Think tank launches competition to find Russia’s “unknown heroes”

A competition to find the “unknown heroes” of contemporary Russian society was launched this week with the aim of discovering the people and projects working towards creating a better Russia. Applications are being accepted from civil initiatives that fall into 12 categories that cover everything from culture and art to public health and animal welfare.

To date, four projects have been submitted to the Spiritual Legacy category which covers art, culture, education and science. In the lead so far is a project to encourage young people to read the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and consider their value in the 21st century. In second place is an initiative to gather funds for the restoration of the cavernous chalk churches of the Liski area in the Voronezh region. A third project proposes the opening of a library dedicated to the “heritage of the ancient east” in Moscow, while a fourth supports young artistic talent in the Chelyabinsk region in southern Russia.

Voting for the projects will begin in August and continue until November. Finalists will be announced in December with a 200,000-rouble prize awarded to the national winner and a trophy for the best regional project.

The competition was launched by the Committee for Civil Initiatives, a think tank set up in April 2012 by Alexei Kudrin, the current dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at St Petersburg University and trustee of the Calvert 22 Foundation.