Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Estonia, and to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics of the Soviet Union and former participants of the Eastern Bloc.

It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. Likewise, it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers and the seventh by total number of speakers. The language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Why learn Russian? Russia is the largest country in the world in terms of land area and crosses 11 whole time zones. As you can imagine, there are many amazing places to explore in just one country! However, Russians are not known for their command of the English language. Moreover, considering the fact that Russia raises a number of career and economic opportunities, learning the language could be a huge step for anyone’s career.