The Russian language is an East Slavic language primarily spoken in Russia and several other countries of the former Soviet Union. It is the most widely spoken Slavic language and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which consists of 33 letters. With over 250 million speakers worldwide, Russian is known for its rich literary tradition, including famous authors like Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky. The language has a complex grammar system, featuring cases that change the form of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives based on their role in a sentence.