Each class lasts for eighty minutes, and there are only ten-mintue breaks between the classes, although lunch break lasts for twenty minutes. Every day classes begin at eight o'clock and are usually finished by two or four. Unlike in American, in Russia all the classes are divided into lectures and seminars. During lectures, the teacher is giving the material for the students, and he or she is the only one talking during the lecture. As I mentioned above, the educational system in Russia is very poor, so there are no updated textbooks for students' use.
Lectures are the main source of their studying material.
During seminars students discuss the material given to them in lectures, plus whatever they can find in additional sources such as books, magazines, TV, their own life experience, etc. It is possible that a group of students has one teacher for lectures and a different teacher for seminars even if it is the same course. In the U.S. educational system, there are usually three to four exams that are held in each course throughout the semester. In the Russian system, exams are held only twice a year, at the end of each semester. But this is not as good as an American student may imagine it is.