Learn Russian with Vladimir Putin (1/2)

Regardless of your opinion of Russia’s president, his public speeches can be useful material for learning Russian. He tends to speak clearly and in structured sentences that are not overly simple or limited – something not all political leaders manage, even in their native language. While the language can be challenging and is not ideal for beginners, subtitles and explanations are often available.

These videos can still be a valuable resource once you reach an intermediate level. Start learning Russian through real speeches and see how much you can understand.

Putin talks: from jokes to weapons

Several options are available, both in terms of channels and topics. As part of the Russian Listening Test (Playlist), Anastasia Semina (Russian with Anastasia) created Putin talks about his hobbies. Путин говорит о своих хобби (2017, 2 mins) and Vladimir Putin makes jokes at the press conference (2016, 3 mins).

Victoria Arysheva chose a heavier topic with Путин об ядерном вооружении (Putin on nuclear weapons, 2017, 5 mins). Learn Russian verbs with Putin. Russian for beginners (Russian Vibe, 2019, 6 mins) sounds promising, but there is very little Putin involved. Pay close attention, or you might miss him.

Three Putin speeches

Kristina Malidovskaya (Boost Your Russian) has used Putin multiple times for educational purposes and was not lazy about it. In the series Short Stories in Slow Russian, she presents a short biography (2019, 8 mins). Text is shown on screen (with stress marks) and read aloud (slowly).

1: New Year

2020 began optimistically. On December 31, 2019, Putin was already looking ahead to the celebration of the 75th Victory Day. He mentioned that мы живём в бурное, динамичное, противоречивое время (“we live in a turbulent, dynamic, and contradictory time”), but the year became much more turbulent than anticipated.

The same speech (with bilingual subtitles) can be found in a video by Elen Sheff: Новогоднее обращение Владимира Путина 2020 (русский с носителем, 2019, 4 mins).

2: Corona virus

On April 2, 2020, Putin delivered a speech of a different nature and tone — after having previously sent Russians on a week-long vacation (March 25). 

3: Victory Day

On May 9, the 75th Victory Day speech was delivered without much audience or parades.* Quite different from what was envisioned in the New Year’s speech. However, there were airplanes. See Russia swaps Victory Day parade for air show (BBC News) and Russia marks Victory Day with flypast as parades postponed due to coronavirus (The Telegraph). The full speech (53 mins) is available via Ruptly.

Also from Boost Your Russian is this Learn Russian with TV (slow Russian with subtitles) (January 2020, 16 mins) for more Russian learning with Vladimir Putin.

Follow-up: Learn Russian with Vladimir Putin (2)