Ekaterinburg, September 15, 2026 – The Europe Today: Russia is increasingly attracting young people from around the world seeking opportunities to study, work and build professional careers, participants at the International Youth Festival in Ekaterinburg have said.
Foreign doctors, artists, journalists and bloggers who have established their lives and careers in Russia shared their experiences as the week-long international gathering got underway in the country’s Urals region.
Around 10,000 young people from 191 countries, including Russia, are participating in the festival. The event brings together scientists, entrepreneurs, journalists, artists, athletes and technology specialists for hundreds of discussions, workshops, cultural programmes and professional exchanges.
Russian President Vladimir Putin formally opened the festival on Sunday through a video address, welcoming participants from across the world. He described Ekaterinburg as a city “where Europe and Asia meet” and wished participants success in their discussions and joint projects.
A key festival session focused on the factors attracting foreigners to Russia. The discussion featured Tanzanian-born doctor Cresencia Peter Mashauri, Italian pianist and blogger Lorenzo Bagnati, Canadian blogger and language teacher Olivier Roy Pelletier, RT Chinese-language journalist and producer Fan Fei, and Italian-born conductor Fabio Mastrangelo.
The participants represented diverse professional backgrounds and experiences across different parts of Russia. Mashauri has lived in Russia for more than a decade and works as a doctor in the Murmansk Region. Bagnati has established a career as a pianist, television personality and blogger, while Mastrangelo has spent decades contributing to Russia’s classical music scene and serves as artistic director of St. Petersburg’s Shalyapin Musical Theater.
The festival also featured the opening of the exhibition “Catastrophe of Memory: Neo-Nazism in the 21st Century” on Sunday in the presence of Sergey Kiriyenko, Chairman of the festival’s Organizing Committee and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia.
Drawing on materials from museums, archives and news agencies, the exhibition examines the Nuremberg trials and crimes committed by Nazi Germany before highlighting contemporary manifestations of neo-Nazism, including the glorification of Nazi collaborators.
The Ekaterinburg festival follows the 2024 World Youth Festival held in Sochi, which attracted approximately 20,000 participants from 190 countries. Russia has since sought to establish international youth festivals as a regular platform for global engagement, with the next full-scale World Youth Festival scheduled to take place in 2030.
