Actually, number of Russians, who learn Chinese not so small. Usually students learn Chinese in univercities and do it so hard, that can't find time for net and chatting. I think they don't need practice in web, because they can meet Chinese friends in they hometowns, because there are many students from China are stydiing in every Russia, Belarus or Ukraina cities.

I will answer for myself only. For any language I need a cause to study. If I had some cause to learn Chinese, I would start to learn it right away. However, I don't have any reason to do it. At least right now. :) And maybe Chinese isn't that easy to learn? Anyway, I just don't have any reason and that's it. :) (And all Chinese I know wanna practise their English, so there's no one to speak Chinese with)

The main reason i guess is that chinese is of the most difficult langauges, i would like to learn it, but the right way to learn it is to go to china, as for me i cant do it for some reasons....and i think u are not quite right, because a lot of my friends studied chinese and now they use it at their job.

by the way, I am a russian speaker, and i am learning chinese, though i am just a begginer yet.

well, not very many but many people, russian also, learn chinese nowadays. Maybe it is not so popular as english, but it becames a very important language... Although, chinese seems difficult for many people, maybe, it is a reason for some of people not to learn Chinese and so you think not many russian ppl want to learn it.