Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Annual educational initiative
On April 18, 2015, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art will participate in the annual event, Total Dictation. This educational initiative allows visitors to check their literacy, and the best in the competition will win an award. As in previous years, the text to be dictated will be written by a contemporary Russian author, in this case the Yasnaya Polyana Award-winning author of Laurus, philologist Evgeny Vodolazkin. At Garage, it will be read out by the producer of the Evening Urgant TV show Andrey Saveliev. The dictation will be followed by a discussion of common mistakes, and an awards ceremony, which will take place at the Russian State Library on April 25. Prizes are courtesy of TransTelekom, the language software producer ABBYY and PrimePass Moscow. Total Dictation is an annual educational initiative offering a literacy check for everyone. Its main purpose is to provide Russian speakers with an opportunity to check their knowledge of the language and promote literacy. The initiative started in a student club in Novosibirsk State University in the early 2000s. Over the past 12 years Total Dictation has grown into a big international project, with 64,000 people in 360 cities across 47 countries taking part in the dictation, and 52,000 having watched the live broadcast in 2014. This year, 15,600 people have attended courses to prepare for the check. The project is run by the Total Dictation foundation fostering language development. Andrey (SAVVA) Saveliev (b. 1980) currently produces Evening Urgant TV show. He has previously worked as Creative Director at Sobaka publishing house, Chief Editor at Time Out Russia, Startup Manager at Time Out Kiev, and as a journalist and artist.