On Sunday, October 27, the XII open International festival-contest "Fashion Yard" was held within the walls of the Center for Cultural Development "House of Officers". This year, the honor of Penza State University was defended at the festival by international students of the Institute of International Cooperation.

For the first time, "Fashion Yard" gathered contestants on its stage in 2003. And this year, a new nomination appeared within the framework of the festival, the only one in the country - stage costume in action. Thanks to this, not only Fashion Theaters, designers, masters of applied arts and models, but also other creative groups - vocal and dance, for whom stage costume is an integral part of the image, had the opportunity to perform at the specialized costume festival.

It was in this nomination that the creative teams of the Institute of International Cooperation competed for victory. The participants were assessed by an expert jury: candidate of historical sciences, director of the Central Creative Center "House of Officers" Tatiana Yurina; member of the Eurasian Association of Ethnodesigners, winner of the national award "Masochka" (“Little Mask”) for the best costume design Olga Bukina; honored artist of the Penza region, folklorist, collector, gatherer and researcher of Russian folk costume Tatiana Stailskaya; winner of the international competition "Tatar Kyzy - 2023", TV presenter, stylist, model Albina Medvedeva.

"It is a great honor for us to be among those invited to participate in the Fashion Yard festival. This is a great opportunity to introduce the Penza audience and all guests from different parts of Russia to the culture of our students' countries - in 2024 these were countries such as India, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Zambia. The vocal and choreographic performances, which featured national costumes, were highly appreciated by experts. The creative team Folk Queen, which presented a national fashion show, received high praise. All the girls who took part in this collection are finalists and winners of our annual beauty contest "Miss World". It was an experiment, and it turned out to be extremely successful! We thank Tatiana Yurina and Olga Bukina for the invitation, and we express special words of gratitude to the management of the Institute of International Cooperation for supporting all the creative initiatives of the students," noted Maria Melnikova, a specialist in the Department of Student Affairs.

Following the results of the contest screenings, PSU international students collected a full set of awards: the vocal studio Harmonix (head - Maria Melnikova) became a laureate of the 1st degree, the creative team Folk Queen (head - Maria Melnikova) with the collection "National Defile" became laureates of the 2nd degree. Creative dance groups Lavni group (India) and Asman (Kyrgyzstan) became the owners of cups of the 2nd and 3rd degrees, respectively.