About school
The Young Journalist School is one of the charity foundation’s projects that were launched as part of Youth Year.
The idea behind this project didn’t come about by chance...

Forum of Young Journalists’ School Graduates (St.Petersburg 2011)
In late November, a general meeting of graduates of the Young Journalists’ School was held just outside St.Petersburg

Young Journalists’ School 2011 – St.Petersburg Workshop
The Young Journalists’ School has now completed its third cycle. It felt like we had only just met in Moscow, but in fact six months had gone by already. We were all missing one another, and during that time virtually everyone had experienced some interesting events and we were all really happy to exchange our latest news and views. So anyway, the second cycle of School workshops in St.Petersburg started on a positive note.

Graduates on YJS-2011

Youth Hotline (2011)
State Duma Deputy Alina Kabaeva’s hotline is now providing advice on youth issues, with questions from young people being fielded by an employment lawyer and a psychologist.

Video of 2011 Festival

Third International Selection Tournament for “Alina” Rhythmic Gymnastics Festival (20th May 2011)
So the third “Alina” international rhythmic gymnastics festival is now over. I want to tell you about all the new elements, who we invited, how were prepared and all the interesting things that happened.

First of all, the festival now has a much wider geographical coverage. We’ve got people coming not only from the CIS countries, but also from Cuba, Israel, Germany and Bulgaria. In addition, this year the festival included performances not only by rhythmic gymnastics, but also aesthetic, aerial and even athletic gymnasts! Everyone was really impressed by a joint performance from the Todes ballet school and the acrobats, who performed jumps on the acrobatic mats to the sound of drumming.

Second International Selection Tournament for “Alina” Rhythmic Gymnastics Festival (19th March 2011)
was all really well organized. But then I had the idea of running the second selection tournament not in the capital (where the facilities are much better, of course), but in the small regional town of Nizhnekamsk. The main reason for this decision was that I’m responsible for Nizhnekamsk as a people’s deputy; I spend a lot of time there, and it’s where I hold my voters’ surgeries. Over these three and a half years I’ve become very attached to the town and I wanted to give it something to celebrate, to draw attention… the attention of the people who live there, to sport, to rhythmic gymnastics and, of course, to show the tournament competitors some other Russian towns apart from Moscow.

When will the Unified State Examination Results be announced?
The regional information processing centre should finish processing the Unified State Examination (USE) papers no later than 6 days after each exam is held.

USE Scam
I recently received a letter on the website from someone who’d been tricked by conmen offering help to pass the Unified State Examination. This was an internet site that promised to provide people with full information about how to answer the USE questions, with payment for the service by mobile phone...

USE Russian Language Exam and Commas
Guys, over the past few days our USE hotline has received lots of messages from you asking whether answers to Question B8 in the USE Russian Language exam will count if they contain no commas.

Young Journalists’ School 2011 – Moscow Workshop
Early April saw the opening of the 2011 Young Journalists’ School, which for the last three years has been bringing together young regional journalists not only from various corners of our huge country

How Parents can help you pass the USE
“My son is in the 11th form and I’m dreading his exams. The USE is such a lot of stress for our children…Let them finish school properly without all this stress...Do something, please! - we’ve not got much time left. Help us!”

USE 2011 Hotline
From 20th April, you can get advice from the Alina Kabaeva USE hotline on the main exam subjects: Russian, Mathematics, History, Chemistry, Physics, Geography and Biology, and also on procedural issues.

Video of the 2010 festival (full version)

Performance at the 2010 “Alina” Festival
Since giving up professional sport I’ve hardly performed anywhere, though rhythmic gymnastics fans have often asked me to. But suddenly I had this idea of performing before the little kids at the children’s rhythmic gymnastics festival run by my charity foundation.

2010 Young Journalists’ School 2010: St.Petersburg Workshop
We all met up once again at the second 2010 Young Journalists’ School workshop in St.Petersburg. We were delighted to see other again, of course, and swap our news from the past half year. But unfortunately, there was also an unfortunate event during that period...

Common State Exam 2010 Hotline
The first thing to say is that the questions have become more substantive; there’s less panic and more of effort to seek advice on how to act in various situations. Last year, the pupils and their parents were more worried about marks and the fact that the new exam format made it difficult for the kids to show how much they know and pulled their marks down.

Youth Hotline (2010)
As usual, once the Hotline had finished providing advice on the Common State Exam, it began advising on youth issues from August 2010.

Status of Building Work in Tskhinval (August 2010)

New Book: “Surrender, CSE!”
In April 2010 we brought out a book called “Surrender, CSE!” which looks back over the Hotline’s first two years (2008-9).

“Alina” Festival 2010
Overall, I think the festival was excellent. Compared to last year’s, it was a big step forward. Of course, we had incomparably better conditions to prepare in than we had in 2009: we had more time, held a proper selection tournament and put the programme together.

Status of Building Work in Tskhinval (June 2010)

Status of Building Work in Tskhinval (April 2010)
I didn’t expect that so much would be done in one year. Last year, when I went there for the laying of the foundation stone (on 2 April 2009) the future building site was nothing more than an empty space. One year has passed, and what a huge difference! It’s terrific! I’ve uploaded some photos so you can see it for yourselves.

Young Journalists’ School 2010 / Moscow Seminar
To be honest, I’m absolutely delighted that I’ve managed to find a way of keeping the Young Journalists’ School going this year...

“Alina” Selection Tournament
This was the first year we’ve run a selection tournament. Initially I wanted to hold it for just one reason – to find and select teams for the rhythmic gymnastics festival that I run for Child Protection Day.

Construction update in Tskhinval - January 2010

New Books for Six Rural Libraries
The books were supplied via the Central Library System (CLS), because all books have to go through special library processing (registration, stamping, cataloguing etc.).

Second Young Journalists School Workshop in St.Petersburg
The meeting in St.Petersburg was very exciting: we were all keen to get back together and looking forward to more dialogue and debate, as well as an opportunity to tell about our publications...

Computer Classrooms Ready for Use
In early December there was an opening of the first computer classrooms as part of one of my Youth Year projects. These were the two classrooms in Tataria that I’ve written about before: in a school attached to the Observatoriya TB clinic in Zelenodolskiy District, and in the “Selet” extended day centre for children from low-income families in Apastovskiy District.

Young Journalists’ School holds first Workshop in Moscow, 13-15 December 2009
This workshop was a real event in my life and probably one of my biggest successes this year. To tell you about it is easy on the one hand, but difficult on the other: easy, because it all went well (perhaps even better than planned) and I’m really pleased; but difficult to pick out the key points from such a mass of impressions. It’s very hard, but let me try...

Construction update in Tskhinval - October 2009

Renovation of Computer Classroom in the “Observatoriya” Children’s TB Sanatorium

Photo Essay on Renovation of Premises for Computer Classrooms

Visit to Tskhinval – August 2009

Some of the staff of my charity foundation paid a visit to Tskhinval on 17 August. It was a working trip: there were some issues to resolve around the construction of the new sports centre, and of course they wanted to see how the work is going and what changes have taken place.

Information Gathering and Launch
In the summer of 2009, my Charity Foundation team took a trip to Tatarstan to gather information on children’s establishments in the republic and they visited many of them.  We then selected a few boarding schools that will be equipped with computer classrooms and internet access.  

Youth hotline
As usual, after the CSE hotline closed down in August 2009, the line started providing advice on youth issues.

Children’s Gymnastics Festival

At last, my dream has come true! For a long time now I’ve wanted to organize a children’s gymnastics festival where little gymnasts could display their abilities. But not in the form of a competition – simply a big party for children, at which nobody worries about winning points or getting marks.

POST SCRIPTUM (CSE Hotline 2009)
The hotline has now closed, but the calls keep coming in…

Meeting with the Experts (CSE Hotline 2009)
After the CSE hotline closed down I met the consultants who had been working on it. I want to stress again that all the experts who worked on the line were very high-calibre professionals.

2009 CSE hotline (April – June 2009)
From 7 April to 16 June advice was available from the hotline via the following e-mail address: ege@kabaeva-alina.ru, and from 21 May to 16 June, via call-free telephone 8-800-505-12-05.

Laying the Foundation Stone of the New Sports Complex

On 2 April 2009 a very moving and – for me – important event took place: the laying of the foundation stone of the sports complex.

Phase 1 of Project Completed
Phase 1 of the project was completed recently. Five libraries have already received textbooks, teaching manuals and literature (children’s and classical) from the Foundation – in total, over 500 books.

Youth hotline (August 2008 – March 2009)
In June 2008 the CSE hotline closed down, but the calls kept coming in. And not only about the Common State exam, but about other topical youth issues as well. And this is when we decided to keep the hotline open all year round.

2008 CSE Hotline (May – June 2008)
The hotline project went live on 15 May 2008. We launched a telephone hotline to provide advice on specific subjects.

“Jobfinders” programme
In September, I was approached by a film crew from TVC and asked to help make a programme for children who, for various reasons, were unable to continue their studies this year (didn’t get into an institute, academy, college etc.)