Russian is the native language of approximately 150 million citizens of the Russian Federation. Sizeable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America and Western Europe. As a language of political importance, Russian is one of the official languages of the United Nations.
Modern Russian shares a large stock of the international vocabulary for politics, science, and technology. Russian is written using a modern version of the Cyrillic (кириллица) alphabet - an intuitive blend of familiar Roman and Greek letters.
Russian speakers have many opportunities to use their language and cultural skills in both the public and private sectors. Russian is an increasingly important language in business and trade as well as aerospace and computer engineering. In the public sector, speakers of Russian may work in non-governmental and governmental organizations, or as teachers in schools and universities
