From the very beginning of my discovery of The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the future specialists in international affairs it trains, I began thinking of creating learning materials for them. The students are required to take a foreign language, and I had in mind Russian-language texts focused on politics, economics, national security and foreign affairs. Meeting Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Schevarnadze, during a 1987 State Dinner at the White House, was the final push, I needed to start writing my first book Political Russian. Happily, Richard Robin, head of Russian Language Studies at George Washington University, agreed to be my co-author for all the editions of that book.
 

In late 1980s, Russia was changing rapidly. I was afraid to listen to the news each morning because it meant we had to change already existing chapters. Carefully selected materials about the Warsaw Pact and COMECON, for example. suddenly became useless. After the first edition came out, my students complained that my book sounded as if it was from the previous century. Thus, we had to write the Second, Third, and Fourth Editions of Political Russian.
 

In 1999, when Vladimir Putin replaced President Yeltsin, I began to recognize the Russia I knew. It was bad for Russia but good for someone who was trying to keep abreast of the changes. Starting with the Fifth Edition, events in Russia slowed and the political climate becoming more authoritarian.
 

In the Sixth Edition, we tried to liven the materials, which unfortunately brought complaints from students and teachers that Part 1 of the book had became too difficult for students who had only covered the beginning level. That is why we decided to prepare the Seventh Edition. Meanwhile, in mid-1990s, I wrote three other textbooks. Years of Change: Reading the Soviet Press, showed the exciting changes that were taking place in Russia, and Scientific Russian written with Marina Rappoport, was designed for students who wished to learn to read a wide
variety of scientific literature. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russian science began to fade and so did interest in this wonderful book. After the failed coup of 1991, I had to quickly produce the Second Edition of Years of Change. The third textbook, On the Air: Russian Television and Politics, focused on aural comprehension, I co-authored with Richard Robin and Ludmila Guslistov.
 

Today, all my textbooks, with the exception of the Seventh Edition of Political Russian, are out of print. If you want to buy the latest edition of Political Russian, please don’t rely on Amazon.com. They tend to send an incorrect edition and charge more than the publishing house. Instead, call the publisher, Kendall Hunt, at 1-800-338-8290 or 800-228 0810 to order the book.