Testimonials
Vlada is the consummate professional. Structured, patient (for mature beginners that is an important quality!) and empathetic. She has an eye for precision, and will not allow you the learner to escape with a casual approach to what is a sometimes demanding and specific language system. To make the learning enjoyable and relevant she integrates interesting and useful cultural information into lessons.
Learning to pronounce Russian words is always challenging for a beginner. Vlada has excellent diction and clarity of speech, so that you can master both the tone and pronunciation of words easily. You will be worked hard, but that is what is required to master Russian. For business people she also helpfully understands managing lessons around busy schedules; something many teachers are not interested in doing. I thoroughly commend her as a Russian teacher.
Steven Pritchard
Consultant, Birmingham
Learn Russian? That should be fun I thought. Initially, I only wanted conversational Russian, not thinking it would be necessary to read, write or understand the grammar. This, I was told was not the way to learn a language! How very true, I now realise!
Learning the Cyrillic alphabet and beginning to read and write in Russian within the first few weeks was incredibly satisfying. Learning should be, and is, fun, varied and rewarding.
To be a good language teacher requires many skills, not least of which is the mastery of two languages. Vlada’s depth of knowledge in both Russian and English is, I think, exceptional. Fifteen months and two visits to Russia later, I have never enjoyed it more!
Jonathan Quy,
London, Aged 42, Other language skills – none
Vlada is an exceptional teacher having not only an in depth knowledge of both English and of course Russian, but also remarkable communication skills which are so important for a teacher. Above all she has a great sensitivity for the particular needs of her students.
Verena Smith,
London
Having to learn Russian? I would definitely recommend Vlada. She is the best Russian teacher I’ve ever had, and I must confess, I tried several in my bank before meeting Vlada. I enjoyed the lessons so much that even when I moved job I decided to continue private tuitions with Vlada.
What I particularly liked in Vlada’s teaching is her way to simply make the Russian grammar understandable. For beginners, having lessons well structured is unvaluable, and I progressed quickly under Vlada’s teaching : she helped me prepare the GCSE in Russian and I got a A*! Vlada has always some more “home-made” homework to give you if you’re asking, and new interesting teaching material to use like Russian newspapers. What I also like with Vlada is her ability to give the history of some Russian words, which makes lessons more fun. Despite my mother tongue being French, I did not have any problem in learning in English, as Vlada excells in English, and knows Spanish and some French. Thanks Vlada !
Caroline Cerruti,
London
Vlada’s Russian is extremely effective and rewarding. Within ten minutes after she introduced me to my first Russian words, I was already learning basic conversation. With her keen ear for progress, she swiftly increased my Russian abilities over our six month course. She is a master of language learning and skillfully adapted our course to my goals, abilities and time restraints. Vlada is simply the most gifted language instructor I have encountered, constantly challenging my conversational skill, while supporting it with a solid and clear grammatical foundation.
Alexander Dean Lemke,
London, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
I could not have hoped for a better Russian teacher than Vlada. She combines the natural advantages of a native speaker with the skills of a trained linguist who understands her language through and through. In addition to this, she is an excellent pedagogue, anticipating my needs as a learner and providing an abundance of interesting material to meet them. She would always go above and beyond the call of duty in order to tailor the course to my particular interests, and to give help and guidance whenever I needed it, even outside our actual lesson time. As an individual pupil, I felt that Vlada really cared about my progress and was doing everything possible to further it. Her attitude is in all respects conscientious and professional.
Natasha Goldberg,
Student, London
I already know Russian quite well and have been interested in keeping it at a good level for many years. I have tried all types of Russian classes in and around London and I can say the tuition I received from Vlada was not only the most professional, but also the most fun and wide-ranging. I really experienced myself enjoying speaking Russian and re-found my love of the language.
Richard Hunt
London, 2008
I have been having lessons with Vlada for 2 years from August 2006 to August 2008 and have thoroughly enjoyed it! As most people will agree it is not easy to find a good teacher – Vlada’s optimism and exceptional knowledge of the history of both languages made it a great experience and I used to look forward to our weekly lessons.
I started as a beginner and can now hold a fluent conversation, write and feel comfortable when speaking to native Russian speakers which helped me a tremendous deal when working in our Moscow office.
I love studying languages and Russian was my 4th language to learn but I must admit Vlada was by far the best teacher I have ever had and I would gladly recommend her to anyone.
I have now taken up studying Greek but still struggling to find a good teacher, Vlada any chance of you moving to Cyprus?
Hana Beard
London – Cyprus, 2008
Vlada is an amazing teacher that has helped me get up to speed with the language within a short timeline.
She tailored the learning approach to my work schedule that involved a lot of travel abroad and long breaks between lessons.
I felt motivated from her teaching style and have been able to readily apply the knowledge learnt in the classroom.
Agis Petrovits
London – St Petersburg, 2009
I once was an English language teacher for the British Council in Finland, so I can comment on Vlada’s abilities with a degree of knowledge. She is an exceptional teacher by any standard and her seemingly effortless methods have given me, at least, the confidence to speak and to write with a degree of fluency I could only have achieved in such a remarkably short space of time by living in Russia.
Ian Jones
London, 2010
I cannot recommend Vlada warmly enough. Not just for help with navigating Russian grammar, but also for learning about Russian culture, history, literature, outlook and humour. Her lessons are highly tailored to the student’s interests – for example, if I mention something I have read or seen, that often forms the basis of the next lesson’s reading material. It helps that her English is excellent too.
Tatiana Kruse
Salans LLP, London, 2010
Vlada is an excellent Russian teacher. I’ve been having weekly lessons with her since January 2008. Vlada uses a variety of sources in her lessons – textbooks, newspaper articles, extracts from literature and sometimes we just alight on a topic of interest in the lesson and chat about that. This means her lessons are always fun, interesting and stimulating. Vlada is very encouraging and corrects mistakes gently, which is good for building confidence, especially with a complex, intricate language like Russian. I would definitely recommend Vlada as a teacher.
Sophie Palmer
London 2010
Just Russian was exactly what I needed to get a hang of the Russian language. My tutor was engaging, patient, very knowledgeable about the language and literature and kept my interest in the subject. I would recommend Just Russian to anyone studying the language.
John McRoberts
London 2010
As a large group of beginners and almost-beginners, we possessed varying basic understanding levels in terms of the Russian language. Vlada was a very patient teacher and was able to pace our group lessons so that everyone was able to pick up the basics and we were all then able to develop our language skills at a good pace. As the course progressed, we had leavers and new joiners, and Vlada coped very well with the challenges of introducing the new joiners to the course and integrating them into our group. Vlada was able to bring the language to life and encourage us to keep our weekly lessons going for over two years – I for one had tried many teach-yourself Russian language courses over the years and never been able to keep it going, but with Vlada’s help I kept up my motivation to learn the language over an extended period. I look forward to continuing the lessons with Vlada in the future.
Adrian Hoggarth
London 2010
Working for a Russian company I felt it was necessary to at least understand and be able to read basic Russian phrases and speak to our counterparts in Moscow. Just Russian gave a very clear and precise learning environment and was excellent in their approach to what I wanted to learn. They tailored the lessons in a way that was very practical to what I had requested and ensured that we not only learnt this difficult language but had fun along the way. Thoroughly recommended.
Chris Alexander
London 2010
As someone who had studied Russian for a number of years, I needed help to improve my level of conversation and put all that I had previously learnt into practical use. Just Russian provided me with a tutor (Tatiana), who did exactly that. My lessons were a good balance of conversation and written exercises, and my tutor’s friendly yet disciplined approach made my Russian lessons enjoyable and extremely fruitful.
Elisabetta Bianco
London 2010
Russian lessons with Vlada are a treat at the quality end of the market. She is a language teacher of consummate skill. Her grammatical explanations and help sheets stand out for their clarity. Vlada’s grasp of English language teaching makes her an excellent guide to the features of Russian most baffling to English learners. It is an enormous help to discover a teacher who is unafraid to teach Russian making full use of the student’s mother tongue and we have relished her English to Russian exercises which are a rarity in current language teaching.
Vlada is not simply a highly trained professional. She has the additional gift of tailoring her lessons to the interests, capabilities and needs of her individual students. In our case, Vlada laid a reassuring, firm foundation under our floundering, recreational Russian and found texts and exercises that held our interest or puzzled us enough to keep us engrossed.
We would recommend her kind and encouraging tuition to other leisure-time learners of Russian who are beginning to doubt their capabilities.
Christopher and Evelyn
London 2011