This manual is designed for foreign non-philologist students who learn Russian as a foreign language. The main purpose of this book is to help the foreign students to develop oral speech skills and to acquire skills of working with different kinds of texts. Students of the first and second certificate levels are the target group.The book presents scientific, business, journalistic, literary texts aimed at developing the skills of reading, retelling, writing business documents, summaries and essays, etc. The book is provided with the exercises to train and develop skills mentioned above.The book consists of nine chapters. Every chapter has the following headings: “New words for your dictionary”, “Nota bene,” ”Grammar”, “Let’s listen to a song”.