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Russian: language course provider worldwide and online. Sadovnichy.

Russian Language Centre was founded in 1990 by the Moscow University. At its work Centre rely on the richest experience in teaching foreign citizens of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The Centre turn its efforts on achievement of the goals set by the headquarters of the University headed by the rector of MSU, full member of the Russian academy of science V.A. Over the last 20 years Russian

Language Centre of Moscow Lomonosov State University («MGU-Russian») has been on the wave of mounting interest and demand in Russian language, receiving annually about 700 students from more than 50 countries.

Most people begin learning Russian by opening a grammar table and closing it again a week later. Here’s an order that wo...
09/09/2026

Most people begin learning Russian by opening a grammar table and closing it again a week later. Here’s an order that works better.

1. The alphabet, three days, nothing else. Not words yet. Just until you can read a street sign slowly.
2. Read everything you see, badly. Shop names, metro stations, food labels. Understanding nothing is fine. You’re teaching your eyes that Cyrillic isn’t decoration.
3. Whole phrases before rules. «Меня зовут», «я не понимаю», «сколько стоит». Don’t ask why the endings look like that yet.
4. Pick your first 100 words from your own life. Textbooks give you «aunt» and «pencil». Yours should match why you’re actually learning.
5. Only now touch the cases. Start with two, not six. Six at once is what makes people quit.
6. Speak far earlier than feels comfortable. Three broken sentences with a real person beats an hour of flashcards.

Step six is the one nobody manages alone, which is where a teacher earns their keep. Ours do this every week with people starting from zero, so if you’d rather not guess at the order yourself, come and start with us.

30/08/2026

Peterhof sits on the Gulf of Finland, about 30 kilometres west of St Petersburg, and it was Peter the Great’s answer to Versailles. Built from 1714, it does something Versailles doesn’t: the Grand Cascade below the palace runs on no pumps at all. Water arrives by gravity through a canal system engineered three hundred years ago, and it has been working ever since.

There are around 150 fountains across the park, and the ones people remember are the ones that misbehave. Peter installed trick fountains that soak you when you step on the wrong stone, and they still catch visitors out. Come in mid May for the ceremonial switching on, when the water is turned on for the season and crowds gather to watch it start.

Go once if you can. It was almost completely destroyed in the war and rebuilt from photographs and memory over decades, which means what you’re looking at is not only Peter’s ambition but the stubbornness of everyone who put it back.

23 August 1943 marks the end of the Battle of Kursk. Both sides knew it was coming: the front line had left a huge Sovie...
25/08/2026

23 August 1943 marks the end of the Battle of Kursk. Both sides knew it was coming: the front line had left a huge Soviet-held bulge pushing westwards, some 250 kilometres wide, and it was the obvious place for a German offensive. So instead of striking first, Soviet command chose to dig in, building eight successive defensive belts, thousands of kilometres of trenches, and minefields laid several times denser than standard.

Around 300,000 civilians built those defences, mostly women and teenagers from the surrounding villages, digging by hand through the spring. Some of them were still there when the offensive began on 5 July. The fighting lasted fifty days, and by the end the Soviet side had lost well over 800,000 men killed, wounded or missing, more in under two months than Britain lost in the entire war. Kursk itself, and the towns around it, were left with barely a roof standing.

That's why the date carries what it carries. Before Kursk the initiative on the Eastern Front had shifted back and forth. After it never returned to the German side. Nearly every Russian family has someone in those two months, a name, a photograph, a letter that stopped arriving, and that's what people are thinking about today, rather than the maps and the tank counts.

18/08/2026

Soviet Winnie-the-Pooh is one of those cartoons that has been loved by several generations of Russians. The first episode was released in 1969, and three short films were made based on the stories about Winnie-the-Pooh.

The Soviet version is quite different from the Disney adaptation. Here, Winnie-the-Pooh is more mischievous, a little cheeky, and very talkative, while the cartoon itself is full of subtle humour and funny conversations. It has long been a part of Russian culture, and many of its lines are still quoted in everyday life.

If you want to discover Soviet animation, Winnie-the-Pooh is definitely a good place to start.

If you visit a Russian house you may notice something unusual: people often avoid shaking hands or greeting each other w...
15/08/2026

If you visit a Russian house you may notice something unusual: people often avoid shaking hands or greeting each other while standing on opposite sides of the doorway.

Why? The answer goes back to an old belief that the threshold was a special boundary. It separated the safe space of the home from the outside world, and in traditional culture it was associated with various spirits, rituals and protective customs. Because of this, important actions, including greetings and farewells, were not supposed to happen across the threshold.

Today, of course, most Russians don't literally believe that something bad will happen if they shake hands over the threshold. But the superstition has survived as a familiar cultural habit. Someone might simply say: «Не через порог!» and invite you to come inside first.

It's one of those old beliefs that has become part of everyday etiquette, even for people who don't consider themselves superstitious.

In Russian some words stay exactly the same no matter who we are talking about. можно is a good example. We say мне можн...
13/08/2026

In Russian some words stay exactly the same no matter who we are talking about. можно is a good example. We say мне можно, тебе можно, им можно, but the word можно itself never changes.

This is because можно is often used in what Russian grammar calls impersonal constructions. There is no grammatical subject performing the action. Instead, the sentence focuses on possibility, necessity, permission, or a state: мне можно войти (I’m allowed to come in), здесь нельзя парковаться (You can’t park here), мне нужно идти (I need to go), нам холодно (We’re cold).

These constructions are extremely common in everyday Russian. Instead of saying directly who is doing something, Russian often focuses on whether something is possible, necessary, allowed, or how someone feels: можно войти, нужно подождать, нельзя опаздывать. Once you get used to this pattern, many everyday Russian sentences become much easier to understand.

At first glance, «очень» and «слишком» look almost identical. Both make an adjective stronger, so many Russian learners ...
31/07/2026

At first glance, «очень» and «слишком» look almost identical. Both make an adjective stronger, so many Russian learners use them interchangeably. But they express two very different ideas.

Use «очень» when you simply want to emphasize something. It has a positive or neutral meaning and is the equivalent of very: «мне очень нравится Москва» (I really like Moscow), «сегодня очень тепло» (It's very warm today), «этот фильм очень интересный» (This film is very interesting).

«Слишком» is different. It means that something has gone beyond a comfortable or acceptable limit. In English, it's usually translated as too: «сегодня слишком жарко» (It's too hot today), «этот чемодан слишком тяжёлый» (This suitcase is too heavy), «ты говоришь слишком быстро» (You speak too fast). In all of these examples, the speaker isn't just describing something. They're saying it's more than they would like.

A simple way to remember the difference is this: «очень» makes something stronger, while «слишком» suggests there's a problem because there's too much of it.

🌸Buying flowers in Russia? There's one small detail that surprises almost every foreign visitor.For celebrations, Russia...
29/07/2026

🌸Buying flowers in Russia? There's one small detail that surprises almost every foreign visitor.

For celebrations, Russians usually give an odd number of flowers: 1, 3, 5, 7, and so on. Bouquets with an even numberare traditionally associated with funerals and memorial ceremonies, so they're not given for birthdays, dates, or other happy occasions.

The type of flower matters too. Red roses are often associated with romance, white lilies are a popular choice for weddings, and tulips become especially popular in spring, particularly around 8 March, International Women's Day.

If you're not sure what to choose, a bouquet of fresh seasonal flowers with an odd number of stems is always a safe choice.

It's a small cultural detail, but knowing it can help you avoid an awkward situation and make a great impression.

27/07/2026

If you spend enough time in Russia, sooner or later you'll hear someone say:

«Кто первый встал, того и тапки.» Literally, it means "Whoever gets up first gets the slippers."

The phrase is usually said jokingly when two people want the same thing. The idea is simple: whoever gets there first gets it.

Today, Russians use it in all kinds of situations—not just about slippers. The last slice of pizza, the best seat on the sofa, or even the front place in a queue? Кто первый встал, того и тапки!

It's one of those expressions you'll rarely find in a textbook, but you'll definitely hear in everyday conversations.

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