The Russian alphabet that is currently used was officially established under Peter the Great. It originated from the Old Church Slavonic alphabet, also known as “Cyrillic”. This alphabet was redesigned in Bulgaria, after the original Glagolitic script devised from the two Macedonian monks from Solun – Kiril and Metodi. The Greek version, when Romanized, of these two names is Cyril and Methodius, and there is where “Cyrillic” gets its name. These monks also brought Christianity to the Slavs, including the Slavs of Great Moravia, and devised the Glagolitic script to be an alphabet – a written variant of the spoken sounds of the Slavic languages.

The alphabet that was deployed during Peter the Great’s reign was further simplified by removing certain letters, when a decree regarding the orthography of the Russian alphabet came into effect on October 10, 1918. The Russian alphabet that was used in the Soviet Union would consist of 32 letters. Aside from a few minor exceptions, each symbol typically represents one sound. Therefore the Russian alphabet can be considered one of the more “phonetic” alphabets compared to others.

The in depth level of phonetic quality in combination with Russian sounds having exact equivalents in the English language provide us with an easier path of learning the Russian phonetic system more thoroughly.