The final stage of the Olympiad followed the rules of the all-Russian televised Olympiad, including the semi-final and final rounds, orders, agonists, and theoreticians. Thirty participants who successfully completed the essay competition in the first stage were invited to the finals. Nine “Gifted Girls & Brainy Boys” reached the agon stage, while 21 theoreticians answered questions from the audience. The final topics included the Demidovs, the Russian Revolution and the development of the Urals in the 1910s-1930s, the Urals during World War II, and Ural residents in Russian history and culture.
Based on the results of the final agon, the members of the Areopagus named three winners: Kirill Epishenkov (Yekaterinburg), Matvey Chigintsev (Kamensk-Uralsky), and Vladislava Agafonova (Novouralsk). By the decision of the founder of the Empathy Charitable Foundation, Mikhail Shelkov, all three of them received cash prizes of 100,000 rubles. Prizes of 50,000 rubles were awarded to Danila Shirokovsky, Kristina Yaroslavtseva (Polevskoy), and Nadezhda Zorina (Yekaterinburg).
Six Ural schoolchildren have become participants of the new season of the all-Russian humanitarian televised Olympiad for schoolchildren, Gifted Girls & Brainy Boys, whose winners can gain admission to MGIMO without exams.
“The work of Empathy focuses on two interconnected directions – supporting teachers and talented youth. The students from Sverdlovsk would not be able to participate in the Olympiad today without their teachers, whose meticulous work remains behind the scenes. That is why I would like to congratulate not only the winners, the runners-up, and all the finalists but also the dear teachers. We have seen excellent results from your students in ‘Gifted Girls & Brainy Boys,’ and today you can rightfully be proud of them.”
“Gifted Girls & Brainy Boys” is an all-Russian humanitarian televised Olympiad that has been airing on Channel One for 30 years, since 1992. The Olympiad allows students from different regions to receive benefits when applying for free education at MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations). The author and host is Yu.P. Vyazemsky (Ph.D., Professor, Head of the Department of World Literature and Culture at MGIMO).
Regional qualifying rounds of the Olympiad take place in more than 20 regions of Russia. The regional selection in Sverdlovsk Region was held for the first time in 2023. Students from educational institutions located in the region were invited to participate in the Olympiad.
The organizers of the “Smart Kids” Olympiad in Sverdlovsk Region are the Ministry of Education and Youth Policy of Sverdlovsk Region, the “Empathy Charitable Foundation”, founded by Mikhail Shelkov, and the “Golden Ratio” Foundation for the Support of Talented Children and Youth. The project is supported by the Ural Institute of Public Administration, a branch of RANEPA (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration), Ural Federal University named after B.N. Yeltsin, the Humanitarian University, Ural State Pedagogical University, the Institute for the Development of Education in Sverdlovsk Region, and the Youth Palace of Sverdlovsk Region.