Перевести the slavonic written language came to rus from bulgaria in the 9th century. towards the end of this century the replacement of religious books in greek for those in the slavonic language began. between the 10th and 13th centuries russians developed a high civilization, which formed the foundation of the russian culture in the following centuries. during this period numerous cultural treasures were accumulated. the written works of the time show that the level of knowledge on most natural phenomena was as high as that of ancient greece. monasteries were cultural and educational centres. they had large libraries and well-equipped book-making shops, in which not only church manuscripts were 11 copied and translated but original books were written. today we can confidently say that ancient rus was a state of high culture and knowledge. 2. in pre-revolutionary russia there was a network of primary schools for common people. nevertheless illiteracy among common people was very high. well-off people taught their children in grammar schools, commercial schools or secondary schools teaching no classics. there were also schools for nobles only. entrance to those schools was limited. for example, at lycee where a.s. pushkin studied the number of pupils ranged from thirty to one hundred. only boys at the age of 10 or 12 from noble families of high rank were admitted and studied there for six years. they were taught many different subjects. the most important were russian literature, history, geography, mathematics, physics, logic, law, rhetoric and such foreign languages as french, english, german and latin. great attention was paid to different arts and physical training: riding, swimming, fencing and dancing. the aim of this school was to bring up intelligent people in the broad sense of the word. those who graduated from such educational institutions usually entered the service of their country to realize their abilities and knowledge to the benefit of their state. 3. the history of higher education in russia goes back to 1755 when the first university was founded in moscow on the initiative of m.v. lomonosov and in accordance with his plan. later, universities were opened in many other big cities of the country.