The International Mother Language Day was celebrated in Voronezh on 21 February. Educational events were held at two sites of the city: at the Atomic Energy Information Centre and Nikitin Regional Scientific Library. For over twenty years, this festival has been organised by the Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics of the Faculty of Philology of Voronezh State University, presenters of the radio show “Let’s Speak Russian”, and employees of the Nikitin Library.
At the Atomic Energy Information Centre, the author and presenters of the radio show “Let’s Speak Russian”, journalist Larisa Dyakova, Professor Natalia Vakhtel, Associate Professor Mariana Rosenfeld, and Associate Professor Sergey Tikhonov, met with their listeners. The most active of the listeners were awarded with certificates and gifts (financial partner of the festival was the Sternins Foundation). Voronezh philologists told the audience about the most typical and most interesting questions about the Russian language which had been asked in the show.
The event in the Nikitin Library was attended by about three hundred people. Natalia Kozelskaya, Galina Selezneva, and Alexandra Rudakova, Associate Professors at the Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics of the Faculty of Philology, held contests which tested the knowledge of phraseology and grammatical and pronunciation norms of the Russian language among the audience. Also, the guests of the festival learnt about the history of the legendary dictionary of the Russian language by D.N. Ushakov and the contribution of the scientist to the Russian lexicography.
Schoolchildren from the education centre No. 2, school No. 36, Otradnensky school, the Rostropoviches Voronezh College of Music, Voronezh Law College, Voronezh Institute of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, and Voronezh State University took part in linguistic contests. First place was taken by Elena Kalchenko, a student from the Faculty of Physics of Voronezh State University.
