This paper presents an overview of the Russian language, with a particular focus on the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, and points out the problems of the language’s reorientation of its lexical systems to handle modern management know-how in the context of transition towards market economy. By way of contrast, the author provides a brief commentary on the reorientation of Polish. The main conclusion amounts to a challenge to management educators, whose efforts to transfer western management know-how into a post-socialist frame of reference are hampered by the persistence of a most unusual form of language barrier.