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does anyone know of a website where i can read simple russian stories?

Hi Tim! I’ll be surprised if somebody of native Russian speakers will help you because they don’t read SIMPLE stories. To learn English I try to use BBC.com or Euronews.com on both language: English and Russian. It’s useful. You can use one of popular news website Rambler.RU. Some stories here are shot so maybe they are simple. Good luck!

Hi Tim this is site http://tululu.ru were there are a lot of books, which you can read on-line. You should draw attention those categories Детская литература or Книги о любви, романы if it seems you difficult, You can try load some textbook for children on the link http://mirknig.com/index.php?do=gsearch&q=%D1%83%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B1%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%20%D1%87%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5

Russian tales usually have a lot of old language used in them, so it won't be easy for a beginner to read them. Maybe you should try this, it was one of my favourite books when I was a kid. Николай Носов - Приключения Незнайки и его друзей (Nikoláy Nósov - The adventures of Neznáyka and his friends). Neznayka is a boy who's name means "I don't know" (Я не знаю = I don't know):
http://lib.ru/NOSOW/nezn1.txt

PS: You can find many other Russian authors on this site, lot's of us use it to find some book on the internet.

This is a useful site as well
http://www.italki.com/knowledge/Contribution.htm?n=Useful%20sites%20for%20learning%20Russian