Is there anyone speak Russian?

Russia is the largest country in the world!
I know there are more than 30 languages spoken in Russia,
but in this topic, let's just focus on "Russian language" itself.

Since, Russia is so huge, there must be some dialects and variations
in Russian language.
China is also huge and there are many dialects and variation in Chinese language. Sometimes they are even classified as different languages.

So my questions are below:
1. How different between Western Russian(Moscow) and Eastern Russian(Vladivostok)?
Are they mutually intelligible? Or are they totally different?

2. Which language is closest to Russian language?
Is it Ukranian or Belarussian?

3. Do people from former Soviet Union(e.g. Kazakhs, Estonians, Uzbeks...) generally speak Russian well?

Please answer my questions as far as you know.
(if you only can answer just one of my questions, that's fine. go ahead!)

Official status

Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Gagauzia.


3. Do people from former Soviet Union(e.g. Kazakhs, Estonians, Uzbeks...) generally speak Russian well?


Baltic Russians live mainly in cities.

In Lithuanian capital Vilnius they make up 14.43% of the population, in Lithuania's third largest city Klaipėda 21.65% of inhabitants are Russians. Other cities of Lithuania (including second-largest city Kaunas) has a smaller percentage of Russian population, while in most towns and villages there are very few Russians (with the exception of Visaginas town). 6.3% of Lithuania's population are ethnic Russians.

Russians make up almost a half of the population of Riga, the capital of Latvia. In the second largest city Daugavpils, Russians make a majority of population. Today about 29% of Latvia's population are ethnic Russians.

In Estonia, most live in Tallinn (36.86% of city's population are Russians) and the major eastern cities of Narva (86.41% of inhabitants are Russians) and Kohtla-Järve (69.68% of inhabitants are Russians). Overall, Russians make up 25.78% of Estonia's population (35.45% of the urban population and 5.90% of the rural population).



According to the 1999 census there are two dominant ethnical groups in Kazakhstan, they are ethnic Kazakhs (53.4%) and ethnic Russians (30%)

In Ukraine
Ukrainian 77.8%, Russian 17.3%

Russia: 115,889,000 (2002 census)[1]

Ukraine: 8,334,000 (2001 census) [2]
Kazakhstan: 4,480,000 (1999 census)[3]
Belarus: 1,142,000 (1999)[4]
USA: 750,000 (2000)[5]
Latvia: 685,000 (2002)[6]
Uzbekistan: 620,000 (2005) [7]
Kyrgyzstan: 604,000 (1999) [8]
Estonia: 352,000 (2000) [9]
Lithuania: 220,000 (2001)[10]
Moldova: 202,000 (2004)[11]
Brazil: 200,000 (2003)[12]
Germany: 178,600 (2003)[13]
Canada: 158,850[14]
Azerbaijan: 144,000[15]
Turkmenistan: 142,000[16]
France: 115,000 [citation needed]
United Kingdom: 100,000 [citation needed]
Tajikistan: (2000)[17]
Georgia: 67,671 (2002 census)[18]
Australia: 60,200[19]
Romania: 30,000[20]
Finland: 20,000[21]
China: 15,600 (2000 census)[22]
Armenia: 14,660 (2002 census) [23]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/Russians_ethnic_94.jpg

and why is it called belarussian?(White russians)
I think because they have not mixed with tatars
So BELARUSSIAN should be the ORIGINAL RUSSIAN LANGUAGE.

I speak Russian:)

>>So my questions are below:
>>1. How different between Western Russian(Moscow) and Eastern >>Russian(Vladivostok)?
there's no ANY difference, Russian language has NO dialects.

>>Are they mutually intelligible? Or are they totally different?
Russian language is the same anywhere on this planet.

>>2. Which language is closest to Russian language?
>>Is it Ukranian or Belarussian?
Belorussian is the closest one, but as 90% of Belorus population don't speak it, including their president, I'd call Ukrainian the closest as at least this is really used language, it's official one and it is spoken and used in Ukraine, though not by all people. East and south of the country speaks Russian, while Western regions tend to speak Ukrainian or another local dialects.

>>3. Do people from former Soviet Union(e.g. Kazakhs, Estonians, >>Uzbeks...) generally speak Russian well?
Yes, they speak it quite well, in Kazakhstan they even don't speak Kazakh probably except "nationalists", Baltic countries are very anti-Russian now, I mean policy of these countries and local languages are promoted very well, so probably native Balts don't really speak Russian or pretend that they don't know it, but as reality shows they still know it and learn ;)

<there's no ANY difference, Russian language has NO dialects.>
<Russian language is the same anywhere on this planet.>

Really? Not even a minor difference at all? How could that possible in such a huge country?
It's very odd that Russian language does not have any dialects.

Minor differences? At south people speak with "ukrainian accent" (regions which have border with Ukraine), they can't pronounce Г (as "G" in german gern) and inspite of it they say something like "H" like in Czech, difficult to explain this sound, but it's not English or German "H".

In some villages on the north, they pronouce all letters O like O, all other people pronounce O like O only when it is stressed in all other cases, it's "shwa" or "a".

But this is really VERY "minor", coz it doesn't affect the ability to understand each other at all, just funny sometimes.

I have no idea why there are no any dialects but this is VERY good for such big country, we are united :)

it is called "totalitarian unification"....

It 's very interesting russian in siberia not to have altaic influence...