Teaching English in Russia

Russia is officially the biggest country in the world, with its landmass spanning from the trading port of Vladivostok in Siberia, near the Chinese border, all the way to its Western neighbours in Eastern Europe. Russia has a unique history of Tsars and the communist revolution of 1918. The richness of this history and the intricacies of the country have been recorded in the works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, as well as Pushkin.

The country has seen the breakup of its satellite states and the USSR, but its orthodox religion still remains. This is evident in the sight of the brightly coloured domes littered across the Moscow skyline.

The golden domes and white buildings of the Kremlin, home to the current president and the Tsars of the past, remind the visitor to Russia of its amazing history. The Red Square and Lenin’s Mausoleum hail back to the era of communism and the only hidden evidence of Stalin is kept beside the Kremlin walls.

The underground splendour of Moscow’s metro stations, decorated in chandeliers, is an adventure in itself. Riding the metro and comparing the stations’ opulence will more than amply occupy a rainy day. Such opulence is more than matched by the heritage of St Petersburg.

Outside of these two western cities lies a vast expanse of grasslands and wooden houses, stunning lakes and mountain regions, as well as the deepest lake in the world, Lake Baikal, where unknown species are still discovered in marine biology.

The Russian alphabet also presents a challenge and adventure to those used to western style scripts. This challenge is one worth undertaking. The Russian alphabet uses the Cyrillic script and has 33 letters unlike the English alphabet, which uses the Latin script with 26 letters.  There are over 150 million Russian speakers in the world and due to Russia’s enormous size it is the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia.

The world’s greatest train journey, the Trans Siberian Railway connects Moscow with Vladivostok. It’s the third longest continuous railway line in the world, covering eight time zones and taking eight days to complete the journey. While the Trans-Siberian line attracts many foreign tourists, it remains the most important transport link for domestic passengers and Russian exports. Hundreds of large and small cities in the European and Asian parts of Russia are connected by the railway with connecting rails going into Mongolia, China and North Korea.