 1869, and its value to chemistry and science is general is monumental. Meanwhile Russian biologist Dmitry Ivanovsky discovered viruses, and Fyodor Pirotsky invented the electric tram.

Russia was the first country to launch a man into space.

His name was Yuri Gagarin. This man was the first in mankind's history who made it to orbit and successfully flew around the globe several times on 12th of April 1961.

Russia is beautiful !

Despite having so much culture on offer, Russia is not a particularly popular tourist destination for Westerners. Its history from WWII and the Cold War put Western visitors off from visiting, but what they miss out on is a wealth of incredible landscapes, beautiful architecture and interesting cities.
St Petersburg is nicknamed the Venice of the North for its classical architecture and wealth of rivers and channels. Russia’s natural destinations also boast great beauty, with Lake Baikal (or the Blue Eye of Siberia) being the oldest and deepest lake in the world. Russia is well worth a visit just to see these beautiful places.

Yes, it’s a nice, but why learn Russian?
Learning to speak Russian well may be the best thing you can do to improve your life and there are a lot of good reasons for learning the Russian language…
That’s right. Do you think it would be fun to have access to information that other people can’t get? Talk and write letters to interesting people that others can’t communicate with? Make big jumps to get your higher education, leaving others miles behind? Impress people around you whenever you opened your mouth?
You can get all of this if you speak Russian well. 
If you ask most people who study the Russian language, they will tell you that they became intrigued by the Russian language, fascinated with Russia, and that they fell in love with Russia’s great literature, and that these are good enough reasons on their own to learn Russian language. 

Russian is very useful in international communication. 
It is used for all communication between former soviet countries, those forming the CIS and Russia. If you learn Russian it makes it easy for you to travel to all these countries, talking to local people and get in touch with new cultures.
Russian is one of the six official languages at the United Nations.

If you would like to work for the UN, speaking Russian and English would be a very good advantage.

Russia went through very important reforms in the recent years, changing and consolidating it’s economy, political system and legal system. New relations with Europe, USA and Asia have been established. Russia is becoming again one of the big players in the global economy and companies trading with Russia need interpreter and translator speaking Russian to discover new markets and improve business.

Russian is spoken by 285 Million people, it’s the fourth most spoken language in the world.
Can you image the possibilities you have once you’ve learned Russian? You could make lot’s of new friends, study in Russia, make business with Russians – it’s a great opportunity to meet new people and learn more about the Russian culture.

Learning Russian makes you special!
Most of the students decide to learn Spanish, French, Italian or German – if you have Russian in your CV (curriculum vitae), you have something more than the others, it creates you new opportunities and probably you get easier the job you were looking for.
Russian economy is growing
Russian economy is growing every year by 7-9 %, it’s gaining influence in the world economy, is rich in natural resources and companies around the world need qualified employees.
Don’t ignore that by learning Russian, a foreign language, you will grow with the task – intellectual and social.

 “Speaking a second language and you have a second soul” –     Carlomagno.

See you soon in my class!