The 7th Baltic Geography Olympiad (BaltGeo) started in the Polish city of Suwalki on June 28. There are seven people on the Russian team – Muscovites Nikita Panfilov, Rustam Bigildin, Olga Ovchinnikova, Arseny Chugin and Sabina Mirzoeva, Alena Agapova from St. Petersburg, Yan Nekrashevich from Kostroma Oblast. The team is headed by Pavel Kirillov, lead researcher at the Faculty of Geography of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Candidate of Geographical Sciences.
"This year, thanks to the support of the Russian Geographical Society and the great work of the coaching staff, young geographers have a unique opportunity to participate in two small international Olympiads – European and Baltic, and the latter is held in an in-person format. Also, in August, our students will test their knowledge and skills in a remote format against peers from more than 60 countries of the world by taking part in the International Geography Olympiad iGeo, which will be broadcast from Turkey. Thus, this summer 20 people have already participated or will participate in the international intellectual competition in geography," said the Chairman of the Central Subject-Methodological Commission of the Russian Geography Olympiad for Students Dmitry Bogachev.
Competitors will have to complete tasks in three rounds. The first round is theoretical. It consists of blocks of assignments on various geographic topics. The second is a field one, divided into two parts. In the first part, participants collect data on the ground and perform practical tasks. In the other, the observations made earlier are processed, maps are created and solutions to problems are proposed. The third round is a multimedia test, during which you need to answer 40 blitz questions in the format of choosing one option out of four.
One of the out-of-competition events of the Baltic Olympiad is cartographic wrestling. In it, participants compete in pairs in the knowledge of geographic nomenclature. Only the winners will qualify for each subsequent round. The two strongest players will meet in the final. The Olympiad will run until July 1.
The BaltGeo Olympiad, which has been held since 2014, is attended by Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia. The Russian team demonstrates high results in it. As a rule, prize-winners and winners of the competition are awarded medals at the iGeo International Geography Olympiad.
Preparations for the Olympiad are taking place at the International Children's Center "Computeria" with funding from the Russian Ministry of Education. The Russian Geographical Society provides great support to the project.