Besides a thorough grounding in the Russian language, students in the Russian major become conversant with the enormous wealth of Russian cultural heritage in literature, visual art, theater, and music. In particular, Russia has produced one of the world's most vibrant and exciting literary traditions--including the works of poets like Pushkin, Lermontov, Blok, and Akhmatova, and writers like Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. Despite the upheavals caused by the fall of communism, Russian literary culture remains vibrant today, and only a fraction of this fascinating contemporary work is available in translation.