Five students of Russian participated in the 17th annual National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest organized by the ACTR. Three of them, Jacob Fluech, Natali Hall and Yulia Batalina, won prizes.

Yulia Batalina, a junior in the Sam M. Walton College of Business and an advanced Russian heritage speaker, received a gold medal in the category of the heritage speakers. Jacob Fluech and Natali Hall, both fourth-semester students of Russian, received honorable mentions. Students competed with 1,415 participants from 79 universities, colleges and institutions across the nation. Students had to write an hour-long essay in Russian on the theme of "An Incident that Changed My Life" without using dictionaries or outside help. The essays were sent to Russia and were evaluated by three independent judges.

In addition to Russian, Jacob and Yulia are fluent in Spanish. Jacob, a senior in international studies, is also fluent in Arabic, and is currently a tutor in these three languages at the Class+ Center. Natali Hall, a sophomore in Walton College, currently studies at Moscow State University. She blogs about her Russian experiences here.

The Russian language program offers all levels of language classes, as well as an interdisciplinary Russian Jewish literature seminar in the spring. Russian program collaborates with the Jewish Studies program and the Department of History.

For more information on Jewish Studies, please contact professor Jennifer Hoyer at jhoyer@uark.edu.

Follow "Russian at the University of Arkansas" on our FB page: www.facebook.com/UArkRussian.

If you have any questions, please contact Nadja at nadezdab@uark.edu