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1. A Purdue graduate with a Russian major is:

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  • Employed by a major U.S. telephone company, setting up small joint companies in cities around Russia, that manufacture and install cellular phones.
  • Teaching Russian in an Indiana high school.
  • Working for an investment firm in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
  • with U.S. defense intelligence.
  • A librarian at a major university library.

 

2. Business partnerships between Russia and America are steadily growing, with an increasing demand for educated Americans, fluent in Russian, and with knowledge and understanding of both cultures.

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  • Midwest-based Caterpillar, Inc., has just started a joint machine building company in St. Petersburg called Nevamash.
  • Chevron is investing $20,000,000,000 to develop oil fields in Kazakhstan.
  • Russia ranks in the top ten markets for U.S. exports of dairy products, alcoholic beverages, and snack foods.  Poultry exports to Russia alone exeeded $ 1 billion in 1996.

 

3. Russian literature has traditionally been a voice for freedom.

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  • From Tolstoy to Pastermak to Solzhenitsyn, Russian writers have challenged the State and been the conscience of the people.
  • Five Russians have received the Nobel Prize for literature: Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, and Joseph Brodsky.

 

4. Russia has been the scene of some of the most exciting developments in space exploration.  Presently, Russia is cooperating with the U.S. in building an International Space Station to replace the aging "Mir."

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  • As Russian and English will be the official languages on the International Space Station, American astronauts are now studying Russian.
  • Astronaut Thomas, presently aboard "Mir," has said he wishes he'd had more language training before moving to Russia.  Experts say language competency can make--or break--a mission..

 

5. There are 300,000,000 people in the world speak Russian, and 1/4 million of them live in the U.S.

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  • Russian ranks with English and Chinese as one of the world's major languages.

 

 

6. Russians are among the world's best:

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  • Movie Makers: Eisenstein, Mikhalkov, Pudovkin, Tarkovsky.
  • Space explorers: tsiolkovsky, Gagarin, Leontiev.
  • Ice dancers: Pasha Grishuk and Evgeny Platov.
  • Hockey players: Sergei Federov, Slava Fetisov, Igor Larianov.
  • Ballet dancers: George Balachine, Mikhail Baryshnkov, Anna Pavlova, Galina Ulanova.
  • Physicists: Andrei Sakharov.
  • Poets: Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky.
  • Engineers: Sikorsky.
  • Chess players: Anatoly Karpov, Gary Kasparov..
  • Composers: Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Mussorsky, Prokofieff, Rachmaninoff, Schitke, Shostakovich, Stravinsky.
  • Novelists: Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Turgenev.
  • Artists: Chagall, Kandinsky.
  • Chemists: Mendeleev.
  • Mathematicians: Lobachevsky.
  • Skaters: Katya Gordeeva, Ilia Kulik.

 

7. With its powerful military presence, Russia has alway had an influential voice in the world. Its new political status brings an increased need for Russian language competence in governmental and political contacts.

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  • Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and Russian is one of the official languages of the United nations.


8. With its immense natural resources, Russia is an ideal location for work and study in ecology and environmental studies. Opportunities in these areas will multiply with a need for Russian language fluency.

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  • Russia is the largest country in the world, and Lake Baikal is the world's deepest lake and home to many unique species.
  • Russia is rich in natural resources, including deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, and many strategic minerals.

 

9. We are witnessing history as Russia changes its political tradition and reaches out to the West in its quest for civic and cultural freedoms and a free-market economy.

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  • Russian stocks are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
  • American companies are the leaders in foreign investment in Russia.

 

10. Russian is FUN! Russian students have great parties, put on funny plays, travel to exotic places, and learn great jokes!

pod06.jpg (12424 bytes) JOKE: What is the difference between communism and capitalism?

In capitalism man exploits man, in communism, it is just the opposite...

 

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Last updated 9 Aug 1998