BOSTON – Karina Gritsenko could have gone to college in a lot of U.S. cities. The fast-talking, articulate senior from New Jersey is headed to medical school next year, but for her undergraduate studies she chose a school in the Boston area.

"One of the reasons I chose Brandeis [University] was because of the Russian community here," said Gritsenko, explaining that the large Russian-speaking population both on the Brandeis campus and in Boston enriches the academic experience for students of Russian.

"It's not just a textbook," she said. "This is a living experience."

Gritsenko is one of thousands of students enrolled in undergraduate and postgraduate Russian programs at the area's outposts of higher learning – Brandeis, Harvard, Boston and Tufts universities, Boston College and the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

The schools' expansive selection of language, literature, politics and history courses has produced Russian teachers, researchers, linguists, diplomats and likely some spies.

Studying Russian also provides cultural enrichment for students like Gritsenko, who was born the day after her Ukrainian parents arrived in the United States and grew up speaking the language.

"A lot of people of Russian background will continue studying Russian in college," she said.

Boston and the surrounding area are ideal for those studies, with a local immigrant population of up to 50,000 Russian speakers. From Out of Town News, a Harvard Square newsstand that carries dusty copies of Izvestia and Argumenty i Fakty, to the Russian restaurants, delis and bookstores of Brookline Village and Allston, students have ample off-campus opportunities to immerse themselves in the culture.

"What [native Russian speakers in Boston] have provided is the cultural context and semi-immersion experience to complement academics in Russian studies," said Cynthia Simmons, chair of the Slavic and Eastern Languages Department at Boston College.

Of course, there are other prestigious universities in the United States that offer Russian programs, including Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Michigan, California (Berkeley) and Stanford. But Simmons believes none of them is "quite like Boston, where there are so many vibrant undergrad programs in Slavic studies."

Carol Saivetz, executive director of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, also gives Boston schools high marks.

"They all offer Russian language and literature, as well as discipline-based programs where a student may well focus on Russia or Eastern Europe," she said.

Russian studies blossomed as a discipline in the United States after World War II, but academics note that student interest in the discipline ebbs and swells with political and economic developments.

"[Enrollment] numbers have dropped since the fall of the Soviet Union in '91," said Simmons. "Students generally don't see the usefulness of studying a country that is in seeming chaos – therefore no business ties – but not a direct threat."

The downward trend is similar at Harvard, where the registrar's office Web site lists 143 students enrolled in 18 Russian language and culture courses, compared with 1,692 students in 83 English classes.

Andrew Swensen, a professor of Russian literature at Brandeis, said Americans are less focused on Russia today because "it is no longer seen as the great enemy." But that does not mean the country is irrelevant, he added.

"Russia is a big country with a long history of creativity and productivity," Swensen said. "It will continue to be creative and productive, and we will miss something if we do not continue to educate people to maintain a strong relationship between the two nations."

Simmons said Russian faculty positions at Boston College have been "steadily decreasing," but she agreed that the study of Russia remains a necessary enterprise.

"Today, the Russian Federation is too huge and rich in natural resources not to be a player in some way again. Hopefully, it will be as a business partner. God forbid, Russia will present a security threat again," she said.

Paola Martino, a Harvard program coordinator, contends there has always been a strong scholarly interest in Russia and its neighbors, regardless of open hostilities or burgeoning friendship.

"We have always had a relationship with Russia – just not a cooperative one during the Cold War years," she said, noting that enrollment in Harvard's Russian courses has remained consistent over the past five years.

William Mills Todd III, a former chairman of Harvard's Slavic languages department, said the tone of scholarly scrutiny has changed since the days when Ronald Reagan branded the Soviet Union the Evil Empire. "The academic focus on Russia is now more sociological, anthropological, economic and micropolitical than it was during the Cold War," he said.

Boston offers some of the best facilities for both undergraduate and postgraduate work in the field, including Harvard's Davis Center for Russian Studies and the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy at Boston University. The 54-year-old Davis Center holds seminars on a variety of topics related to with the former Soviet Union and its satellites, from history and politics to language and literature. It also funds research at home and abroad by academics from Harvard and other institutions.

Most of the city's Russian-speaking immigrants arrived in during a Soviet exodus that began in 1972.

"It was an attractive area [to immigrate to] because of the presence of Russian Studies," said Gaylord Brynolfson, a lecturer in Russian studies at Tufts.

Saivetz, of the Slavic-studies association, said the relationship has become symbiotic.

"Certainly, Harvard and other places have benefited from some of the expertise that resides in that community," Saivetz said. "Some of the emigres wind up being the language teachers at the colleges in the Boston area."

Todd agreed, saying, "The excellence of the programs may have attracted the Russian-speaking population, but it takes an active part in our activities and its presence helps us to recruit scholars and students."

Regardless of how the programs are organized or funded, all the scholars expect the study of Russia in Boston and elsewhere to continue.

"Russia remains one of the countries in the world where things that count – politically, economically, culturally, militarily – happen," Todd said.

It may also be that the land of Dostoevsky and Lenin remains a place of wonder for Westerners.

"Russian culture is fascinating," Simmons said, singling out Russian friendships and entertainment as sources of scholarly inspiration. "Then there is just the Russian joie de vivre."