First Year Russian Courses
- The WLC Department is now offering Russian Language and Culture courses.
- Russian I is offered in Fall (WLC 101), Russian II in Winter (WLC 102), Russian III in Spring (103).
- Upon successful completion of the first-year Russian courses, students will:
- Develop their beginning proficiency equivalent to A1/A2 (CEFR) in listening, speaking, reading and writing through the study of Russian texts, songs, cartoons, films and popular culture.
- Gain cultural understanding of a region which has nearly 200 different ethnic groups and nationalities.
- Explore Russia’s current crisis and complex history which has made major contributions to world culture across literature, visual art, music, theater, film, the sciences, philosophy and other areas.
- For questions, please contact: Dr. Angelica Browne: anbrowne@calpoly.edu
Enroll in Russian Language and Culture Classes!
Добрó пожáловать на курсы рýсского языкá!
In May 2023, Dr. Browne and her students celebrated their completion of a whole year in Cal Poly's pilot Elementary Russian courses! Молоде́ц!
Student Creative Projects and Experiences
Learning to Dance the Ukranian Hopak, Spring 2023
WLC 101: The story of Vasilisa and Baba Yaga
The story of Vasilisa and her trials with Baba Yaga. Will she overcome the challenges that face her? A modern adaptation of a Russian folktale.
Read the original folktale here.
-- by Chris, Liam and Ruby
WLC 101: Final Project News Parody
Breaking News in San Luis Obispo! For our Russian I final project, we practice our quarter's vocabulary in a creative news reel. We discuss today's погода (weather), the upcoming выборы президента (presidential election), and the creation of Cal Poly's new курс русского язика (Russian course). And with the help of our whole class, we include some advertisements and a местный скандал (local scandal)!
-- by Anna, Sanjay, Savannah and Stefany
WLC 101: Intercultural Exchange Project
Artyom, Carter, and I spoke about a wide variety of things. Artyom currently lives in Tbilisi and works at a call center surveying people in Russia on various political topics. He is currently on the second year of his gap year from classes at MISiS, and will not be returning for the time being. We learned some new words and phrases in the first meeting. We all happened to speak German so for our project, we decided to translate a German song into English and Russian. We shared several songs that we liked, both German and English, and decided upon ‘Es lohnt sich nicht ein Mensch zu sein’ by Eisbrecher. The translation is on lyricstranslate
--by Sanjay
WLC 102: Final Project Film Прощай Ваня
This quarter, we enjoyed watching episodes of the Russian children's show Ералаш.We were inspired to recreate one episode in particular.
Watch the original episode here.
--by Agar, Cole, Owen, Sanjay and Savannah
WLC 103: Final Project Film "Идиют Идет"
Inspired by Soviet Comedies, our film follows an unfortunate protagonist who is late for her date! Will she make it on time? Who will she meet along the way?
--by Agar, Cole, Owen, Sanjay and Savannah
WLC 103: Final Creative Project
During this quarter, I became fascinated by the rich history of Russian animation, particularly the exquisite works of Andrei Khrjanovsky's captivating visuals and Yuri Norstein's masterpiece, "The Hedgehog in the Fog." While meeting with my exchange partners from MISiS, including Veronica (WLC 290), Sergei, and Kirill (WLC 310), we quickly bonded over our shared love of Russian and American cartoons. As part of my final creative project, I was inspired to create my own animations after drawing inspiration from Week 1 of WLC310, where we explored Russian words that are difficult to translate. I decided to focus on the word "Toska," which captivated my interest due to its emotional depth and cultural significance. Throughout the quarter, I collaborated closely with my Russian exchange partners, particularly Veronica, who helped me to better understand the nuances and context of Toska. She took inspiration from our discussion, and continued to research foreigner interpretations of Toska into a research study that won first place at MISiS and will be turned into a larger study! Her personal experience with the word inspired me to seek narratives. In one of my animations, Sergei generously shares his own story of Toska, which is backed by Kirill's original acoustic song that conveys his own interpretation. In the other, Sasha, a friend of Dr. Browne, explains what Toska means to her backed by my own friend's acoustic.
--by Savannah Bosley