14ymedio, Madrid, 5 September 2023 — Ads to learn Russian are proliferating on the Island as relations between the two countries become closer. The most recent comes from the company Maximum Education, which offers free online courses for Cubans from September to December.
According to the report to 14ymedio via email, the project, called “Maximum. Govorim po-russki” (“Maximum. We speak Russian”), is funded by the Russian Ministry of Education. Its objective is to “teach Russian to foreign citizens residing abroad” (sic).
However, in an attached promotional document, the company indicates that the courses are aimed at residents of the CIS countries (the Commonwealth of Independent States: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan), Central and South Asia, Cuba, Latin America and Africa. It is also open, they clarify, to “immigrants residing in Russia interested in learning the language.”
Classes are taught online with a teacher and at different levels, from beginner to advanced, and even for those who want to take the Unified State Exam to access Russian universities
Classes are taught online with a teacher and at different levels, from beginner to advanced, and even for those who want to take the Unified State Exam to access Russian universities. Registration can be made through the Maximum website, which has a section in Spanish, until September 10.
The interactive platform they use is based, they explain, on the methodology of Maksimum Obrazovaniye, which has developed “courses of various formats and directions for more than 10 years” and which, since last year, “has also been implementing international educational projects.”
The truth is that the firm has a large entry in Russian on Wikipedia, where it is presented as a company that “operates in the market of educational technologies” and has become the third most important of its kind in the country. Its owners, the text says, are Russia Partners, CapMan, Skolkovo Ventures and Proobraz, and they employ 1,500 teachers.
According to the collaborative encyclopedia page, Maximum Education was founded in Moscow in 2013 by Mikhail Myagkov, who had worked for the American consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, and the international education company Kaplan. The name under which it is registered does not appear on Wikipedia: Umax LLC (Limited Liability Company).
According to the collaborative encyclopedia page, Maximum Education was founded in Moscow in 2013 by Mikhail Myagkov, who had worked for the American consulting firm Boston Consulting Group
This firm, according to a Russian commercial information page in English, receives funds from the Russian State University for the Humanities, the St. Petersburg State University, the Moscow State Pedagogical University, the Russian Technological University and the Moscow Institute of Energy Engineering.
The announcement of Maximum Education, in any case, joins the one made by Vladimir Shkunov, member of the Council of Experts of the Putin Government, last July, of a series of Russian classes for Cubans through the Educational Channel since November.
The Island’s authorities have not mentioned them and seem to be cautious about about their relationship with Russia. An example was the late pronouncement of the regime, this Monday, on the alleged dismantling of a human trafficking network that recruited Cubans residing in Russia and on the Island to join as mercenaries in the war against Ukraine.
Despite this, the harmony between the two countries – one in need of cash, the other in need of international allies after the invasion of Ukraine – is a fact at this point, as indicated by Putin’s praise of the “special relationship with the Isle of Liberty” in front of Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, to whom he promised more help for Cuba.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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