The Department of Russian, founded in 1950, and the first department of SISU, aims to train interpreters, translators and university teachers of Russian. Among its faculty members, 10 are professors and associate professors. About 30 foreign experts and teachers have worked for the department. The department offers both graduate (the only one in south west China) and undergraduate programmes. It has turned out more than 2000 three- to four-year programme students and over 20 graduate students, who have worked or are working in such departments as foreign affairs, trade and finance, aviation, institutions of higher learning, scientific research and tourism in China or in the Commonwealth of Independent states and the East European countries.
Of the courses offered by the department, the primary ones include Essential Russian, Advanced Russian, Audio-visual Course, Translation, Oral Russian, Reading, Writing, Business Russian and Computer Application.