I tried to learn russian like 15 years ago and quickly gave up. IMO, it's quite hard to learn (except for other slavic people i guess) and you really have to put a lot of time into it, which i didn't have at the time (plus me being a dumbass and all). If only i'd known that 15 years later there would be Y&L! I'm sure it would have helped...
On a side note, you're an arabic native speaker. Did you have a look at Yulia's shoulder blades tattoo? Some say that it means "named by god", others that it doesn't mean anything. What's your take on it?