Comprehensible input · Russian
Russian texts you can actually read
Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language, with over 258 million speakers worldwide, using the Cyrillic alphabet. Every text is written for your level, every sentence is tappable for a translation, every word is one tap from the dictionary — and the whole story can be read to you out loud.
- Read at your level
- Listen before you read
- Check what you understood
A1 · Everyday life
Daily routines, shopping, weather — real situations
Short stories and dialogues (80–160 words) about everyday life. Present tense with natural case usage and frequent question-answer patterns.
Чаепитие с семьей
Tea Drinking with Family
An everyday Russian ritual: after dinner the whole family gathers at the kitchen table for black tea, something sweet, and unhurried conversation.
Read & listenМосковское метро
The Moscow Metro
A ride under Moscow: palace-like stations, the lucky bronze dog at Ploshchad Revolyutsii, and a quick trip to the centre by train.
Read & listenA2 · Little stories
Real narratives with a beginning, middle, and end
Narrative texts (150–280 words) that tell a story: a trip, a memory, a small adventure. Past tense appears, sentences breathe a little more.
Масленица и блины
Maslenitsa and Blini
Russia's week-long farewell to winter: sun-shaped blini eaten with every topping imaginable, street festivities, and the burning of a straw effigy before the fast begins.
Read & listenСказки о Бабе-Яге
Tales of Baba Yaga
The strangest character in Russian fairy tales: a witch in a hut on chicken legs who can devour children one moment and help the hero the next.
Read & listenЛето на даче
Summer at the Dacha
Why millions of Russians leave the city every weekend in summer: a country plot to tend, vegetables to grow, shashlik by the fire, and a swim in the lake.
Read & listenB1 · Real stories
Longer stories with feelings, opinions, and plans
Stories and slice-of-life pieces (250–500 words) with several characters, dialogue, and a real arc. Future tense, aspect pairs, and opinions appear naturally.
Пётр I и Санкт-Петербург
Peter I and St. Petersburg
How a determined tsar built a brand-new European capital on swampland — the war for the Baltic, the city raised 'on bones', and the rise of the 'Venice of the North'.
Read & listenТранссибирская магистраль
The Trans-Siberian Railway
The longest railway on Earth: seven days from Moscow to the Pacific, eight time zones, the shores of Lake Baikal, and the unique social world of life aboard the train.
Read & listenРусская баня
The Russian Banya
Far more than a place to wash: the steam room and its hot stones, the birch-branch venik, the icy plunge into snow or lake, and the wish 'S lyogkim parom!' at the end.
Read & listenB2 · Almost native
Texts with style: humour, suspense, and culture
Short fiction and cultural essays (400–800 words). Natural register shifts, reported speech, participles where the language uses them in print.
Юрий Гагарин в космосе
Yuri Gagarin in Space
12 April 1961: a 27-year-old Soviet pilot becomes the first human in space. The selection ordeal, the 108-minute orbit, the famous 'Poyekhali!', and the global fame that followed.
Read & listenКто такой Пушкин?
Who is Pushkin?
Why 'Pushkin is our everything': the poet who created the modern Russian literary language, his African great-grandfather, the revolution of 'Eugene Onegin', and the fatal duel.
Read & listen