RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS OF RUSSIAN

for Children

Russian Children's Audio Theatre – audio files of literary classics for children.
Homepage of Cheburashka

Clothes/shopping

dryclean.ru
ГУМ – the department store on Red Square, now called Главный универсальный магазин.

Commonwealth of Independent States (СНГ)

Which countries belong to the СНГ – A confederation of most former Soviet Republics. Most important here for our purposes is to know which countries belong.

Economics

AK&M – a financial company where you can find out the dollar-ruble exchange rate and information about the Russian stock market.
Finmarket – financial company; they publish a chart with leading foreign currencies compared with the ruble.

Education

Saint-Petersburg State University
Moscow State University

Film

CTB – current and recent Russian movies.
фильм – American films shown in Russian theaters.
Киноexpert – videos available in Russia: Russian and others.
Советский экран – data base of Russian actors and directors.
Актёры советского кино – actors only, but more complete and current.

Food

Cooking.ru
Cookery.ru recipes, diets, etc.
Утка – a Chinese restaurant in Moscow.

Geography

Rin.ru – click on any zone in the world and you can see maps and geographical information in Russian.
Maps can also be found on weather sites (under weather) and at Krugosvet (under reference). 

Housing

Virtual Museum of Communal Apartments 

Languages

Human Languages Page, in Russian (use KOI encoding) 

Music

Барды – bards in Russia are folksinger-songwriters. Site has pictures, biographies, lyrics, and some audio files of Russian bards.
Владимир Высоцкий – website devoted to one of the bards.
SovMusic.ru –  patriotic songs, songs about Moscow and other Soviet subjects. Audio files, lyrics, sometimes including English translations.
MIT archive of Russian songs – lyrics and recordings by bards, from movies, cartoons, etc. 

News, Audio, Simplified

NCRLC Russian Webcasts – a site from George Washington University with audio files of news in Russian, simplified and read slowly. Comprehension exercises included. They add to it every week but only during the academic year; in the meantime, the archives are available.

News Digests

Страна.ru
BBC Russian
National News Service

News Videos

Вести.ru
– you need a DSL or cable connection to view videos, but there are photos and a print digest as well.
Наш дом Пенза – daily short (1-2 minutes) news videos from the city of Penza. Requires a Real Player.
Euronews – requires a Real Player.

Political Institutions

National News Service – a searchable database of prominent Russians and some others, mostly but not all of them political figures.
Государственная дума – Official site of the State Duma, the lower house and lawmaking body of the Russian Parliament.

Postcards and Posters

Виртуальные открытки – virtual postcards for Russian holidays.
Mina.ru – Soviet-era posters. Categories in left-hand banner under
плакаты.
Poster.Genstab.Ru – more posters.
Soviet Posters: The Chairman Smiles – virtual exhibit of Soviet Posters of the 30s and 40s by the International Institute of Social History. In English, with translations and notes.

Radio Stations Broadcasting on the Web

Радио ретро – you need a WimAmp player.
Авторадио – Windows player.
Европаплюс
Радио России
Радио «Маяк»
Russian Radio Stations – links to many other Russian radio stations and stations broadcasting in Russian

Reference

Энциклопедия кругосвет
Smirnitsky’s Dictionary – English/Russian and Russian/English. You can cut and paste from your reading on the Internet (even conjugated verbs and declined words).
sokr.ru – Russian has many acronyms (phrases represented by initials, such as ГУМ, РФ, CCCР). You can look them up here.

Resources and Search Engines

The Russian Language Program at Cornell
Rambler – a leading Russian search engine
Sher’s Russian links – the most comprehensive set of Russian and Russian-related links. The page is in English but many of its links are in Russian.

Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Huntfor Russian Language Beginners

Space Program

Росавиакосмос– the Russian Space Agency. Under космическая деятельность there is a history of manned space flight and a biography of cosmonauts. Who was the first man in space?

Today in History

2day.ru

Transportation

Московское метро

Weather 

Meteo.demos.ru
Погода России
Rambler 
Городской кот – this will take you to the main menu; click on “погода” (left-hand frame): it won’t link directly