The team of Saratov region and SSU students in particular showed good results at the Touriade-2021. The VIII Sports and Tourist Camp of the Volga Federal District titled the Touriade-2021 was held in Khalynsk. This year, it was attended by about 500 participants from 14 regions of the Volga Federal District – the winners of regional sports and tourism competitions and university students taking tourism courses, as well as sports tourism coaches, experts, and volunteers. Among them are the students of the Institute of History and International Relations, SSU.

The delegation of our region returned with an honourable third place in the overall scoring. However, in the cultural and educational part of the Touriade the SSU students who became a part of the combined team of the region showed great results. In the Cultural and Educational Tourism nomination the students of Saratov University deservedly took the first place.

This year, 6 students of the course in tourism became the real heroes of the Turiade, who bravely defended the honour of Saratov Region and glorified Saratov University: Elena Dorofeyeva, Irina Shatokhina, Angelina Garashchenko, Diana Volkova, Alsu Baidusheva and Ilya Karagodin. In addition, Anastasia Korolyova, a 4^th-year student of the course in tourism, who participated in the Turiade-2019 and is the Youth Minister of Tourism of our region, was included in the Organizing Committee of the Turiade-2021.

The first competition of the cultural and educational part of the Touriade was titled the Presentation of the Region. Irina Shatokhina spoke about her participation in this competition, ‘It was necessary to present your region to the judges so that they would say, ‘Yes, I want to go to Saratov!’. In the past years, the Touriade in this competition showed a video about their region. This year the task has become more difficult. The video in the presentation was not evaluated in any way, the jury looked at the format of the presentation, at the creative - it was really difficult. Our team has chosen a "space" theme. We presented the Saratov region as one of the places of memory of Yuri Gagarin, preparing a scene in the format of “bedtime stories”. The necessary props, music, light, smoke machine, cosmonaut costume - all this helped to immerse the audience in the atmosphere of space, fairy tales, our story. We coped with the task with dignity and represented the region, taking 4^th place out of 14 teams.’

According to Elena Dorofeyeva, Saratov Region has an interesting and rich history, various types of tourism are developing. It was difficult to choose one direction for lighting within the presentation. ‘We decided to focus on tourism products dedicated to the space theme and the personality of Yuri Gagarin, since this year the entire planet celebrated the 60th anniversary of the first manned flight into space. We could not leave this event unattended, because we have something to be proud of. When preparing the presentation, my team and I decided to recreate the atmosphere of an evening for a Russian family, where parents introduce their child to the history of space exploration and the key tourist sites in Saratov dedicated to this topic. Thus, we wanted to show that the routes implemented in the region are interesting for both schoolchildren and adults and arouse genuine interest and admiration,’ Elena shared.

The second competition for the students was The Best Development of an Interregional Tourist Route in the Volga Federal District. As Irina Shatokhina notes, ‘in just one day it was necessary to prepare all the necessary material for the presentation of the tour route (the route itself, idea and concept, presentation, technological map, booklet), and then competently and vividly present the project to the jury. This year the theme of tour routes sounded like this the Ecological Tourism’.

‘Among the three proposed options, we chose Nizhny Novgorod Region, the Chuvash Republic, the Republic of Tatarstan. and Mari El. We understood that many participants would design their tour based on the most popular natural monuments. Then we were faced with the task of creating a unique ecological tour route. On the day of the presentation, we presented the experts and participants with a circular railway ecological route titled the Ecoexpress of Volga Region. A special feature of the tour is a branded train, which will be a kind of hotel on wheels for each passenger,’ the participant of the forum said.

The victory of students in the Cultural and Educational Tourism nomination once again confirmed the invariably high level of training of specialists in the tourism courses at Saratov State University. The Turiade-2021 was remembered by all the participants with a rich program, new acquaintances and unforgettable emotions. Each student brought home a lot of impressions, diplomas, and gifts.