14 August 2019
This year, for the first time, foreign schoolchildren who won the competition of the Association of French Russianists, were invited to participate in the educational program of the Sirius Center.
The competition, organized by the Trianon Dialogue, unfolded in February 2019 in Paris. The prize awarded to the six French laureates by the Trianon Dialogue was an educational trip to Sirius, where a special French module was implemented from July 31st to August 13th, in the framework of the Russian August literary program «Homo Legens: The Reading Man». The French group was supervised during the visit by an expert from the Secretariat of the Trianon Dialogue Svetlana Kulikova.
Over 120 students from all over Russia participated in the program. From the very beginning of the module, the French participants joined in the activities of the centre, in an atmosphere of creativity guided by the slogan «Explore! Do it! Win! ».
The French module had several parts; the first of which was the participation in a number of workshops. Out of the nine on offer, the French schoolchildren selected the workshops «Paper Cinema» and «Theater of Stories.» Over the course of four days, the French children, integrated into a group of Russian pupils, created an animated film using the stop motion technique and a puppet show. This first part finished with a Workshop Festival at the Sirius Science Club.
The participants also visited the interactive art exhibition «Inside. Outside. Between» and attended classes on how to prepare presentations, write longreads, make art books, infographics and other topics.
The second part of the educational program for French schoolchildren was a workshop «Text 2.0», during which they created a longread, relating their trip to Sirius in diary format with photos and interactive content. A link to the longread will be made available in the next few days.
The program participants were taken to the art exhibition of Sergey Andriyaki in the Sochi Art Museum, after which they had a «professional conversation» with the artist during which the children asked their questions about the profession of artist.
Additionally, the French participants attended workshops on animal sculpture, pottery, watercolour painting and others, all taught by professional artists. They also went to an ice show of Ilya Averbukh «Carmen», a concert of the Russian opera singer Julia Lezhneva, a harp concert, an excursion to Krasnaya Polyana and Rosa Khutor and a trip to Sochi Park.
The French module came to a close with a farewell evening, during which the French schoolchildren presented their longread about their time at the Sirius Center and received certificates for their participation in the program.
— See the MGIMO web-site for russian version
