International Centre "GROSS" opens courses of Russian in Georgia

In the region of Kakheti (Eastern Georgia), the international centre for cultural, humanitarian and economic Georgian-Russian cooperation named "GROSS" has opened free courses for studying the Russian language. First groups have already been formed. The centre plans to open similar courses throughout the country.

In schools of Georgia, Russian is taught as a foreign language starting from the 7^th or 10^th form.

"The group consisting of primary school pupils consists of 15 children, who know completely nothing in Russian. Another group has 14 senior pupils; they hardly know anything of the Russian language. I think parents want their children to learn Russian; however, the kids themselves see English as the top priority," Tamara Zveriashvili, a teacher at the courses, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The problem of studying Russian has affected not only the regional residents, but also the people in the capital.

"I want my child to be trilingual, speaking Georgian, Russian and English. Course, it would be better if she goes to the Georgian school, but then she'll start studying Russian in senior classes. While oral Russian is good in my daughter, because we're a Russian-speaking family; however, she'll not be taught to read and write properly at school," complains Anna.