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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I majored in Russian at Princeton in the mid-90s, at the nadir of Russian influence. We had four people in my class in the department, which had eight tenured professors. I had never taken Russian before I went to Princeton, and I did nothing with it after school. Became a sports journalist and then a lawyer. [/quote]

Someone does not know what 'nadir' means.[/quote]
It seems more the case that you would benefit from studying the history of this period, particularly that of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.[/quote]

The collapse of the Soviet Union and rise of Russian emigrants indeed created a deep need for Russian speakers.  How could you possibly not know this?[/quote]

NP.  The Russian/Ukrainian emigre and expat community is really sufficient to supply all needs that are not intelligence/security related.  It's similar to Chinese in that respect.  If you just want to do business you can always find a bilingual local or hyphenated-American.  It's the rare person who doesn't have a family background who excels in difficult foreign languages.

[b]And these days if you would be connected to intelligence, it would even further reduce your chances of safely visiting, working, making friends with locals, etc.[/b]

I believe that people should study what they are interested in, but I agree this is not a field where you can expect a free-flowing job market and easy job finding. That makes it more of a passion major.[/quote]

You know that people working within the IC on Russian-related projects do most of their work here in the U.S., right?  [/quote]

PP.  Yes, I do.  I'm the spouse of a previous poster on this thread who majored in Russian.  I also studied Russian at an elementary level and worked there for a summer.   My spouse and I considered and rejected several employment possibilities involving intelligence services and security clearances during our early 20s.  We wanted to be able to freely make friends and travel and experience the culture as ordinary observers.  We are patriotic enough but not sufficiently motivated by national security concerns.  Anyway, this was long ago.  I very much regret the re-repression of Russian intellectual life and the continued kleptocracy.  My current employer, like other multinationals, closed its business there when the war broke out.  I may never visit again and only half regret that.  Russia has squandered yet another opportunity to be a truly great power through their devastating attacks on their Ukrainian cousins.[/quote]

I never considered intelligence work either because I wanted to travel freely and live in Russia. That was the point of studying Russian for me.

I would like to be able to visit again sometime. That would mean the war is over, Ukraine is free, and Russia has become somewhat normal again.

I'm sure I will be far more likely to visit Ukraine.
 [/quote]

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