On October 30, 2022, the traditional international educational campaign of the Russian Geographical Society, Geographical Dictation, will take place. Registration of the Dictation venues is open on the website dictant.rgo.ru.
Any Russian and foreign organizations – schools, universities, libraries, museums, national parks, and others – can organize a venue for the event. The first registered Dictation venue this year was Secondary School No. 5 in the city of Bogdanovich, Sverdlovsk Region.
Among the most unusual venues of past years are the nuclear power barge “Akademik Lomonosov”, the Nizhny Novgorod – Moscow train, the ship-museum "Cruiser ‘Aurora’", the Mission Control Center, oil platforms in the Caspian Sea, and the Katun Biosphere Reserve.
You can apply to hold the Dictation and register your venue here until October 21, 2022 inclusive.
Please note that when conducting the Dictation, all venues must take into account the current epidemiological situation in a particular region and adhere to the recommendations of Rospotrebnadzor.
If the epidemiological situation worsens, all venues of the event will be given the opportunity to change the status from in-person to remote, and conduct the event in the remote format.
The Geographical Dictation can also be taken online. The online event starts on the website dictant.rgo.ru on the same day as at in-person venues, but will run for several days so that everyone can test their knowledge. This year, geographic online testing will run from 14:00 October 30 to 14:00 November 10 Moscow time.
By tradition, the Geographical Dictation – 2022 will be compiled in four versions, each of which will include 40 questions divided into two parts. The first part of the basic level of ten questions is "geographical educational program" based on well-known facts from geography. The second part of 30 questions will require the use of creative thinking, logic, and erudition.
This year's tasks will also include questions from non-professional authors sent to the Russian Geographical Society’s competition "Write Your Question for the Geographical Dictation", including questions on the geography of Russia related to painting, music, literature and folk art, as part of the Year of the Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of Russia.
The Geographical Dictation has been held annually since 2015. Participants anonymously answer questions about the geography of Russia. Assessment of the level of geographical literacy is not the main task of the event. It is educational in nature and aims to popularize geographical knowledge, as well as to increase interest in science and national heritage.
Over the entire history of the Dictation, more than 2.4 million people have taken part in it. In 2017, the Dictation became international for the first time. The total number of countries that joined the campaign over the course of its existence is 122.
People tested their knowledge of geography on all continents. In 2021, the event took place in Antarctica at two Russian Antarctic stations – “Progress” and “Mirny”. Since 2018, the Dictation has been held annually at the International Space Station. Last year, a record number of venues were organized – 7792.
The Regulations on the Geographical Dictation can be found on the website of the event.