The textbook is written for those who began learning Russian as a foreign language at the elementary (A1) level. The book teaches oral speech practice on the topics of everyday life, develops reading, listening and comprehension habits, as well as the ability to answer questions to the text. The learning material consists of two parts. The first part contains an introductory phonetical course, main rules of reading and writing, and grammar minimum necessary for A1 level. This part consists of twenty small lessons. Each lesson lasts 15-20 minutes at the most. The second part is devoted to conversational practice. It consists of ten lessons containing topics and communication situations to develop students’ oral speech skills. The textbook is provided with the Russian-English-French-German dictionary and comprehensive grammar tables.