“Our Pushkin family is the strength and dignity of the entire Russian world,” Yadviga Yuferova, deputy editor-in-chief of RG and chair of the organizing committee of the competition, began the celebration. She said that there are currently 1,200 Pushkin teachers and they represent 50 countries from five continents.
The Special Representative of the President of Russia for International Cultural Cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoy is convinced that since there are so many wonderful young faces in the hall and these people teach Russian to schoolchildren, it means that the new generation needs it. “For us, the Russian language becomes an anchor and a national code, and you could choose which language to teach, but you chose Russian, and looking at you, I think it has a wonderful future,” he greeted the laureates and recalled the famous Chinese proverb: “How many languages you know, so many lives you live.” By the way, Chinese teachers traditionally send very powerful and wise works to the competition. For example, Russian academician Luo Hunchun wrote in his book that these are difficult times now, with acute ethnic conflicts and terrorism, a clash of civilizations. Therefore, every line of Pushkin is priceless.
According to the Minister of the Government of Moscow, Head of the Department of Foreign and International Economic Relations, Sergey Cheremin, Russian as a language of interethnic communication allows Moscow to be one of the most competitive megacities in the world. Only 200 nationalities of Russia live in the capital, not to mention many other peoples. “We are proud that you, teachers of Russian studies, are raising your children in the great traditions of Pushkin,” the minister stressed.
And the general director of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Rossiyskaya Gazeta Editorial Office” Pavel Negoitsa drew attention to the fact that many Russian academics in the world today need great courage to teach Russian “but the number of participants in the competition (over 24 years old – more than five thousand people) says: a craving for the Russian language is insatiable and invincible,” he said, to which Pushkin teachers immediately replied: “Russophobia is a short-lived slavery and misfortune. Victory will be ours,” promised Galina Rudenko from Kazakhstan.
By the way, Pavel Negoitsa presented a diploma to the representative of Colombia, the first laureate from this country, Dina Maksimova. “I am the first, I hope I am not the last,” he joked.
Then it was the turn of the acting rector of the Pushkin Institute, Nikita Gusev, to congratulate our laureates. He recalled the name of Vitaly Grigorievich Kostomarov, the guru of Russian studies and the author of a famous textbook that all foreign teachers know. Gusev invited Pushkin teachers to cooperate and promised master classes and online courses.
Marina Koroleva, a professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and chair of the competition jury, began with a personal story. Her father was born in Baku, and at the age of 17 he went to teach Russian in a remote Azerbaijani village. The elders bowed to him and said: “Teacher.” “May there never be a different attitude towards you. Times change, but the Russian language will always be our support and confidence,” Marina is sure.
“We will preserve you, Russian speaking, the great Russian word,” the teachers promised in response.
And Galina Trubacheva from Kyrgyzstan added:
– This is our mission: not only to preserve, but also to pass on to the next generation.
“We are ready to provide support with textbooks and everything else that is needed to make this happen,” said Dmitry Kozhaev, director of the House of Compatriots in Moscow, who joined the planning process.
And then, at the instigation of Vladimir Pakhomov, the scientific secretary of the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences, everyone remembered that tomorrow was another big holiday for teachers – World Literacy Day, and to the accompaniment of Pushkin’s romance “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” performed by the Lyubomir ensemble, they went to a gala dinner. So what? The Nobel Prize ceremony also ends with a gala dinner.
