Russian for beginners А1. Русский язык
A1

This question is for r/Russian.

I've checked coursera and edx and found few free courses, like this and this.

During the pandemic I used Coursera it’s free to make an account and there are different classes you can take. I’ve chosen Russian A1 (after alphabet) as the link. It says it’s 66$ a month but if you complete it within 3 or 7 days and cancel the membership, it’s free. Saint Petersburg State University is providing it through Coursera.

-the way it works is you have to complete a test each term, failing the test 2 times locks you out for 24 or 12 hours I can’t remember. This is how they get you.

There is no way other than just speaking with people, interacting in Russian only which will improve your speech...!! Although there are online courses of Russian that you can use for practicing (i.e., exercises). One Specialization I recommend is on Coursera: Russian for beginners and the one succeeding this is: Русский как Иностранный.

Good Luck!!

> but their Russian program costs $46,000 and that's a bit on the high end of things for me.

46,000 rubles maybe? I googled the program of Saint-Petersburg state university, it costs 40,000 rubles (~$135) for 4 weeks module: https://english.spbu.ru/education/russian-language.

Also, the main problem of current university education is that a lot of courses take place online nowadays due to covid. In this case there is no reason for arrival in Russia, you can just use coursera, for example https://www.coursera.org/specializations/russian-for-beginners-a1. And if you want language immersion, you also can play Counter Strike, lol.

If I were you, I'd look for a program only with offline classes. But you know, covid and so on. If a new epidemy is, they'll definitely get back to online classes.