English Lesson in Stalinabad [Dushanbe, Tajikistan], Lotte Jacobi Observing (?), November 27-December 25, 1932

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This photograph offers a look into education in the early 1930s. Here, both male and female students, young and old, are learning English in a classroom in Stalinabad. One man practices writing in English on a chalkboard while the other students watch and write in their own notebooks. One way that the Soviet Union education reforms provided the public with an expanded world-view was through foreign language learning. The number of students learning English increased over the following decades, with two-thirds of higher education students enrolled in English language courses by 1957.