Language competition for non-Russian speakers

Is it possible to speak Russian well? Everybody knows, that Russian language is hard to learn and that it is very hard to meet a non-Russian person who can brag about this kind of knowledge. However, nowadays more and more students are interested in learning Russian. Why? First of all, it is a quite widespread language. Russian is one of the official languages of the UN. Secondary, Russian culture attracts people from all over the world. From the Russian ballet to the Russian literature, from the art to the classic music. The unsurpassed character of these works of art attracts attention of foreigners. The third reason is the interest in making business in Russia and other spheres of cooperation with Russians. People`s Friendship University (RUDN University, Moscow) is famous for its international students. In 2015there were 6500 foreign students from 152 countries. Almost all of them get education in Russian language. They are not just linguists or diplomats. They are engineers, doctors, agriculturists…They know Russian so well that they even compete to each other in a special challenge held by Philology Department of Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. This year this competition was open for all the foreign students of Russia. The participants were 28 foreign students from different countries: China, Mongolia, Columbia, Vietnam, Ecuador etc. There were two parts of the competition: one for humanitarians, the other – for technicials. They wrote essays, made presentations in Russian, participated in discussions and even sang in Russian. So is it possible to know Russian? All the competitors showed their perfect knowledge in this language. Each participant will tell you, that Russian is a real challenge, but a challenge to come.