Nominees of XVII International Pushkin Contest for Teachers and Specialists in Russian Philology were defined. Their names will be announced on June 6 at Russian Language Day, that coinsides with Alexander Pushkin's birthday. The contest was organized by Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russian Newspaper).
This year, contest organizers offered to participants to write an essay on the topic Learning Russian. It is possible? Fashionable? Profitable? Expert jury had hard times as a huge number of people from fifty countries took part in the contest. Organizers received essays from many European countries, Asia and Latin America.
Unfortunately, just one essay came from Ukraine, whereas around one hundred essays about the Russian language were sent from other post-Soviet countries, such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Georgia.
An amazing story about how Russian language knowledge would help improve financial situation was shared by Lyubov Kuzmicheva from North Carolina (US). She has written that soldiers drafted in the US army who successfully passed Russian language test get a considerable one-time payment and an increase of armed forces’ allowance.
Members of expert jury have noted that applicants have diverse motives including exotic ones for learning Russian judging by their essays. Thus, an essay author from Brazil claimed that he would learn Russian to travel by Transsib and talk to other passengers.
Russkiy Mir
