The results of the national competition for young journalists “Challenge – XXI century” were posted on 29 October. Students of the Faculty of Journalism were among prize-winners in the following nominations: “Challenge – Politics and Economics”, “Challenge – International and Interreligious Relations”, and “Challenge – Portrait of a Contemporary”. The articles were published on the “P.S. – 5 sov” and “National accent” websites.
A third-year student Ellada Durnakova and a postgraduate student Maria Repina took first places. Ellada got her first prize for a series of publications about international students, including “On the adaptation of foreigners in Voronezh”, “Interview with the head of the Moldova community in Voronezh”, and “Voronezh student Aysulu Samekova wins the Turkmenistan karate championship”.
“When I sent my texts to the competition, I didn’t even expect to win any prizes. I just sent them and forgot about them. I found out that I had won from Maria Andreeva. She sent me a message with congratulations. I was sitting at home and wondering what she congratulated me on. The news about winning the competition was unexpected. I was really happy because the national competition is at a very high level. Especially when you’re a third-year student, and those articles were written back when I was in my second year. It is very important and it means a lot to me. But most of all I’m grateful to Maria Andreeva. She believes in her students more than they believe in themselves. I hope this won’t be my last award. There's definitely a room for development and something to aim for!”
Maria Repina was awarded the first prize for a series of articles about unusual talents of our contemporaries, such as “8-year-old Kolya Kopaev teaches children with ICP”, “Conversation with the only female detective in Voronezh”, and “Voronezh resident quits his job as a hairdresser’s and starts making teddy bears”.
Other students also won prizes at the competition, including Viktoria Kuchina for her article about bribes in universities, Andrey Rozhkov for a series of reports on hitch-hiking, Ekaterina Petrova for her article on the relations between Russia and Iraqi Kurdistan, Daniil Konstantinov for his text on how students take exams remotely, Maria Laukhina for her materials on the problems of a former student in the army, and Angela Kozlova for her articles on the problems of a modern university.
“To be honest, I wasn’t really surprised that I won because I had a great supervisor, Elena Tyurina. I was sure the jury would highly appreciate my work,” said Andrey Rozhkov.
Students of the VSU Faculty of Journalism have repeatedly been the winners of the “Challenge – XXI century” competition. In 2021, more than 600 works from 62 cities and other localities and about 150 mass media of the Russian Federation participated in the federal stage of the competition. More information can be found on the website of the International Press Club.
Text by: Viktoria Kuchina
