From January 12 to 20, the first round of the 35th International Festival of KVN teams “KiViN-2024” took place in the resort capital of Russia - the city of Sochi. The right to represent Penza State University and the entire region was given to the KVN team of the Institute of International Cooperation – International Team - after they became champions of the Official League of KVN “Sura”. The team includes representatives from seven countries, namely: Jordan, Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, India, Armenia, Tajikistan and Zambia.

The event brought together hundreds of teams and thousands of KVN players. This year a record number of participants came to play KVN - 587 teams were registered. In addition, the Festival hosted a series of lectures and workshops on humor and television.

According to tradition, the competitive part of KiViN-2024 consists of two rounds. All the registered teams take part in the first round of the contest, which determines which teams will participate in the KVN leagues in the coming year. The teams that have passed the editorial selection enter the second round.

“The sociocultural phenomenon “Club of the Cheerful and Witty” (KVN) is the basis for developing a mass youth movement and one of the factors in socializing the modern younger generation, both Russian society and international students. KVN is given special importance as a factor in team building, fostering tolerance and preventing extremism among young people,” said Gleb Sintsov, Vice-Rector for International Affairs.

The KVN International Team successfully completed the first round, receiving an “increased rating”: now the students will be able to spend the current year in one of the central KVN leagues.

“The festival in Sochi is an opportunity to communicate with professionals in their field, learn new things and improve your skills. Among the speakers at the festival venues were Mikhail Marfin, Evgeny Donskikh, Konstantin Obukhov, Mikhail Yarchenko, Sangadzhi Tarbaev, Artur Tumanyan and many others. Having been here, we received a great charge of energy to conquer new creative heights,” PSU international students shared their impressions.