Mir russkikh: The World of the Russians

Rating:
Summary: Beyond intermediate.
Review: I've taken 2 years of college Russian and consider myself fairly knowledgable, but this book is a bit beyond my abilities. The passages in the text are often crammed full of new vocab to learn and in between lessons is more grammer. The book does give you a huge insight to Russian culture, but it's not that great if you want to learn the language itself. I wish there was another text like the Nachalo series.

Rating:
Summary: Good content but A little hard to read
Review: My class is using this book for a third year Russian course. The book has a lot of great stories and exercises, but often it is difficult to read the book with the vast amount new vocabulary for a student to remember. The dictionary in the back does not have alot of basic words that the student may have forgotten since the second year of study. An additional dictionary is recommended. I often have to refer to my dictionary while doing homework. But I really learned a great deal about the Russian culture from the readings.