Russian is spoken by more than 160 million people in Russia and by another 115 million as a second language, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world. It is a Slavic language written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which is quite easy to master. Russian is related to other Slavic languages, including Polish, Czech, Serbian/Croatian, and Ukrainian.

Russian literature is one of the world's richest, ranging from the classics, such as Tolstoy's War and Peace and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, to Soviet-era works like Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. Writers such as Pelevin and Sorokin keep the Russian literary tradition vibrant in the 21st century. Russian film is also internationally known, beginning with the silent historical works of Eisenstein, to the sci-fi films of Tarkovsky, and the current vampire thrillers of Bekmambetov. And where would we be without the music of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, or Prokofiev? In the last decade, Russian has become useful in a wide variety of professional fields, including business, engineering, education, law, and medicine, as well as in government and academic fields.

At UT, Russian is offered every semester at the beginning (RUS 506/507), intermediate (RUS 412K/412L), and advanced (RUS 324/325, 326/327) levels, as well for heritage speakers (RUS 328/329). Students are encouraged to study abroad on one of several programs offered in Russia. Both majors and minors in Russian are offered through the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies.