Russian is spoken by some 140-150 million native speakers, and as a second language by a further 120 million people in Russia and its neighbouring countries. It is the official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It is the 8th most widely spoken language in the world, and the 8th most common language on the Internet.
Exports were valued at £5.6 billion in 2015. As one of the BRIC countries, Russia remains influential economically for the UK - albeit exports have declined in recent years as a symptom of geopolitical events. Russia is the world's 11th largest economy.
Russia is of course also an important global power, and Russian remains an important language for diplomacy and security. Russian is an official language of the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the Organisation for Security & Co-operation in Europe, and the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.
At Durham, we teach Russian at Beginners to Intermediate levels, which allows students to develop their linguistic potential and cultural understanding of the Russian-speaking world. Russian is offered both as a credit-bearing module, and as an extra-curricular course, open to Durham University students, staff and members of the public. To see the levels currently on offer, please visit our course listings.
For further information on our credit-bearing modules, click here.
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