Why Russian?
There are many reasons for studying Russian, but here are just a few we can think of:
Russia has been (in its many guises) one of the most significant cultural and political forces of the twentieth century, not to mention earlier times, and will undoubtedly continue to loom large in world politics and twenty-first century history and culture...
Russia possesses a centuries-old, rich, fascinating culture, which has had enormous influence on our own view of the world. There are the great works of literature, art, and cinema that we've probably heard of in passing, from Eugene Onegin and War and Peace to Battleship Potemkin... and then there are the countless and exciting novels, poems, pictures, films, that make up so much of Russian cultural life and that many in the West are barely aware of...
and then there's the language. Spoken by over 288 million people as their first language alone, Russian is currently ranked no. 5 in the number of speakers world-wide (in case you're wondering, nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 are, in that order, Chinese, English, Hindi, and Spanish, according to the Nuffield Languages Inquiry in May 2000). The Nuffield Inquiry described Russian as having 'strategic importance' , saying that it is 'spoken by huge numbers of people in countries of significant economic and political interest to the UK'.
Not to mention the place itself. Russia is a country that spans over one third of the globe. Within this huge area of terrain there is a dazzling array of geographical and architectural splendours, from the spires of St Petersburg and domes of Moscow, to the mountains of the Caucasus, the waters of Lake Baikal, the seas (Aral, Caspian, Black), the great rivers and forests, the tundra, and so on...