Elena Mozgunova: "The youth festival gathering will go beyond the scope of a standard forum"

      19 September 2025 11:11

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       SocietyMore than 2,000 participants from 120 countries have gathered in Nizhny Novgorod for the first Gathering of the World Youth Festival (12+), held at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Historian, Candidate of Political Sciences, Associate Professor of the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Management — a branch of the Russian Presidential Academy (RANEPA), Elena Mozgunova, commented on the event.

      "The main humanistic mission of the 2025 festival in Nizhny Novgorod is to build a common future in a just multipolar world through cooperation and a balance of interests. Who if not young people should address these tasks?

      Forum guests are invited to view modern Russia as a strategic partner. The program is extremely packed and includes areas such as media and the creative industries, arts and governance, and of course the IT sector. I believe that new meanings and images of the future in our digital age can be born precisely through such encounters with the professional, cultural and intellectual life of Russia and its significant centuries-old heritage. Nizhny Novgorod, with its rich past and modern industrial-technological orientation, serves as a kind of bridge between history and the future, between the local and the global," the expert emphasizes.

      "The 2025 Youth Festival Gathering is a large unifying event and our city has become a magnet for guests from 120 countries. After the 2018 FIFA World Cup, it is no longer surprising that Nizhny hosts a BRICS forum or becomes the cultural capital of Russia. We have experience in holding international events, the necessary infrastructure, as well as all the beauty of the Volga’s nature and historical heritage. Nizhny Novgorod has much to show: from Khokhloma and Gorodets painting to the ultra-modern IT campus 'NEYMARK,' which is a bid to position itself as a technological center.

      Reflecting on what effects should be expected from such gatherings, Russia primarily declares that it is open to dialogue with the world by employing tools of "soft" power: through science, education, culture and technology. The festival is also a platform for forming international connections. And invited guests — young journalists, entrepreneurs and science popularizers — inspired, will be able to offer concrete ideas, and perhaps even implement them. Therefore, I dare to hope that the 2025 Gathering of the World Youth Festival will go beyond the framework of a standard image-building forum," Elena Mozgunova concluded.

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