To navigate environments and describe exactly how people and objects move, Russian uses a variety of spatial prepositions. Let's look at four highly useful ones: вокруг, вдоль, сквозь, and навстречу. Because they express different types of spatial relationships, they demand different grammatical cases.
Вокруг and Вдоль (Genitive Case)
The prepositions вокруг (around) and вдоль (along) both require the noun that follows to be in the Genitive case.
Use вокруг when someone or something surrounds an object, or moves in a circle around it.
| We walked around the deep lake. | Мы гуляли вокруг глубокого озера. |
| The crowd stood around the famous actor. | Толпа стояла вокруг известного актёра. |
Use вдоль when moving or standing parallel to the length of something, like a highway or a fence.
| A large car is driving along the new highway. | Большая машина едет вдоль нового шоссе. |
| He walked along the high fence for a long time. | Он долго шёл вдоль высокого забора. |
Сквозь (Accusative Case)
The preposition сквозь translates to "through." It is specifically used when looking or passing through something dense, resistant, or enveloping — such as glass, heavy rain, or a thick crowd.
This preposition takes the Accusative case.
| I didn't see anything through the dirty window. | Я ничего не видел сквозь грязное окно. |
| My friend quickly walked through the crowd. | Мой друг быстро прошёл сквозь толпу. |
Навстречу (Dative Case)
The preposition навстречу means "towards." It usually implies moving to meet someone or something that is either waiting for you or coming from the opposite direction (like a bus or the wind).
Because its root is related to the idea of a meeting (встреча), it naturally requires the Dative case.
| He came out of the building and went towards me. | Он вышел из здания и пошёл навстречу мне. |
| A car was driving towards the bus. | Машина ехала навстречу автобусу. |
