Popular Education

Popular Olympic education programme deals with the history and philosophy of the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, and, first and foremost, with the Olympic and Paralympic Values.

Educational workshops (known as an “Olympic Induction” as they instill the fundamentals in participants) are being laid on, with great success, for the Sochi 2014 management, staff and partners, including Sberbank, Russian Railways, Rosneft and Ingosstrakh. In 2011 this list has been extended with Dow Chemical and Procter & Gamble joining the pool. The Olympic knowledge has been also transferred to an autonomous non-profit organization Sports Broadcasting. Communicating the Olympic knowledge to Sochi 2014 Licensees is the next item on the agenda.

Acknowledged as being important ever since the time of the 1980 Olympics, these lessons are used both in the classroom and in the extra-curricular work of Russian schools. Sochi 2014 Olympic lessons are conducted not only by the teachers themselves, but also by Sochi 2014 volunteers, staff from the Sochi 2014 partner companies, Sochi 2014 Ambassadors, Olympic champions, and top sporting directors and sports stars. Among them are: the President of the Russian Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov, four-time Olympic champion Aleksei Nemov, three-time Olympic champion Maria Kiseleva, and the Paralympic champion Mikhail Terentiev.

•  The video lesson "London 2012 - Sochi 2014"

A dedicated educational programme aiming at large-scale involvement of Megafon staff is being implemented jointly with Megafon. A team of Megafon Volunteers has already been trained to disseminate the Olympic knowledge among the Megafon family across the country. A similar programme is worked through with Procter & Gamble.

The first multimedia version of the “Olympic Induction” was released in 2010. You can download the files for the programme, in which Olympic and Paralympic champions, leaders of the International Olympic and Paralympic Movement and world leaders discuss the history and philosophy of the Games, what it takes to prepare a Games, and what will be special about the Games in Sochi, at. This digital “quest” was well received when shown to the public (in particular, to more than 120,000 visitors to the Sochi 2014 Russian House in Vancouver in February 2010), to the Leadership of the Russian Federation, and above all, to the President of the Russian Federation D. Medvedev at the March 2010 session of the Council for the Development of Physical Exercise and Sport, and Sport of the highest levels of attainment, for the Preparation and Staging of the XXII Olympic and XI Paralympic Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi, and the XXVII Summer World University Games of 2013 in Kazan.

On the threshold of “1000 Days to Go” milestone the Organizing Committee initiated a series of celebrations and events to take place around the country. Among those there was an outstanding campaign known as “1000 Olympic Lessons”. Students and trainers from volunteer centers conducted Olympic lessons at schools. The volunteers from the Moscow University of Industry and Finance demonstrated a distinguished effort and conducted 1000 Olympic lessons in different parts of Russia for more than 40,000 schoolchildren. The climax of this campaign was the Olympic lesson conducted by Alexander Zhukov, Russian Olympic Committee President and Russian Deputy Prime Minister together with a four-time Olympic champion Alexei Nemov, a three-time Olympic champion Maria Kiseleva and Paralympic champion Mikhail Terentyev.

A record-breaking educational flash-mob arranged to coincide with the beginning of 2011-2012 academic year was imprinted in the history of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee. On September 1, more than 1,500 lessons dedicated to the “Legacy of the 2014 Sochi Games” were conducted for above 50,000 school students from across 30 different Russian cities. The Olympic teachers were students from the 26 “Sochi 2014” Volunteer Centers, Organizing Committee staff and Partners of the Games – Procter & Gamble, Megafon, Rostelekom, Russian Railways, Volkswagen Group Rus, PwC, EF English First, and Microsoft Rus. All of them got special training in August that was organized and held in Moscow and Sochi with the support of the Russian International Olympic University. The mission of the lesson was to let schoolchildren know about the Sochi 2014 Games and the Games impact (infrastructure, volunteer services, environment, barrier free environment, etc.). It is worthwhile to say that the “Legacy of the 2014 Sochi Games” is the third teaching module in the Olympic Lessons Bank available on EDU website.

On September 1, 2012, after the Olympic Games in London had finished and while the Paralympic Games were still on, the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, in conjunction with the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and the telecommunications partner both for the Games and the Sochi 2014 Education Program, Rostelecom, held a lesson "London 2012 - Sochi 2014". The event took an unusual format: in Moscow, groups of schoolchildren were welcomed into the offices of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee; in Sochi, Krasnodar and Saransk, schools linked up to the Organizing Committee's Moscow office remotely; and in Kazan and Rostov, pupils were able to watch the event being broadcast live on the Games portal, www.sochi2014.com.

Leading the lesson was the Sochi 2014 Ambassador, author and permanent presenter of the TV show "Umnitsy i umniki" ("Brainboxes"), Yuri Vyazemsky. Taking part was the President of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, D. Chernyshenko, along with athletes from Russia's Olympic and Paralympic national teams, and figures from culture and the arts: the Olympic champion from the 2012 Games in London, Svetlana Romashina, the multiple Paralympic champion and Sochi 2014 Ambassador Sergei Shilov, and the musician and Sochi 2014 Ambassador, Igor Butman.

In the regions, the Olympic athletes also visited schools, in order to tell the schoolchildren about the Games and inspire them by their personal example: a Middle School in Sochi was treated to a visit by Tatiana Bazyuk, who competed at the London Olympics in the Russian sailing team. Tatiana Chernova, who won bronze in the heptathlon, spoke to children in Krasnodar, whilst kids in Saransk got the chance to meet the racewalking champions from the London Games, Elena Lashmanova and Sergei Kirdyapkiny.

The lesson marked the start of the educational campaign "The Marathon of Olympic Knowledge", which drew to a close on October 5, 2012 - the Day of the Teacher. In total, during the "Marathon of Olympic Knowledge" over 100,000 Olympic lessons were held for more than four million schoolchildren, led by over 100,000 teachers. The role of teacher was played not only by Russian teachers themselves, but also by the Organizing Committee's Partners, and Sochi 2014 volunteers.

Soon, in order to spread Olympic knowledge further afield, an interactive educational project called “The Alphabet of Sochi 2014” will be launched. This project will brief online visitors on the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in an entertaining way, allowing anyone who so desires to upload documents, pictures and video clips for the “Alphabet”, or to test their knowledge and expertise about the Olympics and Paralympics.