The final of the All-Russian Intellectual Olympiad “Our Heritage” has started in Kazan

135 high school students from 28 regions of the RF and Kazakhstan will attend the competition.

(KZN.RU, February 22, Alina Berezhnaya). Today the final round of the open All-Russian Intellectual Olympiad “Our Heritage” has started in school №181 of the Sovetsky district of Kazan. The themes of this year's tournament were “Cities of the Volga region” and “Folk crafts”. Within three days, 135 pupils of 9-11 grades fr om 28 regions of Russia and Kazakhstan will try their knowledge.

Rustem Gafarov, the first deputy head of the Executive Committee of Kazan, and Ilnar Khidiyatov, the head of the Department of Education, attended the opening ceremony. Rustem Gafarov welcomed the finalists of the Olympiad and wished everyone victory in a fair fight. “For the first time, the Olympiad “Our Heritage” is held in Kazan. We are confident that it will be successful. I wish all the participants success, health, and may the smartest and strongest win”, said R. Gafarov.

The Olympiad started in September last year. The school, municipal and regional stages had already passed. The most erudite guys reached the finish line. Not only Kazan accepts the finalists: competitions for age categories 2, 3-4, 5-6 and 7-8 grades will be held in Samara, Kostroma, Cheboksary, and Nizhny Novgorod. Kazan takes the final competition among schoolchildren of 9-11 grades.

The final round will last three days in the capital of Tatarstan. The tasks of the Olympiad allow children to demonstrate their abilities in speed and quality of memorization, erudition, and thinking in solving logical problems and analyzing texts, said Vikenty Abramyan, the leader of the Olympiad “Our Heritage”. “The uniqueness of the tasks is that they are not tied to individual school subjects. This is an innovative Olympiad, which is developed in our country. Tasks develop memory, logic, and other abilities of schoolchildren, which makes it possible to show the intellectual skills of children in all their diversity”, explained V. Abramyan.

Tasks are divided into various units and combined with the themes “Cities of the Volga region” and “Folk handicrafts”. For example, students need to learn the five quatrains in 3 minutes or memorize the image of the emblems, and then reproduce them. But the finalists are not afraid of such tests. Liza Nazarova, an 11th-grade student from Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, participates in the Olympiad for the second time. She believes that in order to feel confidently among her competitors, it is necessary to read a lot of additional literature. “I was preparing both with the teachers and by myself at home. I read a lot, watched documentaries. I didn’t have any particular difficulties due to my genuine interest, because this year there are very exciting topics. We live in the Volga region and should know our history”, the schoolgirl shared her impressions.

In addition to intellectual tests, a cultural program was prepared for the children as a city tour. The Olympiad will end on February 24 in the Kazan City Hall, wh ere the winners will be determined.

The intellectual tournament has been held in Russia since 2003. It is aimed at studying history and culture, uniting young people in the process of learning and preserving the national cultural heritage. Last year, the Olympiad gathered more than 272 thousand schoolchildren from 4235 schools in 81 regions of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, as well as from embassy schools of Guinea, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, and Slovenia.