for many Eurasian countries.
Composition of the textbook has embraced the rich practice and methodology of teaching Russian language as a foreign language evolved in late sixties of the last century up till now by the group of Russian teachers of the faculty of philology of Moscow Lomonosov State University. Well illustrated and free of unnecessary grammatical tasks the book focuses the learners’ attention on cognitive and communicating skills.
Unique feature of this textbook is that, unlike other textbooks of languages, there is no focus on teaching grammar generally abhorred by the learners but imparting communication skills. Another welcome feature is the Russian songs and notes to play the music. Well it implies that the user would need a teacher with musical literacy. However, this lacuna could be resolved by giving web links to the songs available on the internet.
Learning a foreign language opens an absolutely new world of the native culture and traditions of the people of a different land developed as a nation in different geopolitical and geo-economic conditions with diverse historic experience. This textbook has taken due care to ease the understanding of this aspect of learning a new language by introducing the learner to concise knowledge of various aspects of the Russian world including history, arts, science and culture.
Though the textbook is meant for the English reader in India, it could be widely useful for Indians living in various countries because there is an inherent interest in the Russian reality which differs from the negative picture painted by the anglo saxon media. This is one of the plus points of the style and purpose of this textbook which will be welcomed in India where due to great interest in Russia a Institute of Russians Studies was inaugurated in New Delhi in November 1965 and now Russian language is being taught in almost all Indian universities and many schools.
This textbook has the high potential for introduction for beginners and advanced courses in the Indian schools and universities teaching the Russian language and prove useful for people willing to study it independently.
I would like to highly commend the tremendous work done by Dr Elena Tinyakova in writing this textbook at a time when there is a global demand to learn the Russian language.