Russian New Testament ‘Way to New Life’ – NRT translation

Новый Завет «Путь к новой жизни» на русском языке - перевод НРТ - 'Way to New Life' New Testament in Russian - NRT translation

This is a slimline paperback edition of the New Testament in the Russian language.  It has an attractive gloss cover of a green landscape with the title in white on the front cover.  The dimensions are 17.6 cm high x 11.4 cm wide x 0.7 cm thick.  It is published by the Bible League in Moscow.

At the beginning, this edition has helpful notes about the message of the New Testament, and key verses.  At the end there are two maps, verses for different situations, two Psalms, and various notes.

This 'Way to New Life' Russian New Testament is in the NRT - New Russian Translation - НРТ Новый русский перевод.  It was published in 2007, completing a translation process begun in 1994. The translators aim was to use a relatively informal moden language style that is understandable to today's reader, while remaining faithful to the original texts.  The New Testament book order of the Synodal translation of 1820 is so familiar to Russian speakers that the NRT follows this order also.  Hence the General Epistles appear after Acts and before Romans.

Ukrainian is the native language of 68% of Ukrainians, and Russian is the native language of 30%.  But Ukrainian is the language of education.  So Russian speakers can all understand Ukrainian, and many Ukrainian speakers also understand Russian.  When a Ukrainian and a Russian speaker meet, they can often each speak their mother tongue, and understand each other quite well.

82% of Ukrainians identify as Christian believers, so the Bible is important to them.  But of course they prefer to read the Bible in their own native language.  So I would advise asking whether they would prefer Ukrainian or Russian before offering them a Bible or New Testament.

Statistics from Wikipedia - click here for further details.