The program of the World Youth Festival 2024 was presented to foreign ambassadors

Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh) on Tuesday presented to foreign ambassadors the program of the World Youth Festival (WYF), which will be held in Russia in early March 2024, shortly before the presidential elections. According to the organizers, this forum will become a symbol of Russia’s openness to the world and will allow participants from different countries to feel “on the same wavelength.” Foreign diplomats were asked to facilitate the registration of young delegates from their countries: guests are promised a rich program with visits to 30 cities, including Moscow, Sevastopol and Lugansk.

Whether the WFM is a formal successor to the previous World Festivals of Youth and Students is not entirely clear, but the organizers strongly emphasize the connection between these forums. Thus, the hall of the historical mansion on Spiridonovka, where a reception was held on October 24 on the occasion of the presentation of the WFM program, was equipped with stands with emblems and photographs of bright episodes of festivals of past years. Let us recall that those events took place in different world capitals (they were hosted, for example, by Moscow, Berlin, Vienna, Havana, Helsinki, etc.) after World War II under the slogans “For peace and friendship”, and later “For anti-imperialist solidarity, peace and friendship.” The organizers were the World Federation of Democratic Youth, which in the West was considered “pro-Soviet,” and the now defunct International Union of Students. The last World Festival of the “old” format was held in 2017 in Sochi and partly in Moscow (without the participation of the International Union of Students).

According to a Kommersant correspondent, the guests of the reception on October 24 included several dozen foreign diplomats. Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Alexander Pankin addressed them with a welcoming speech. He emphasized that holding the festival is a clear indication of Russia’s openness to the world: “We will make every effort to ensure that the atmosphere at the site is conducive to informal communication, free from ideological and political barriers, any stereotypes and prejudices.” The diplomat also said that he took part in the 1985 World Festival in Moscow, and his mother took part in a similar forum in 1957. “We had different, but similar feelings: a big, unstaged, although well-organized, natural holiday,” the deputy minister admitted, adding that the participation of young people in such events is the key to “sustainable world relations.”

Denis Ashirov, Deputy Head of Rosmolodezh, spoke in detail about the WFM program. He said that 20 thousand people under the age of 35 will participate in the forum – 10 thousand Russians and foreigners each. “For the first time in history there will be a separate direction, a children’s track – 500 participants from Russia and 500 foreign children. We tried to build a seamless system of working with young people, understanding that we begin to educate, work and implement youth policy from the age of a child,” emphasized Mr. Ashirov. According to him, the competitive selection of participants will take place in six stages (accepting applications, portfolios, essays, “video business cards”, forming a rating list and delegations), and the organizers intend to sum up its results by December 2023. The mascot of the festival, the official recalled, will be “an important element of the cultural code of our country” – Cheburashka, which personifies “friendliness, mutual respect and the search for common ground between people of different ages, origins and nationalities.”

Sochi will once again become the capital of the festival, which, according to the organizers, is especially symbolic in the tenth year of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Each day of the main program will correspond to a specific meaning: responsibility for the fate of the world, multinational unity, dignity, justice, mutual assistance and mercy. There are seven blocks in total in the program: content (with educational, discussion and scientific elements), cultural, children’s, sports, exhibition, “useful” (this includes volunteer events and projects) and regional.

As part of the latter (from March 10 to 17), 2 thousand foreign participants will visit 30 regions of Russia, grouped into five thematic areas. Among them are the “capital route” (participants will visit Moscow and the exhibition-forum “Russia” at VDNKh), the “Road of Memory” routes (the hero cities of the Great Patriotic War Volgograd, St. Petersburg, Smolensk, Tula, Kursk and Belgorod), “ Without borders” (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kaliningrad, Makhachkala and Khabarovsk), “Live and work in Russia” (17 largest industrial centers) and “We returned to Russia” (Crimea, Sevastopol and Lugansk People’s Republic). “All safety measures will be taken, there is no need to worry or worry that something might happen,” Mr. Ashirov made a special reservation in connection with the last route.

He also announced a youth festival “Action”, parallel to the WFM, but no longer a youth festival, the cultural program of which will be held under the slogan “You can’t cancel us.” “We want to ask you that as many young people from your countries as possible apply, participate and be the most active young people who are ready to build our common future,” called on the deputy head of Rosmolodezh. “Youth are not the future, but the present that builds the very future in which you and I live.”

Grigory Leiba