Why learn Russian?
The Russian language, ranking fifth in terms of the number of speakers (after Chinese, English, Hindi and Spanish), is one of the largest world languages and the most widely spoken language in Europe - both geographically and in terms of the number of native speakers. Russian has the status of an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Gagauzia and the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic (Moldova), and is also partially recognized in the Republic of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.Russian is one of the official languages of world (WHO, IAEA, UN, UNESCO) and regional international (BRIC, EurAsEC, CSTO, CIS, SCO) organizations. Russian is spoken in the CIS countries, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Israel, Mongolia, Finland, Spitsbergen, Eastern European countries, Germany, France, in the metropolitan areas of the USA, Canada, China, Australia. Until 1991, Russian was the language of interethnic communication of the USSR, de facto performing the functions of the state language. It continues to be used in all countries that were formerly part of the USSR.
Now Russian is the native language of 130 million citizens of the Russian Federation, 26.4 million residents of the CIS and Baltic republics, and almost 7.4 million residents of non-CIS countries (primarily Germany and other European countries, as well as the USA and Israel). The closest relatives of the Russian language are Belarusian and Ukrainian; together they form a subgroup of eastern languages that are part of the Slavic group of the Indo-European language family.
At different periods, the Russian language borrowed words from Indo-European: English, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Portuguese, French, as well as from Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Scandinavian languages. Among the non-Indo-European languages: from Arabic, Georgian, Hebrew, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, as well as from Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Mongolian, Paleo-Asian, Turkic, Uralic, languages of America and even from the languages of Africa.