“We See Incredible Interest to Russia”

– Is creation of the Russian Language and Culture Promotion Association a grassroots initiative?

– Yes, it was founded five years ago, on Christmas Eve, which is symbolic. During the years, couple of hundreds people were in it. For some people, two years’ time is enough to master Russian to the required level – for example, to go to Saint Petersburg (there is a direct connection between Zagreb and Saint Petersburg now) and to speak Russian there. Others have been studying during the whole period – they are trying to master it in order to read Russian literature in the original.

– Did the Association start with Russian courses?

– Yes. In fact, we have to make a difference: Russian courses is a commercial thing and foreign language courses are involved in this kind of activities, and we cannot do this in accordance with our statute. But in case a person is a member of the Russian Language Association, he is then interested in Russia, its culture, literature and history. And we help learning the language.  

But it is only one course of our activities, another important one is to contact with as much schools, as possible. We have recently received a recommendation of the Croatian Education Ministry to hold Russian language lessons as additional education lessons. Russian is now taught as a major subject only at the Tourism and Hotel Industry School and Russian lessons as additional education depends on teachers and volunteers. So yes, it is a grassroots initiative and at one’s own expense.   

– Do mostly adults come to you?

– Yes, they are primarily the people, who learned Russian at schools after WWII, as it was obligatory then. Afterwards, the number of such schools fell by almost a half; in 1990s, Russian language almost completely disappeared from Croatian schools.

It was a complicated time, in Russia as well, and the interest for the country was not great. But starting from approximately 2010, we have seen an incredible interest to Russia and to learning the language.  When a radio station in Zagreb announced that it was possible to learn the Russian language at our Association, almost 600 people applied right away. It was unexpected even for us – we did not have so many volunteers, who were ready to teach the Russian language.

– Who are your teachers?

– It is usually me, because retired people have plenty of time. But there are also young students, who learn Russian at universities and such an experience is very useful for them. They can try being a teacher and understand, whether they will be able to design their own teaching method and to teach languages in general in the future. We also have teachers, who are very successful in the sphere and who are likely to open a Russian language school for children. There is no such a school in Zagreb yet.

– You said that you come to schools and offer additional lessons in the Russian language, is that right?

– At the moment, we are working with three schools in such a way. If we had assistance from Russian structures, we might have worked with much more schools. I can say that at least ten schools are ready to introduce additional Russian language lessons. They have such an interest among young people.

– What kind of assistance do you need from Russia?

– The thing is, they do not now publish Russian language textbooks in Croatia. The last ones were published in 1980s. Sure, we can get audio and video materials, but it requires specially equipped classrooms. Still, not every student has a computer on a desk. Mostly, we need textbooks and study guides for foreign children.

– What kind of events do you hold, apart from Russian language courses?

– We hold lectures on Russian history, culture or science at least once a week. We invite Russian people with relevant education to hold these lectures and they accept our invitations willingly. A short while ago, we had a lecture about Decembrists’ wives, or, for example, a discussion about catholic and orthodox church.  

We also had a very interesting speech on the topic “Russia and Ukraine”. Most Western Medias give incomplete or even inadequate information on the topic and people do not understand what is going on there. We invited a historian – a Russian woman, who is living in Zagreb. She held a lecture on the history of creating the Russian state, and it became clear, how Ukraine emerged.

We hold these events on a regular basis and only by native speakers. It is very important, as after a lecture, there is always a discussion and the listeners have many questions.

We also have a dream to hold annual seminars of Croatian russianists. We held this kind of a seminar two years ago – Russkiy Mir Foundation helped us. The Foundation paid travel and accommodation expenses of the teachers from Immanuil Kant’s Kaliningrad State University – they held an entire series of Russian language and literature lectures. Then we gathered nearly 70 russianists, who are professionally connected with the language. We’d like to make this seminar a tradition. I understand that we can hold them through video connection, but a direct contact is quite a different story.

– Did you teach Russian language yourself?