Nizhny Novgorod residents advanced to the finals of the "Znanie" Society's library practice competitions.

      1 December 2025 16:51 Society The Znanie Society announced 450 finalists of the all-Russian contests of library practices, implemented with the support of the Ministry of Education of Russia and Rosmolodezh. Five educational institutions from Nizhny Novgorod Oblast reached the final of the “Most Reading School in Russia” contest (6+), and 13 teachers from the region became finalists in the professional mastery contest “Best School Teacher-Librarian in Russia.”

      Winners will be determined in December at the I International Forum of School Librarians in Moscow.

      Forty-six applications were submitted by educational institutions of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast to participate in the “Most Reading School in Russia” contest. At the early stages of the contest, participants held two thematic events using the provided materials, an intellectual tournament “Znanie.Game,” and defended original practices on education, development, self-realization of students and engaging them in reading through school libraries before the expert council. The finalists were Dzerzhinsk School No. 2 with an enhanced curriculum in the physical-mathematical cycle, Salgan Secondary School, School No. 5 in Pavlovo, Lomovskaya School, and Nizhny Novgorod School No. 79 named after N. A. Zaitsev — these were judged by the expert council to be the authors of the most interesting approaches to educating, developing, and helping students self-realize and engaging them in reading through school libraries.

      Forty-two teachers from Nizhny Novgorod Oblast registered to participate in the “Best School Teacher-Librarian in Russia” contest. Contestants completed online testing, held extracurricular events using master lectures, and completed the assigned tasks. As part of the online stage, which took place from November 6 to 20, teachers presented solutions to new contest tasks to the expert council. Based on interviews, the experts selected 13 finalists. The list included teachers representing Vitkulovskaya Secondary School, Zhdanovskaya Secondary School, Sergach Secondary School No. 2, Buturlin Secondary School named after V. I. Kazakov, School No. 7 of the city of Sarov, and other educational institutions. The final rounds of the “Best School Teacher-Librarian in Russia” contest will take place on December 11 in Moscow at the I International Forum of School Librarians.

      “Our contests have shown the powerful potential of school libraries and the teachers who work in them wholeheartedly and with full dedication. For them, enlightenment is not just a job, not a formal duty, but a truly personal mission. This is felt in every submitted practice: in the creative approach, attention to the child, the desire to captivate them with reading, to teach them to think, ask questions and seek answers. Today school libraries are becoming real centers of attraction. Here children not only read — they take part in creative projects and discuss books. This is very valuable. I am confident that the contest finals will only strengthen this outcome and show how important a part of the upbringing and development of students the work of school libraries is,” emphasized Maxim Dreval, General Director of the Znanie Society.

      Mentors of the contests included heads of leading Russian libraries, scholars and statesmen: Presidential Advisor Elena Yampolskaya; Director General of the Russian State Library Vadim Duda; Director of the Russian State Library for Youth, Candidate of Economic Sciences Anton Purnik; Director of the Russian State Children’s Library, founder and General Director of the non-profit “Pushkin Library” Foundation, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation Maria Vedeniapina; Head of the V. S. Lednev Institute for Content and Teaching Methods Maxim Kostenko; philologist, producer, screenwriter, director, president of the “Living Classics” foundation Marina Smirnova; president of the Association of School Librarians of the Russian World, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, and editor-in-chief of the journals “School Library” and “Chitayka” Tatyana Zhukova. They held motivational meetings where they shared professional experience with participants, discussed development of library affairs, attitudes towards books and the Russian language.

      A total of 150 educational institutions from 53 regions of the country became finalists of the “Most Reading School in Russia” contest. Three hundred specialists from 70 federal subjects reached the final of the “Best School Teacher-Librarian in Russia” contest.

      Lists of finalists are published on the Znanie Society’s website — on the pages “Most Reading School in Russia” and “Best School Teacher-Librarian in Russia.”

      Each contest will determine 15 winners and 30 prize-winners: they will be announced on December 12 during the award ceremony on the sidelines of the I International Forum of School Librarians in Moscow. Laureates of the “Most Reading School in Russia” contest will receive a branded bookshelf with a set of books; winners and prize-winners of the “Best School Teacher-Librarian in Russia” contest will receive sets of equipment.

      The contests were organized by the Znanie Society in cooperation with the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation on the instruction of President of Russia Vladimir Putin following the council on implementation of state policy to support the Russian language and the languages of the peoples of Russia. The initiatives are being implemented as part of the national project “Youth and Children.”

      Znanie is an educational organization that annually holds hundreds of events for youth across Russia: it organizes thousands of speeches by outstanding figures from the fields of culture, art, science and history, conducts scientific competitions, contests, quizzes, produces films and helps lecturers in our country be heard and find their audience.

      Since its relaunch the Znanie lecturers’ community has united more than 30,000 people. They have delivered over 190,000 lectures in 89 regions of the Russian Federation. Some 8,100 hours of educational content have been created on a wide range of topics: science, technology, space, culture and art, history, medicine, sports and more. Online broadcasts of Znanie’s educational events, as well as educational video content, have garnered over 2.3 billion views.

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