You don't have to memorize all the stuff. In fact, that's the slowest and the most ineffective way of learning. Immersion helps in achieving greater results with less efforts. You don't have to come to Russia for this although that would be ideal. Just read unadopted books, watch movies with NO subtitles, read news, etc. The point is to place youself in a situation where your brain would be unable to rely on those little helpers like dictionaries or subtitles. Of course you won't be understanding much, but your brain will nevertheless memorize the word usage, idioms, word endings, etc. Later, you can take a dictionary and look for the parts you memorized. Also, try to write down unfamiliar words you hear in cyrillics without first looking for them. Try to guess at first what they mean and check if your guess is correct later. The whole purpose is to make your brain get used to the Russian environment without any help. Make it, force it to work. When you read - read aloud and don't try to automatically translate the text. Let it just flow. It doesn't matter if you don't understand. At first, try to guess the meaning from the context or simply continue reading and get back later. I know this helped me a lot when I learned English. In fact, it still helps.