Until 1917, Russian was the only official language of Russia, but during the Soviet union of socialist republics, each member republic had its own official language, and Russian became the language of Russia as a whole. After the upheavals in eastern Europe in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet union in 1991, independent countries had reversed the dominance of Russian by encouraging their own mother tongues, but its role as a communicator between most of eastern Europe and central Asia remained unchanged.

      Latvia has more than a third of its russian-speaking population, mainly from immigrants from pre-world war ii Russia and the Soviet union. The use of Russian in the classroom is still debated. In Estonia, soviet-era immigrants and their descendants make up about a quarter of the country's current population.

      In Lithuania, the russian-speaking population represents less than one tenth of the total population of the country. However, about 80 per cent of the population of the Baltic states can speak basic Russian. Finland, once part of Russia, still has several russian-speaking communities.

      In the 20th century, Russian was widely used in schools belonging to the Warsaw pact, including Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Albania. However, the younger generation is usually not fluent because Russian is no longer used in school. In addition, due to the influence of the Soviet union, some Asian countries, such as Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Mongolia, still teach Russian. In several Afghan tribes, Russian is still used as a lingua franca.

      Norwegian Russian is a mixture of Russian and Norwegian.

      In Israel, at least 750,000 Soviet jewish immigrants use Russian (1999 census). Russian is also frequently used in Israeli news, websites and publications.

      In North America, there are russian-speaking communities, especially in urban areas of the United States and Canada such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Miami, Chicago, and suburban Richmond heights in Cleveland. The russian-speaking population of New York and Los Angeles is estimated at 500,000. Live in Russian areas (especially immigration since the 1960s).

      According to the 2000 population survey of the United States, Russian is spoken by 1.50% of the population in the United States, or about 4.2 million people, ranking tenth in the American language.

      From the beginning of the 20th century, there were also a few russian-speaking immigrants in Europe. In Germany (the former German nation was exiled by the Soviet union to Siberia immigrants), Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Greece and Turkey and other countries. But they almost gave up Russian because they had to pass an immigrant country language test to integrate. [

      In China, due to the cold war in the former Soviet union, Russian was widely used as the first foreign language for many people to learn. At present, Russian speakers in China are mainly distributed in yili, tacheng and altay regions of xinjiang uygur autonomous region, as well as manzhouli and erguna of hulunbuir city of Inner Mongolia autonomous region and other places where russians gather, and use Russian.

      Russian is spoken as a mother tongue by more than 140 million people worldwide and as a second language by nearly 45 million.

      Russian is the official language of Russia and the "transdniester river republic", "south ossetia" and "abkhazia" which are not recognized internationally.

      Russian in Russia (78%), in addition to ethnic russians in belarus accounted for 10%, 22%, in kazakhstan in Ukraine accounted for 17%, 7.8% in kyrgyzstan, 6% in moldova, in azerbaijan accounted for 2%, 1.5% in Georgia, in Armenia, and tajikistan accounted for less than 1%, but teaching students in Russian in Russia accounted for 97%, 75% in belarus, in kazakhstan accounted for 41%, 25% in Ukraine, in kyrgyzstan accounted for 21%, 7% in moldova, in azerbaijan accounted for 7%, 5% in Georgia, In Armenia and tajikistan it is 2%.

      Russian has a wide vocabulary, with the oldest words inherited from the original indo-european language. Words produced during the period of primitive Slavic and east Slavic languages; A word produced since the independent development of Russian in the 14th century. In addition, Russian has borrowed many foreign words in various historical periods. Russian science and technology in the field of loanwords, in the early 18th century to borrow more from German, the 19th century to borrow more from French, after the mid-20th century to borrow more from English, mainly American English. Since the 1950s, the international use of Russian has expanded significantly, due to Soviet relations.