This is something that I've often wondered. Living in the U.S, depending on the area in which you live, it is not uncommon for you to hear people speaking in non-English language. Most often, this language is Spanish.

Now, Russia is quite a culturally diverse nation, especially when we consider the Turkic peoples (I've heard that the Tatar population is the dominant minority in Russia), as well as people from the Caucasus/Georgia region. Now, I've heard that most of these people speak Russian, as it is mandatory in school. My friend from Kazakhstan says that overall she speaks Russian more than Kazakh - except in situations where someone starts a conversation with her in Kazakh - in those situations, she continues the conversation in Kazakh out of respect.

My question is, how often do you hear minority languages spoken in Russia - on the street, metro, etc? Now I know that when I say "Russia", that is vague...but I don't mean so much places like Kazan' or Ufa, I mean the places that students typically go to when they study abroad (St. Petersburg, Moscow - the cities that are relatively "Westernized").