Courses, Requirements, and Resources
Resources:
kinokultura.com
Online journal containing news, reviews and articles about current state of Russian Cinema.
Mosfilm
Russia’s largest and oldest film studio made some of its classic Soviet-era films available online with English subtitles.
Sean’s Russia Blog
A weekly podcast on Eurasian politics, culture and history. The show has featured interviews with academics, journalists, policy makers, and pundits on Eurasia’s past and present geared toward the general public interest.
RussianFilmHub.com
Legally watch hundreds of Russian and Soviet movies with English subtitles for free. Filter by genre, decade, director, and more.
PopKult
A new project from SRAS that presents the languages and popular cultures of Eurasia.
Hermitage
A five-hour-long video tour of the museum filmed in one long take on an iPhone.
Durak
A popular Russian card game
Comprehensible Russian Podcast (Podcast with Max)
Max uses slow and easy to understand Russian to talk about a wide range of topics, from history of Russian/Slavic culture to family to ecology to travel in the post-Soviet space, and many more. All podcasts have transcripts and are about 30 minutes long.
Next Level Russian
Anna is a young professional from Russia, currently living in Copenhagen. She loves learning languages and created her podcast to help learners of Russian to get insight into Russian culture. Her topics range from “Russian Tea Drinking” to “Why Russians do not Smile.” Transcripts and word explanations available.
Podcast “Ракета”
A podcast for students in the Novice High – Intermediate Mid range of proficiency with short weekly recordings of native speakers talking about themselves, their families, hobbies etc. Transcripts available.
Bespredel 101: Русский без цензуры
In her weekly video blog, Dr. Irina Anisimova explains the keywords of contemporary Russian culture and discusses the most interesting trends in the development of Russian language and society. В своём еженедельном видеоблоге Ирина Анисимова объясняет ключевые слова современной русской культуры и обсуждает самые интересные тенденции в русском языке и обществе.
A Glossed Russian Reader (Middlebury College)
“Do you want to understand Russian media, Jokes, songs, TV shows and facebook comments? Do you want to speak the ‘same language’ Russian natives speak? If so, you have to read what they read.”
From Ends to the Beginning
A Bilingual Anthology of Russian Verse; many poems feature quality recordings, frequently by the poets themselves.
Луч Света/ A Ray of Light
Learn authentic Russian and get a glimpse into contemporary Russian life with compelling news-related video clips.
Library of Authentic Russian Materials
Media categorized by grammatical or lexical function, level, skill, text type, as well as tagged with key words.
Russian Alphabet and writing in cursive
Click each letter to listen. Click “Play” to watch how to handwrite letters and words.
Practice.russian.com
Offers a variety of learning games and materials for free and without registration. Students in RU126 found the section on “Russian Language Test” particularly helpful for independent case endings review.
Hear Russian
A variety of resources for practicing listening in Russian.
Russian Portal
A compilation of high quality resources for learning and practicing Russian.
Interlex
A free flash-card program
Alpha Dictionary
An Interactive Online Grammar Reference
Idioms.chat.ru
An illustrated dictionary of Russian idioms with English translations
lingro.com
Enter any site address and choose the language (e.g., Russian to English); click on words on that site to see their translations. The site also allows you to built vocabulary lists and quiz yourself on new words.
Beginning Russian Through Film
Uses short excerpts from popular Russian films (including the children’s comedy TV show Eralash) for mini-lessons.
ACTR Russian Learning Modules
Want to hone your Russian over the summer? Sign up (free of charge) to access these interactive online Russian lessons developed by the American Councils of Teachers of Russian.
Один день из моей жизни
A LiveJournal page where ordinary Russians post illustrated stories of one day in their everyday lives.
SemesterRus
A free app designed by the GRINT Centre for learning Russian and preparing for the TORFL (Test of Russian as a Foreign Language) at the Elementary, Basic, and First Certification levels. It includes 60 lessons and preparatory Russian language exams for each TORFL level using the in-app Dictionary and flashcards.
This extensive list of web resources to assist students learning the Russian language was developed by SRAS and is now fully updated, with all links checked and live! Find dictionaries, free online lessons, computer tech support, and more!
Meduza (по-русски)
Riga-based online newspaper and news aggregator in the Russian language.
The Insider (по-русски)
Specializes in investigative journalism.
Новая газета
Russian newspaper well known in Russia for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. The editor, Dmitrii Muratov, received the Noble Peace Prize in 2021.
polit.ru
A popular online source of political and social analyses.
For an expertly compiled extensive list of additional language resources for students of Russian see the special issue of the SRAS Newsletter.
Fulbright-Teaching Program is the largest U.S. exchange program offering opportunities for students to undertake university teaching (in Russia), and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide. Colby students of Russian have been successful in securing this prestigious grant. We encourage our students to start reviewing the application process during their junior year and apply in the fall of their senior year.
Russian Flagship Programs provide undergraduate students an opportunity for intensive, professional language training and development, as well as direct enrollment at St. Petersburg State University. Colby students of Russian have been successful at securing the grant in the past; start early and ask us to put you in touch with the program’s alums.
Teach English in Russia through Language Link. We can connect you with Alums who pursued this opportunity!
For summer or year-round employment opportunities in Russia, check out this guide assembled by the SRAS.