RUDN annually enrols students from over 160 countries and has joined several Moscow universities to offer training and qualifications in Swahili, a language that unites millions as an official language and a trusted lingua franca in East and Central Africa.
During the 2024–2025 academic year, RUDN launched a four-year Swahili–Russian translation and interpreting course in its professional conversion programme. It packs in a total of 1,500 learning hours, with 750 hours of in-class instruction. Full scholarships are available for RUDN’s most outstanding students. An interfaculty learning group brings together future engineers, tourism experts, humanities scholars and legal professionals.
The faculty boasts an international lineup. Russian professor Natalya Petrenko has earned acclaim as a translator and interpreter specialising in Swahili. She is also the visionary behind a set of tools designed specifically for translators working in this unique combination. Hailing from Kenya and a native Swahili speaker, Claire Amuhaya earned her PhD from RUDN and now shares her expertise by teaching Swahili and international relations at her alma mater.
To promote Swahili culture, encourage students to use Swahili beyond the classroom, and advance interinstitutional cooperation, RUDN holds an annual Swahili forum each April. In 2025, the forum brought together high-ranking representatives from four diplomatic missions – the Republic of Guinea, the Republic of Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania, and the Republic of Uganda – as well as researchers, university students, and schoolchildren.
During his inaugural address, RUDN Rector Oleg Yastrebov emphasised the university’s steadfast dedication to empowering a new generation of specialists in diverse fields with invaluable knowledge and skills in Swahili and translation and interpreting.
Addressing the attendees, distinguished diplomatic guest speakers Niankoye Haba, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Guinea and Semeni Nandonde, First Secretary of the Embassy of the United Republic of Tanzania, conveyed their support for RUDN’s efforts in fostering Swahili language learning and T&I training among Russian students.
Thomas Edwin Williams, President of the African Students Association at RUDN, encouraged attendees to deepen their understanding of African culture and languages within a contemporary, multipolar world.
The forum was enriched by touching multilingual performances from students and schoolchildren learning Swahili at Moscow-based universities and schools. The performers brought traditional Swahili cultural themes and funny everyday stories to life through dramatic fables and multilingual sketches, seamlessly translated between Swahili, English, and Russian, thus demonstrating the true essence of a contemporary multicultural university.
RUDN students from Swahili-speaking countries also contributed to the event with cultural displays and storytelling integrating Swahili, English and Russian.
Anastasia Atabekova (RUDN)
