Mother tongue of Russia speaks on CWU campus

Novelist Ivan Turgenev consoled himself in the midst of his country’s 19th-century travails by invoking Mother Russia’s mother tongue.

“O great, mighty, true and free Russian language!” he proclaimed. “It is inconceivable that such a language should not belong to a great people.”

Since the late 1980s, students at Central Washington University have been availing themselves of the chance to study Russian and decide whether they agree with Turgenev’s assessment.

Teaching Russian in a region where the largest minority speaks Spanish doesn’t seem incongruous to Volha Isakava and Dinara Georgeoliani, the two instructors in Central’s program.

“Russian is a critical language that is needed by the U.S. government,” Isakava said. “A lot of our students aspire to join the military or work for the State Department.”

Read more of this story in the Yakima Herald Republic.