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Things I learned living in Russia  

Today I’m going to share a few fairly random but very interesting things with you that I learned during my language immersion stay in Russia. Looking over this small list now, I see that nearly all of it is positive and I’m sure there’s so much more I could have added.

1. Russia’s the perfect example of sink or swim language immersion. I mentioned this before but it’s worth saying again. Russia is an excellent place for language immersion because people don’t tend to fall back to English when you’re learning it. If you travel to most places in Western Europe for example to try and practise the local language you’ll find that one of the most frustrating hurdles is that a lot of people will revert back to English when they see you struggling (either to help you or because they’re impatient). In Russia I found that people expected me to speak Russian and the few times I asked if anyone spoke English I got looked at as if to say, ’No, and why should I speak English?’ This is great because it means you can’t really get lazy if you live there. You’re forced to adapt and learn the language as quickly as possible if you want to get by.

2. Russia’s made up of so many peoples and languages I’ve never heard of before. Russia is such a massive place that it’s no surprise it’s made up of many many ethnic groups and languages. I lived in a region of Russia called Tatarstan where the ethnic group (called Tatars) are a Turkic people with a language closely related to Turkish and a very similar culture and cuisine. Interestingly, when I asked people if they were Russian they’d often reply to me, “No. I’m Tatar.” Likewise, people from Moscow would often say to me, “I’m not Tatar. I’m 100 % Russian.” Even more interestingly, when I asked about religion I’d get the same kind of answer. “Are you Muslim?” “No. I’m Russian.” or “Yes of course. I’m Tatar.”

I’m no expert on Russian demographics but I found it fascinating that people from the European side of Russia are regarded as 100% Russian whereas everyone else scattered across Asia proudly assert their own ethnic identities and maintain a distinction between them and the European Russians. Perhaps this is more prominent in Tatarstan though due to the troubled history Tatars have had in Russia — I don’t know much about it admittedly.

In any case, Russia is a linguist’s paradise. The population of Russia according to the 2002 census is 142.4 million people. In addition to the Russians (79.8 %) there are more than 180 other nations, which speak more than 100 languages and dialects belonging to the Indo-European, Altaic, and Ural language families, the Caucasian and Paleo-Siberian language groups.

A good friend of mine in Moscow is from an area close to Georgia and he was teaching me a little of the Kabardian language which sounded like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It blows my mind that so many interesting people exist in Russia and indeed the world that we know so little about. I’d love to spend a year or two travelling around the entire country to learn more about the multitude of minority languages and cultures it’s made up of.

Russia’s a beautiful country full of interesting, kind people who are far too misunderstood by the rest of the world, in my opinion. Of all the places around the world I’ve lived in for language immersion my Russian language learning experience was one of the most rewarding I’ve ever had.