Zarina Khismatullina from Uzbekistan was among the winners of the XVI International Russian Language Olympiad for foreign students, the press service of the Pushkin Institute reported.

The Olympiad is held annually in two directions: for children learning Russian as a foreign language, and for children whose language of instruction at school is Russian. This year among the winners were laureates of the Olympiad from 30 countries of Asia, Europe and America.

Apart from Zarina Khismatullina, representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, and South Ossetia also became the absolute winners of the 2018 Olympiad.

During the week, schoolchildren passed written and oral examinations on knowledge of the Russian language and culture of Russia, in addition, each of the participants had to submit a country study project and defend it in Russian.

The XVI International Olympiad in Russian language for schoolchildren of foreign countries is held by the State Institute named after A.S. Pushkin under the auspices of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (IATRLL) with the support of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation and Rossotrudnichestvo. 10 absolute winners of the Olympiad are presented the right to enter any Russian university for a linguistic or philological direction at the expense of the state budget of the Russian Federation.

The Institute has been conducting the International Russian Language Olympiad for overseas schoolchildren for more than 45 years. Since 2016, the qualifying round is held in the online format on the portal “Education in Russian”. Any schoolchild who knows or studies Russian can take part in the qualifying round. In 2018, 1,640 children from 44 countries were registered to participate in the Olympiad on the Education in Russian portal. 127 participants from 34 countries reached the final.