Learn Russian the Ivy way
Structured curriculum, deliberate practice, and articulate feedback — the discipline of a world-class education, wrapped in warmth.
How the Yale program took shape in Georgia
Before Smorodina, founder Anna Kondratenko organized the local side of Yale University’s Study Abroad in Georgia — so the Ivy experience here rests on a network she assembled herself.
Partner school
She found and connected Yale with Euro-2000 — there the program holds lectures, reporting concerts, and masterclasses.
Host families
She brought in the host families who have welcomed Yale students since 2023 — the same hospitality circle Smorodina students enter today.
Teachers
She gathered local instructors so language and culture courses could run with university-level care on Georgian ground.
Local guides
Culture beyond the classroom needs the right guides. Anna brought in a local team led by Vadim Ivanov — a guide who has led tours across Georgia since 2003 and worked with the Yale Study Abroad program from 2023 to 2025, designing routes where the country’s history unfolds in living places, not only in a textbook, and selecting guest houses he has partnered with for some 20 years. Smorodina students follow that same path: explore our excursions.
Three pillars of a Yale Study Abroad–informed experience
Full immersion
Since 2023, Yale University’s summer language school has run Study Abroad in Georgia with local host families and classes at Euro-2000. Smorodina partners with that school and works with the same families — so you enter the same hospitality circle and learning environment.
Ivy-informed rigor
Our founder spent three years teaching and coordinating inside Yale’s Study Abroad in Georgia — RFL and Culture courses shaped by Ivy standards of structure, deliberate practice, and articulate feedback. As an independent accredited school, Smorodina carries that discipline forward with more room for your pace, goals, and personal experience.
Rooted in Georgia
Everyone involved in the program is a local expert: coordinators, guides, teachers, and host families have both Georgian and Russian roots and connections — which makes their work highly effective on the ground, while still preserving strong language competence so our students can reach their desired level of Russian in a short time. Warm hospitality, stunning landscapes, and a vibrant international community — the perfect stage for growth.