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Lumifer comments on The most important meta-skill - Less Wrong
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Slavic languages divide into three groups which are fairly different: Eastern (e.g. Russian, Ukrainian), Western (e.g. Polish, Czech), and Southern (e.g. Bulgarian, Serbian). I suspect that a natural "bridge" language might work within a group, but not between groups.
If you are a tourist in Ukraine, knowing basics of Russian is useful, the kind that the OP refers to. If you want some business done, just speak English; there would be enough translators. If you need to read something written in Ukrainian, and it is sufficiently complex and your Russian is not very good, have it translated; and even if your Russian is that good, but not your first language, it will cost you a lot of nerves.
(Also, if you know Ukrainian more or less well, it can help significantly to accept Russian, Byelorussian, Polish and Czech. I am not saying you will automatically understand those languages, just that adapting to them should be easier with Ukrainian as the base.)