Awards for VFU students at the Third International Student Festival "Друзья, прекрасен наш союз! " ("My friends, so wonderful is our union! ")
Students from the three faculties of Varna Free University "Chernorizets Hrabar" headed by Prof. Galina Shamonina, PhD gave a brilliant performance at the Third International Student Festival in Belgrade.
It was held from 15 to 21 September in the Serbian capital, and involved 28 teams of leading European universities. The festival included competitions, presentations, quizzes and master classes, evening of poetry, roundtable discussion for the heads of the delegations and a rich cultural program. Organizers of the festival were the Russkyi Mir Foundation and the Faculty of Philology of Belgrade University. The official opening ceremony was attended bythe Executive Director of the Russkiy Mir Foundation Vladimir Kochin, the Deputy Mayor of Belgrade, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Serbia, the Belgrade University Rector, the Dean of the Faculty of Philology and many other special guests and media representatives.
The competition program began after the official opening ceremony. All teams presented their countries and universities. The programs were so interesting and creative that the jury found it difficult to determine the winners. After the competition "Homework Assignment", which involved 28 universities from across Europe, the team of Varna Free University took the second place. Members of the team were: D. Ivanov (2nd year, specialty International Economic Relations), P. Gelova (4th year, Law), Y. Sadkova (Master’s program Management of Projects Financed by EU Funds), A. Shabanova (Master’s program Management of Projects Financed by EU Funds), M. Koycheva (Master’s programInternational Negotiations), R. Yordanov (3rd year, Choreography) and P. Bozhilova (3rd year, Choreography).
The students of Varna Free University won the hearts of the audience and the jury with their impressive performance, which included presentation of Bulgaria, video presentation of our university, a theatre scene in Russian, telling about the Bulgarian traditions, a lot of humour and folk dances. It is important to note that the students of VFU are not philologists and they participated in the festival for the first time. Nevertheless, they ranked among the top three. Their performance in beautiful national costumes and the recreation of folklore excited the audience. The winners in the competition received diplomas. All festival participants attended a gala reception in the town hall of Belgrade and were welcomed by the Deputy Mayor of Belgrade, Tanya Popovic. The master classes in "History in Russian" and "Theatre in Russian" as well as the reading carried out in the town of Arandjelovac aroused great interest.
The students were offered an interesting cultural program. They visited the town of Topola and the town ofArandjelovac – important historic sites in Serbia, museums and churches. And in the Russian house in Belgrade, they attended a concert of the artistic ensemble “Shpanats” and participated in a special lesson in the traditional Serbian dance kolo. During the roundtable discussions, the heads of the Russian centres in Europe discussed the best practices in the training of students at different universities. The experience of Varna Free University in the qualification activities for young teachers during the International Summer Qualification School was pointed out as one of the undisputed best practices.
On the last day of the festival, a master class of the famous Russian composer and bard Grigory Gladkov titled "We Sing in Russian" was held. Almost each one of his songs was greeted with a storm of applause. Grigory Vasilievich showed the whole array of popular Russian musical genres: romance, the songs of Bulat Okudzhava and Vladimir Vysotsky, folk songs. And when the songs "Podmoskovnie vechera", "Katyusha", "Korobeyniki" were performed, also got actively involved the head of the choir "Slavista", Milan Djuric, the students from Belgium, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Poland. Gladkov’s song "We speak into Russian" became the anthem of the international student festival.
The festival ended with the award of the last prizes and commemorative diplomas to the winners and the especially distinguished participants. The members of the team of Varna Free University received named diplomas for heir excellent performance and D. Ivanov, majoring in International Economic Relations received also a diploma for excellent performance during the poetry reading and careful attitude to the Russian poetry. He gave an interview to the Serbian national television in which he shared his impressions of the festival. He also told about the good language training at Varna Free University and expressed his gratitude to the organizers for the invitation to the festival.
In gratitude for the hospitality of the Belgrade University the students majoring in Choreography, Paulina Bozhilova and Radoslav Yordanov greeted the organizers and participants with a Bulgarian folk dance. The last evening the participants said goodbye to Belgrade by taking an evening cruise along the River Sava. There were a lot of songs and dances.
Varna students made a lot of friends among the representatives of the presented at the festival 28 European universities. The festival showed how good knowledge of foreign language removes boundaries, facilitates communication and expands the horizons of professional and personal development.
