The architect and builder of this interactive course is Slava Paperno. Many friends and colleagues have contributed their extraordinary expertise.

Sophia Lubensky and Irina Odintsova, the authors of the book of the same title, selected the stories and most of the excerpts from films, television broadcasts, and home videos in this course.

Linguistic and cultural notes for three of the principal texts were written by Sophia Lubensky. The rest of the notes were created in close collaboration with her.

Sophia Lubensky has also made a significant editorial contribution to the creation of the unique Guided Reading section in this course.

Richard L. Leed, one of the authors of The Russian Dictionary Tree included in this course, edited the five thousand entries that were added to The Tree by Slava Paperno for this publication; suggestions and comments generously offered by Sophia Lubensky in 2006-2007 have considerably improved many entries. Richard L. Leed also edited all of the English notes, comments, directions, and other texts in the course. Detailed credits for the lexicography work are provided in section About The Russian Dictionary Tree.

For this publication, Timothy D. Sergay wrote translations in prose of the numerous songs and poems included in this course.

All videos were transcribed by Anastasiya Vanyakina.

This course features highly professional performances by Igor Afanasyev, Snezhana Chernova, Garii Chernyakhovsky, Roustem Galitch, Dmitry Huhlaev, Vadim Krol, Elena Ouspenskaia, and Elena Solovey, staged specifically for this publication. Vladimir Pakhomov performed several songs, and Lora Paperno and Paulina Shur recorded two poems for this project. Dina Rubina's inimitable reading of her story at a concert is also proudly featured.

Photographers Mark Serman and Nina Alovert kindly agreed to have their excellent work featured in this publication.

We are grateful for being allowed by the artists and their estates to include in this course the first-rate performances by Veronika Dolina, Aleksandr Galich, Yuri Vizbor, Vladimir Vysotsky, and Katya Yarovaya. Larry Pismenny kindly contributed excerpts from his documentary "Moj sosed Seryozha Dovlatov."

The creators of Advanced Russian: From Reading to Speaking are grateful to the authors and copyright owners of the included short stories, songs, photographs, feature films, and other materials—ranging from such web sites as www.krugosvet.ru and www.bards.ru to home videos and to such polished productions as Pyotr Shteyn's TV film «Сквозная линия» and Dominique Rabourdin's documentary Vivre et ecrire en Russie—for their permission to use their valuable work in this publication. Their generous contribution will be appreciated by generations of learners of the Russian language and culture. Special thanks go to the people who helped us in many ways in the process of selecting, finding, and obtaining copies of these materials and permissions for their use: Elena Dovlatova, Alyona Aleksandrovna Galich, Valeria Korennaya, Mark Kuznetsov, Vera Raskin, Ellendea Teasley, Nina Filimonovna Tikhonova, Ludmila Ulitskaya, Nikita Vladimirovich Vysotsky, Cori Weiner, Tatyana Yamrom, and Elena Yarovaya.

The project was funded by a grant from the United States Department of Education and supported by the University at Albany (State University of New York) and Cornell University.

All filming, video and audio editing, and programming was done by Slava Paperno, and he alone is responsible for any undetected inaccuracies in this work.