Youth Festival to be held at the end of the presidential campaign

The World Youth Festival will be held on the eve of the 2024 elections. First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko said at the first meeting of the organizing committee for the preparation of the event that the festival would be held from February 29 to March 7 at the Sirius federal center.

He also announced the decrease in the age of the festival participants so that representatives of the Russian Movement of Children and Youth could take part in it – from the age of 14.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said that “2024 is special,” explaining that “the previous festival was in 2017.” “This six-year period turned out to be unusually rich in all the events both on a global and geopolitical scale,” she added.

The head of Rosmolodezh, Ksenia Razuvaeva, said that 10,000 Russians and the same number of foreign guests would take part in the festival. The start of the application campaign for participation in the festival is scheduled for June 24, when the presentation of the festival will take place, she said. The presentation will also take place in foreign countries, participation was confirmed by 20 countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, South Africa, and Brazil.

At the first meeting of the organizing committee on May 11, the main decisions were made on organizing the preparation of the festival, in particular, the venue and dates were approved, says Artem Metelev, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Youth Policy: “The festival will be held from February 29 to March 7 in Sirius, in addition , from March 10 to March 17 there will be a program for participants in the Russian regions. The formation of international and regional organizing committees has begun, the training of volunteers has begun, and the architecture of the program has been created.”

Metelev recalls that Russia “is not the first time hosting the festival” – it was in 1957, 1985 and 2017. “Within a week or two, the participants of the festival get to know each other, study together, become friends and even fall in love with each other, they have joint projects. All this brings young people together in spirit, in common interests, without regard to politics, sanctions and international disinformation against Russia,” Metelev believes.

Representatives of more than 100 countries are expected to take part in the festival, which “demonstrates that Russia is open to the world and a conscious part of the world is interested in partnering with us,” he believes.

Lowering the age bar for festival participants is a logical decision in the light of the state’s work in the field of youth policy, the inclusion of school-age children in this agenda, Razuvaeva told Vedomosti. “Such work is being done not only in Russia, for example, China has a very powerful experience. We will have something to talk about in this regard at the upcoming festival with a number of countries,” she said.

Razuvaeva believes that the current international situation does not complicate, but actualizes the need for an event of this level. “Our expectations from the festival are not only to meet the expectations of participants from all over the world, but also to surpass them, come up with a topical agenda and support the international youth initiative, create a platform for dialogue and search for solutions, a platform for developing consolidated positions,” she concluded.

The events of the festival in 2024 will become an important stage in the work with the countries of the CIS and far abroad “for years to come,” Grigory Gurov, chairman of the board of the Movement of the First, told Vedomosti. According to him, during the recent visit of the delegation of the “Movement of the First” to Belarus, the prospects for cooperation in the field of youth tourism, and in the organization of festival and project activities were discussed.

“Participation of teenagers in the festival is a great opportunity for children’s and youth organizations from different countries to establish direct contacts with peers, share experiences, plan common activities and projects,” he added.

On April 5, Vladimir Putin signed a decree on holding the World Youth Festival in February-March 2024. Razuvaeva became the executive secretary of the organizing committee for the preparation of the festival, and Kiriyenko became its chairman. The festival will be one of the events that will be built into the presidential campaign, interlocutors close to the presidential administration told Vedomosti.

The elections themselves will be held on March 17. In the 2018 presidential election, the topic of youth was also built into the campaign, Vedomosti wrote. Then there was also a youth festival, but six months before the elections – from October 14 to October 22, 2017 in Sochi.

The 2017 Youth Festival was held six months before the presidential elections and did not have a strong influence on them, political scientist Alexander Nemtsev emphasizes: “That is, the 2017 festival began the presidential campaign, the 2024 festival ends it.”

The main message of the 2024 festival is that Russia is not isolated, says Nemtsev: “The country, as well as the person who will go to the presidency, is supported by a huge number of countries and delegations. Most likely, this leader will be Vladimir Putin.” It is necessary to show that the whole world continues to communicate with Russia, and “elite showdowns” are not connected with the real mood of the peoples of various countries, he adds.