There are a lot of young people everywhere

The Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh) spoke on Tuesday about the details of the upcoming World Youth Festival (WYF) in early March. According to the head of the department, Ksenia Razuvaeva, the forum is in demand by the global youth community: over 300 thousand applications from 180 countries came to participate. According to the organizers, the WFW will be held in the logic of a joint search for a “fair world order”, and its result will be the emergence of a worldwide pool of ambassadors of relevant ideas.

As Kommersant previously reported, WFM-2024 was organized in accordance with the decree of President Vladimir Putin. The main program from March 1 to 7 will be hosted by the federal territory “Sirius”. The festival’s events are combined into seven blocks: content (with educational, discussion and scientific elements), cultural, children’s, sports, exhibition, “useful” (this includes volunteer events) and regional.

The unstable international situation did not create any problems with recruiting participants. As expected, 20 thousand young people (from 18 to 35 years old; average age – 25 years) from 180 countries, as well as 1 thousand teenagers under 18 years of age, will become delegates of the WFW, Ksenia Razuvaeva said: “We received more than 300 thousand applications from 180 countries, which clearly indicates interest in the event on the part of the global youth community and absolutely destroys the myth of any isolation of Russia.” The delegates went through a “very serious competition” of six stages (teenagers even went through nine): based on their portfolio, essays and video business cards, a pool of “the most active and active guys” was formed. “We assessed the significance of the projects and the achievements of the applicants in the areas they represent,” explained the head of Rosmolodezh. “It was extremely difficult for us to decide to refuse certain applicants.”

5 thousand volunteers will help the festival, said the chairman of the board of the Association of Volunteer Centers, State Duma deputy Artem Metelev. As part of the “We Are Together” semantic block, which encourages volunteering, delegates will take part in social activities, in particular, trips to nature reserves and shelters are planned, as well as participation in therapy for children with disabilities.

In total, about 90 thousand people will visit the festival site in Sochi, taking into account the participants themselves, volunteers, guests, partners and journalists, Ms. Razuvaeva reported. According to her, their locations and transport infrastructure are already ready, and the preparation of the facilities, concentrated mainly on the territory of the former Olympic Park (part of Sirius), is in the “hot stage”: “The site will become a full-fledged “City of the Youth of the World”, and a number of objects will be rebuilt according to the logic of this legend: for example, we will have our own “International Airport”, cultural centers, art spaces, the “Soul of Russia” square and much more.”

The WFM program follows the logic in which delegates “study the past, try the present and comprehend the future,” said Grigory Gurov, chairman of the board of the Movement of the First: “18 workshops will create useful products, classes, information campaigns, promotions – content that will become the legacy of the festival ” This work, he emphasized, is organized on the principle of “co-authorship”: members of the WFM youth directorate will be “co-moderators” of the sites and “co-organizers” of the events.

“In synergy, we want to create a platform for building connections between young and active people from all corners of the planet, so that they can think together about how to build our future based on a fair world order,” highlighted one of the key goals of the festival, WFM program director Sergei Pershin. In our opinion, this world order should be based on cooperation, the search for a balance of interests – not on hegemony.” The emergence of the “City of Youth of the World”, where this world order will be sought, is in Russia “not surprising”, since it has historical experience in “harmonizing multicultural communities”, and throughout its history “a large number of different peoples with different traditions” have lived within its borders “, Mr. Pershin reasoned: “Everything happens on the principle of mutual exchange, mutual enrichment, and not the imposition of uniform standards.”

The official emphasized that Russia defends the corresponding values ​​“not for itself,” but for “the majority of the world,” and young people imagine the “new world” as a “world of mosaic unity,” opposed to “hegemony” or a “melting pot.” “Much of what we create in preparation is aimed at the formation, consolidation and development of the international community,” Ksenia Razuvaeva developed this idea. “Active, progressive young people are ambassadors of our common values, and our task is to make all participants one big team.” “Full-scale, objective and correct” coverage of the values ​​of the festival and its events is extremely important for the organizers in the context of the “war waged against Russia in the Western media,” said Anton Pashkov, adviser to the head of Rosmolodezh (in total, over 1 thousand journalists from 36 countries).

A wide list of speakers ready to speak at the forum was presented by the general director of the Knowledge Society (which timed the next educational marathon to coincide with the WFM) Maxim Dreval. At its site, among others, director Emir Kusturica, musicians Yuri Bashmet and Igor Butman, athletes Roberto Carlos, Evgenia Medvedeva and Roman Kostomarov, TV presenter Olga Buzova and other celebrities will meet with delegates.

Among the officials included in the program are ministers Sergei Lavrov, Sergei Kravtsov and Valery Falkov, heads of state corporations and governors. In addition, according to Artem Metelev, several senators and “about 35 Duma deputies” have been invited to the festival, including its speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, faction leaders and “athlete deputies.”

The opening ceremony, according to Sergei Pershin, promises to be memorable: “It will be large-scale, very bright and absolutely in keeping with the legacy of the Sochi Olympic spirit.” The grand opening, like all subsequent events, is aimed at one thing – “to demonstrate diversity and show that it adds up to an overall beautiful picture of creation, assistance, participation and the approach of a just world,” Mr. Pershin concluded.

Grigory Leiba