The “Ana Tele” Project Returns with a New Design
Former employees of EF Education First, who launched the project in 2014, took part in redesigning the online Tatar language school.
The oldest online program for learning the Tatar language, “Ana Tele,” has returned with a new design but with educational material from 12 years ago. What were the 123 million rubles spent on? It seems mostly on transferring the proven content to a St. Petersburg educational platform. Want to remember what the Tatar world looked like in 2014?
How “Ana Tele” Was Launched and Closed
The “Ana Tele” project was launched in 2013 by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan (RT), Kazan Federal University (KFU), and the company EF Education First, following the directive of the President of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov.
The website was launched on February 4, 2014. It included 9 levels, 288 videos, 10,950 audio files, 6,795 graphics, about a thousand assignments, and 72 topics. For example, at the highest level in the old version, users had to study the world of plants. In the evening, there was a chance to communicate with a teacher during virtual lessons.
In autumn 2020, users of the online school were informed that conversational lessons would be temporarily suspended. English First moved out of their office on Baumana Street into the “Rodina” shopping center, fully switched to an online format, and left Russia.
Even before the first platform shutdown, several educational organizations had received requests from the Ministry of Education of RT to create a new electronic platform.
On July 1, 2023, “Ana Tele” closed. The search for new, alternative courses continued.
The old site looked like this. Some alternatives were well-known, such as the “Polyglot” project by Dmitry Petrov, brought to Tatarstan by Eduard Khairullin, Deputy Head of the Republican Agency for Press and Mass Communications “Tatmedia.” For example, Dmitry Petrov taught Sergey Ivanov, head of the Kazan Committee for Foreign Relations and Tourism, in phone format. Support for the “Polyglot 16. Tatar” app stopped in May 2024.
For republican schools, the “Sәlam!” project was developed — including textbooks and a platform. Notably, the informational resource still opens today.
This year, Alexey Arzamazov, head of the Laboratory of Multifactor Humanitarian Analysis and Cognitive Philology at the Kazan Scientific Center of RAS, mentioned that at RUDN University, where he teaches, a digital interactive platform to teach Tatar is being developed.
Visit the site and remember your youth.
“Ana Tele” came back from oblivion in early August. Now it operates on Yandex servers. The republic's budget allocated 123 million rubles for its operation.
“Content has been improved to meet modern requirements, the interface updated, a mobile version developed, and registration and operation via ESIA added. This work was done by Progress LLC, which signed a contract in August last year,” announced the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan, the rights holder of the online school.
Upon visiting the site, users must register (now possible through “Gosuslugi”) and then specify their phone number, profession, education, and place of residence.
Testing is done, so to speak, on trust — if a person considers their speech excellent, they can start right from level 9. Of course, other levels can be opened as well. At level 9, conversation revolves around the Tatar world and international relations.
Although the website has a mobile version and a different design, it is clear that the content is old, collected many years ago. The splash screens seem AI-enhanced, and some new ones appear to be AI-generated. For example, there is a photo of Tabris Yarullin, then head of the World Forum of Tatar Youth. Diving into the videos, one can see old broadcasts “Tatars” on TNV or a then-new actress of the Kamal Theater, Laysan Faizullina. Or watch a young singer Ilgiz Shaykhraziev still clean-shaven. The lesson “Language connects people” features the late actor Rinat Tazetdinov.
Old friends
If you set aside the videos, you notice that even the questions belong to a bygone era, although geopolitical relations have changed, and people have left their positions. The site needs fact-checking.
Ultimately, visitors get the sense of cosmetic repairs akin to a “Khrushchyovka,” if not a “Brezhnevka.” The site operates in three languages, but the Tatar translations cause confusion: “In work” is translated as “Эштә,” “Description” as “Тасвирлау.” The grammar guide is also provided in three languages — but it's just a grammar explanation!
At some point, in small images, one tries to find something like “Vatandaşlar” (Citizens). After failing, attempts to find feedback forms are in vain — there is none. Nothing at all in the promising section “Classes with teacher.”
Progress LLC is a St. Petersburg company. Its history began in 1989. In 1992, Denis’ School was established. “Progress” is the digital competence center of the educational holding DS Corporate. The company owns the JetClass platform, which was used to update “Ana Tele.”
Our sources say that the Ministry of Digital Development of RT initially handled the platform’s update and even gathered developers for brainstorming at the turn of 2023–2024. Skyeng, still operating in Russia, was cited as an example. Local developers had ideas.
“We asked for too little money,” said one participant. “We were told it was not serious.”
One of DS Corporate’s managers, Eduard Baldakov, has worked at the company since 2022. In 2012, he opened the first international EF English First center in Kazan as General Director of EF Corporate Language Learning Solutions in Russia and the CIS. He also helped develop “Ana Tele.”
Ultimately, instead of a new online school by new developers, we got a new design from a proven team. The hope remains that the site will see further improvements.