The original RAILS: Russian Advanced Interactive Listening Series Project was funded by a 3-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education International Research and Studies Program in 2003-6. The project developed a series of 30 online, interactive video-based listening comprehension lessons for intermediate-advanced level students of Russian.
The original RAILS lessons are based on excerpts from the films Solovky Power and Children of Ivan Kuzmich by Marina Goldovskaya, and on original, videotaped interviews with prominent Russians such as Irina Khakamada, Sergei Khrushchev, and Veniamin Smekhov.
The original RAILS project was directed by Benjamin Rifkin, now at Fairleigh Dickinson University. In 2021-22, the RAILS lessons were updated in 2021-22 by Shannon Donnally Quinn, Michigan State University, with University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students Lidia Gault and Isabella Palange. Karen Evans-Romaine (UW-Madison), Dianna Murphy (UW-Madison), Benjamin Rifkin (Fairleigh Dickinson University), Victoria Thorstensson (Carleton College), and Anna Tumarkin (UW-Madison) consulted on the updates.
Support for the updates to the original RAILS lessons was from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Russian Flagship Program.
New RAILS lesson focused on Kazakh history and culture!
New RAILS lessons, focused on Kazakh history and culture, are based on a lecture by Dr. Alima Bissenova, assistant professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Nazarbayev University; and an interview with Aigerim Kapar, interdependent curator, cultural activist, and initiator of the Artcom Platform and Art Collider School
Additional lessons for this new series are under development.