Forum “Russia is our home” Concludes with Presentation of Final Projects
The all-Russian forum “Russia is our home” took place in Irkutsk on the campus of INRTU. This year, the large-scale event was held on October 19-23 as part of the “Memory stronger than time” project with the support of the All-Russian Public-State Movement of Children and Youth “Movement of the First.” The event brought together young people fr om across the country to preserve cultural traditions, develop domestic tourism, and reflect on shared national values.
Of the 500 registered participants, 150 finalists passed the competitive selection. Irkutsk welcomed representatives of various ethnic groups from many regions of the country - from Voronezh Region to the Urals and Buryatia. Alongside the guests, students of INRTU took an active part in all events.
The practical part of the forum was organized around three key tracks, each culminating in the presentation of a finished product.
Within the “Media.First” track, led by Evgeny Podlinov, a specialist in organizational and mass work at INRTU's Youth Policy Department, the project “Russia Is Between Us” was launched.
The initiative is a youth media community on the social network VKontakte, aimed at uniting the cultural heritage, traditions, and personal stories of people from different regions of the country through user-generated content (UGC). Participants of the track recorded a series of interviews with artisans of Irkutsk Region, created podcasts, videos, and audio guides. In these materials, the authors emphasized the multiethnic diversity of Russia: the visual component was built on portraits of people of different ethnicities, while audio formats included the sounds of Tatar and Buryat folk instruments.
The “Discovering the Country” track, supervised by Maria Kopytova, head of the Student Tourism Center of INRTU's Student Trade Union Committee, was dedicated to the development of domestic tourism. The team developed the concept of a youth route called “Lace of Russia”, which united seven regional destinations. The idea was based on the metaphor of traditional lace-making, wh ere the country is a single pattern, federal districts are colored threads, and cities are the knots that connect them. The project includes gamification elements: travelers will be able to navigate using an interactive map, complete special tasks, and scan QR codes at sites, earning marks in a “traveler's passport” and symbolic balls of thread. The final point and main knot of all routes is Irkutsk. Since the routes were designed by the residents of the regions themselves, the project is fully authentic and ready to launch.
Participants of the “Creative Workshop” track, led by Sergey Travnikov, actor and director of the student theater “Predmestye”, prepared a 9-minute physical theater performance in three days. The production reflected the evolution of the concept of “Home” from Ancient Rus to the present day, combining elements of Tatar, Buryat, Adyghe, and other cultures. The musical and poetic reflection on ancestral traditions evoked a strong emotional response from the audience.
“Without family, there is no history, no lineage. At the forum, we saw how young people return to their roots through media content, tourism, and theatrical art. It is important for Irkutsk Polytech to support projects that help preserve ancestral traditions and pass them on to future generations,”
noted Kristina Veretennikova, Deputy Head of INRTU's Youth Policy Department.
The organizers emphasized that the quality of the final projects has grown compared to last year, and the forum itself has become an effective platform for intercultural dialogue. Plans for next year include expanding the program and opening a new track on architecture and the preservation of tangible heritage. Detailed information about the forum's results is available in the official VKontakte community “Russia is our home”.
