Russian Flagship students receive extra language practice by participating in weekly tutoring.

Learn about tutoring

Language Learning

The program has compiled a broad range of online materials for learning, improving, and teaching Russian. These resources are for the information and convenience of the site’s visitors; listing them below does not constitute the endorsement of them by the Russian Flagship Program.

In-person opportunities to practice speaking Russian are available through conversation tables organized by students and community groups.

Online Resources

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Arts, Culture, and History

Study Aids

Language-Learning Resources

  • Global Language Online Support System (GLOSS), produced by the Defense Language Institute (DLI). This tool provides multimedia lessons in Russian and other languages focused on reading and listening. Search lessons by proficiency, modality, topic, and more. GLOSS is a great way to work with authentic materials with support.
  • Грамота.ру, an extremely rich site for Russian language resources. Look up words in the basic search panel to find definitions, stress placement, and verb conjugations. The Словари section has a variety of specialized dictionaries; Библиотека links to literature, books, and journals; Справка offers help with difficult phrases or constructions; Класс links to fun educational resources, videos, an online tutor, dictations, and guides to spelling and punctuation; get the latest Russian language news at Лента; play language games in the section Игра.
  • Foreigncy, a one of a kind service for the study of critical languages. Foreigncy provides a daily tool to advance and maintain your language skills and awareness of events shaping the world.
  • Alpha Dictionary’s Grammar, can help if you’ve got a grammar question or if participles are getting you down! Get clear explanations on a variety of grammar topics from this excellent interactive resource.
  • RAILS, the Russian Advanced Interactive Listening Series, an award-winning program for students of Russian to improve their advanced-level listening proficiency.
  • Russian Reader, a website developed by Tatiana Smorodinska of Middlebury College, which includes texts from the Russian Literary School canon. Every text comes in three versions: for beginners (adapted and abridged), intermediate (abridged), and advanced (original).
  • Starostin’s Morphological Dictionary, allows users to look up a word to view all forms in all cases, with definitions and stress marked.
  • LangApp, a free Android application available to practice the Russian language. It includes news to read and listen to, a vocabulary builder, and a dictionary that includes definitions, phonetics, and audio pronunciations. It is available for free on the Google Play store.
  • Easy Russian, a YouTube channel for Russian language learners that features video lessons and interviews on the street with Russian speakers. The videos are subtitled in Russian and English.
  • LLC Commons, a repository of open resources for online teaching in Slavic Studies, curated by the University of Arizona.
  • Национальный корпус русского языка, or the National Corpus of the Russian Language, a searchable database of native Russian texts designed to provide statistics and examples of the language in use.
  • Jim Becker’s Best Russian Websites, a smorgasbord of Russian-language resources on the web.
  • RUSSNET, a broad range of materials for learning, teaching, working, and connecting to all things Russian.
  • SRAS, the School of Russia and Asian Studies, an organization that coordinates research and exchange programs for students. Their website contains an enormous variety of excellent resources for students of Russian language and culture. See the section on Student and Educator Resources. The organization also oversees Vestnik, a journal that publishes student research related to Russia or Eurasia.
  • Steps to Advanced Reading (STAR), a free mobile-friendly web application that helps students to learn to read authentic non-fiction texts in Russian.
  • UCLA grammar exercises, helpful for those seeking to pass level two of the TORFL.
  • Russian Forum on Word Reference, provides resources for language learners and professionals, and includes guides to grammar, spelling, punctuation, morphology and more.

Language Teaching Resources

  • Текстотека ЦМО, provides various resources and guides for both teachers and students.
  • Resource Center for Teachers of Russian, aims to provide practical help and high-quality resources for teachers of Russian as a foreign language, as well as a community forum for them to help each other with lesson plans, ideas, and solutions to classroom problems. The website’s goal is to facilitate exchange and communication between teachers of Russian all over the world.
  • RUSSNET, includes a broad range of materials for learning, teaching, working, and connecting to all things Russian.

Kazakh Language Resources

  • Kaz Tili provides a comprehensive overview of Kazakh grammar with practice exercises, as well as sections with stories, songs, TV shows, jokes and anekdoty, and links to other useful resources about the Kazakh language and culture.
  • Soyle offers online Kazakh language lessons for novice to advanced level and a variety of other language-learning resources.
  • Sozdik.kz is an online Kazakh-to-Russian and Russian-to Kazakh dictionary and translator with the option to use Cyrillic or Latin Kazakh.
  • LangMedia is an initiative of the Five College Center for World Languages and features a collection of language learning resources for Kazakh, Russian, and other languages in the post-Soviet space.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Russian-English Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

  • Яндекс, offers several different types of Russian dictionaries including a good E-R/R-E dictionary with phrases and sentences to show context and usage.
  • ABBYY, an excellent online E-R/R-E dictionary that provides contextualization and indicates word stress.
  • Multitran, a popular online E-R/R-E online dictionary with extensive specialized, technical, and slang databases. The site is user-generated and modified, so proceed with caution. The site’s biggest strength is the massive amount of data it holds, and the very specific nature of the searches you can conduct (e.g. in normal dictionaries you can look up the word “fence,” but on Multitran, you can look up phrases like “chain link fence” with excellent results).
  • Global Russian Language, a repository that provides free access to recorded speech samples produced by a variety of Russian-language speakers.
  • Feb-Web Dictionary, a Russian-Russian dictionary from the wonderful Feb-Web site (more about this under the literature section).
  • Russian Forum on Word Reference, provides resources for learners and language professionals, including a colossal listing of specialized Russian dictionaries.
  • Russian Wikipedia, the popular Wikipedia’s Russian entries.
  • Кругосвет, another useful online encyclopedia.

Literature

Research

The following resources are available to UW students through the Databases section
of Libraries at UW.

Government

News and Current Events

  • BBC Russian The Russian service of the BBC.  An excellent and source of print, audio and video news material from Russia and around the world.
  • Lenta.ru is a Moscow-based news website in Russian, created by Anton Nosik and currently owned by Rambler Media Group. The site is considered one of the most popular Russian language online resources and is a great one-stop source for news in Russian.
  • Esquire.ru Russian version of the popular journal
  • Газета.ру another popular Russian news website that covers politics and business.
  • Грани.ру an oppositional news website in Russian
  • Известия.ру is a long-running, high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia.  The paper today has close ties to the Russian government and tends to be very pro-Kremlin.
  • Новая газета a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs.  The paper, known to be critical of Russian government policy, appears in print three times per week. Four Novaya Gazeta journalists, including Anna Politkovskaia, were murdered between 2001 and 2009.
  • The Barents Observer, a Norwegian newspaper that publishes the Barents Region (encompassing Northern European Russia, Finland, Norway, and Sweden) in English and Russian.
  • Discours.io, an independent open online magazine that advances itself as a center for contemporary samizdat and publishes pieces on culture, science, society, and more.
  • вДудь, the YouTube channel of Yury Dud, a Russian journalist who does long-form interviews and informational videos/documentaries.
  • РИА Новости a very popular state newspaper
  • Russian Independent Media Archive – The Russian Independent Media Archive is preserving the last two decades of independent Russian journalism, guarding this irreplaceable historical record against erasure as media outlets not aligned with the regime of President Vladimir Putin are shuttered and their reporters and editors cast into exile.
  • The Moscow Times the only daily English-language newspaper in Russia and the most popular expat paper in Moscow.  Students traveling to Russia who are interested in journalism may also wish to explore internship opportunities with this and similar papers.
  • Сноб.ру created and sponsored by Mikhil Prokhorov
  • Иносми.ру a Russian website that publishes news from foreign press sources about Russia and the CIS, translated into Russian.
  • Meduza is a digest of Russia’s investigative reports and news analysis.
  • Orda.kz is an internet-media platform covering political and social developments in Kazakhstan and abroad.
  • Власть.kz is a Kazakhstani internet news site that primarily covers news in Kazakhstan in Russian, Kazakh, and English.
  • Steppe is a Kazakhstani site that publishes articles on the arts, business, science, and more in Russian and Kazakh.

Entertainment

  • Ticketon.kz is a popular online portal to purchase tickets for events in Almaty and other cities in Kazakhstan.
  • Давай Сходим Алматы is an excellent place to learn about events and activities in Almaty. You can find movies, concerts, exhibitions, plays, sporting events, outdoor excursions, and more.
  • Almaty Today is an Instagram account that shares daily news from Almaty, as well as events and recommendations for restaurants, bars, cafes, shopping, etc.
  • Афиша is the absolute best place to find out what’s happening in cities throughout Russia.  You can search for movies, plays, concerts, clubs, sporting events, restaurants and more.  Includes user reviews, maps, photographs and more.

Television and Video

  • Первый канал Russian televisions main news channel. Check out “Хочу знать”, a TV show that consists of small episodes on various topics in the format of answering different questions.
  • Tamara Eidelman, a historian and former school teacher of history in Russia who runs a YouTube channel dedicated to covering historical events and figures.
  • Russia’s popular Культура cultural channel.
  • UniverTV Academic- and education-oriented television programming for all ages.
  • Культу.ру Regular live Internet broadcasts of Russian cultural events – theatre productions, concerts, art festivals, etc.
  • Голоса. Video material from the texbook Golosa.
  • YouTube and the Russian version RuTube. These sites are some of the best resources for video in Russian. But where to begin? Here are a few recommendations:

Film

Radio

Podcasts

  • NCLRC Russian Webcasts. Russian Webcasts are posted here twice monthly and deliver a survey of the previous two weeks’ news in simplified standard Russian.  Includes transcripts, vocab lists and exercises.  A great place to go if Russian radio/TC news is still just a little too fast.
  • Dope Soz a Kazakhstani podcast where hosts discuss a range of topics using a mix of Russian and Kazakh.
  • CREECA Lecture Series Podcast. 

Sports

Science, Technology, and Environmental Studies

  • Элементы is a wonderful site devoted to exploring basic concepts in science and technology.  Check out the online Encyclopedia to read up on everything from Darwin to molecular biology, Occam’s Razor and historical linguistics.    Beyond the Encyclopedia, you can read articles from several popular science magazines, flip through recommendations and author bios in the Book Club, watch videos about science for children and adults, and read scientists’ answers to tough questions posed by kids, such as “Почему человек икает?” 

Russian Cuisine and Recipe Resources

  • Russian Kitchen an elegant food blog with excellent photos and clear instructions for creating Russian cuisine, soups, baked goods and more.
  • Арт ланч, a culinary project of original recipes with step-by-step instructions and  photographs.
  • Кухарка a great Russian food blog featuring recipes with photographs of the dishes
  • Кулинарные рецепты от Скрипкиной Анастасии is a very popular food blog with step-by-step instructions and pictures
  • Кулинарная книга This site has a lot of useful information about cooking, but the most exciting feature is the Видеорецепты section, which features videos from a wide variety of chefs cooking dishes from several categories, including appetizers, main courses, salads, soups and desserts.

Search Engines

  • Яндекс is the primary and most popular Russian search engine.  Conduct searches, check the weather, find locations on a map, buy stuff, get a Russian email address, read breaking news, look up unfamiliar words.  Yandex has it all.
  • Google’s Russian search engine
  • Рамблер is another popular search engine in Russia

Blogging and Virtual Communities

  • Facebook in Russian  Already on Facebook?  You can set your profile to Russian! To set your language, go to the bottom of the page you are on and click the current language in the left corner. You may then select your language from the menu that appears.  You can also update your language by going to the Account page, and then the “Language” tab there.
  • Вконтакте The popular Russian version of Facebook.
  • Одноклассники Perhaps Russia’s most popular social networking site
  • Живой Журнал Live Journal, the heart of the Russian blogosphere. Check out Один Мой День, where people post photos from one day of their lives with short descriptions.

Professional Organizations

  • AATSEEL is the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.  Most of their job listings are academic positions, but you can often find opportunities for jobs and internships in teaching English, editing, program management or translating work in the US, Russia and the CIS.  The site also contains a comprehensive listing of Slavic Studies departments and courses.
  • ASEEES is the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies supports teaching, research, and publication relating to the peoples and territories within this area.
  •  AWSS The Association for Women in Slavic Studies sponsors research and teaching for scholars of women’s studies and questions of gender analysis in Central/Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.  The organization has a strong mentoring program and an excellent jobs and funding email list.
  • SEELANGS is an academic discussion list aimed primarily at teachers and students of Russian and other Slavic and East European languages and literature.  List members post questions, comments, news items and announcements about jobs, publications and conferences all related to this field of study.
  • ACTFL The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages is a national organization dedicated to the improvement and expansion of the teaching and learning of all languages at all levels of instruction.
  • American Councils for International Education supports study abroad, research, language training and exchange programs in Russia and the CIS.

Online Booksellers

  • Ozon (pronounced ah-ZONE) is the largest and most popular online Internet bookseller.  Russia’s equivalent of Amazon.com
  • Alib is the best place to look for used books.  Ordering happens initially through the online system, but arrangements are made with individual booksellers.
  • Petropol Boston-based Petropol bookstore is online!  Great selection of books and dvds, with lower shipping costs than buying from Russia.