Russian language skills are best practiced in conjunction with other disciplines such as law and business, politics and government, science and technology, engineering and computers.
Russian language graduates pursue exciting careers in such diverse areas as foreign and government service, international business, public relations, news media, tourism, law enforcement, education, and social work.
The growth of US - Russia trade
and cultural agreements has opened new areas of employment in banking,
manufacturing, sales, technical consultation, contracts, negotiations,
office management and translating.
The demand in the workforce for bilingual and multilingual
individuals is very strong.
Consider
some facts and statistics:
Russian is
the language of Global Communication
•
Russian is spoken by 293 million people. There are more Russian speakers in
the world than there are speakers of German and French combined. It is the
fifth most widely spoken language in the world (after Chinese, English,
Hindi, and Spanish).
•
Russian is the native language of 172 million people and the official
language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is
widely spoken in some other former Soviet Republics and in many countries of
Eastern Europe.
•
Russia is the world’s largest country with rich and diversified natural
resources. It covers one-eighth of the earth’s surface and spans eleven time
zones.
•
Stretching across two continents, Russia belongs to both Europe and Asia.
•
Russia owns about 25% of the world’s fresh water. It owns 22% of the world’s
forests and is called the “lungs of Europe.”
•
Russia contains the world’s largest natural gas reserves (an estimated 40%
of the world’s total reserves) and 20% of the world’s known oil reserves
(second to Saudi Arabia), the largest diamond reserves, and the second
largest coal reserves. Nearly a third of all tin and iron ores are in
Russia, as are over 40% of all platinum group minerals and over a third of
all nickel reserves.
Russian
is the language of World Politics and Security
•
Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations along
with English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and Arabic.
•
Russia is one of only 5 countries that has veto power at the UN and is known
for using this power more often than any of the other nations.
•
Russia is a nuclear superpower. It possesses one of the two largest
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in the world (the U.S. possesses
the other).
•
During the last two decades Russia has undergone an extraordinary political
transformation. It is currently building democratic institutions, and
strengthening partnership and cooperation with the U.S.
Russian is the language of
Science and Engineering
•
Russian scientists and mathematicians have been at the cutting edge of
research in a variety of scientific pursuits, especially in geology,
geophysics, chemistry, engineering, and aeronautics.
•
All of the major American oil companies are actively developing previously
unexplored oil fields in the Russian Far East, Siberia, and the Caspian Sea
Area.
•
Over a quarter of world’s scientific literature is published in Russian.
Russian is the language of International Business
•
With the
end of the cold war and transition to market economy, Russia re-entered into
the world economic system and opened up an enormous and largely unexploited
market for Western business and U.S. goods and services.
•
Many U.S. companies have
already opened their businesses in Russia, others are actively exploring
Russian market
•
Russia is the world’s largest
producer of natural gas, second largest steel producer, third largest
producer of oil and fourth largest in the mining of coal.
•
Western Europe currently
depends on Russia for 28% of its gas supplies; Germany alone depends on
Russia for 12% of its natural gas and 18% of its oil. Russia currently
supplies the U.S. with 4% of its oil.
•
The Russian economy is booming:
expect increased trade with the US and investment from US firms in the
Russian economy.
Credits and more information:
Paul Richardson. Does Russia Matter? Russian Life. Nov/Dec, 2003 http://www.russianlife.net