page_title: Suniti Ashok Deshpande
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Suniti Ashok Deshpande / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Medal of Pushkin, Russia Русский: Медаль Пушкина
context_page_description: Suniti Ashok Deshpande, was an Indian educator, writer, translator and interpreter, best known for her work on spreading the Russian language and culture in India.
  Deshpande was the first teacher of the Russian language at Russian Cultural and Science Center in Mumbai and the first Indian to obtain a doctorate in Russian from the Pushkin Institute in Moscow. She wrote the first Russian textbook in India. In July 2007, she was awarded the Medal of Pushkin by President Vladimir V. Putin on behalf of the Russian Federation for Lifetime Contribution to Russian Literature.
context_section_description: Deshpande began working at the Russian Cultural and Science Centre in Mumbai in 1988. She became a senior lecturer and the Head of the Russian Language Institute at the Centre. Over the course of nearly three decades, she taught Russian to students at the center, staff of India's defense, scientific and diplomatic communities, and traveled to speak about her work.
  In 1995, she wrote "Russian Made Easier", the first Russian textbook in India, which was approved and prescribed by many colleges and universities across India. She was the first teacher of the Russian language in Mumbai.
  From 1990 to 2015, Deshpande published more than four hundred Marathi and English translations of Russian classics such as Pushkin, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Blok, Yesenin, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Pasternak, Brodsky and Mayakovsky.
  Deshpande wrote 8 books and over 400 short stories, essays and articles. She regularly wrote for popular Marathi publications such as Saamana, Loksatta, Maharashtra Times, Sakal, Dharma Yug and many others, including their special Diwali festival editions, developing a loyal readership with her rich, lucid and entertaining writing style. She also delivered lectures and gave voice-over to documentaries and commercials.
caption: Medal of Pushkin
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