Announcing Our ACTR National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest Winners

April 27, 2016

The 2016 American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest ended with 16 of our students receiving recognition for their excellent writing abilities in Russian (more than double our total from 2015).

Congratulations to the following students:

Russian A

  • Max Kuhelj-Bugaric - Gold Medal
  • Kim Min - Silver Medal
  • Archil Cheishvili - Bronze Medal
  • Benjamin Chen - Honorable Mention
  • Octav Dragoi - Honorable Mention
  • Waverly Wentworth - Honorable Mention

Russian At (Pushkin)

  • Marcel Garbos - Gold Medal
  • Alaina Richert - Honorable Mention

Russian B

  • Amin Ghadimi - Gold Medal
  • Nicolas Campos - Bronze Medal
  • Eric Kim - Honorable Mention
  • Isaac Hung - Honorable Mention
  • Shub Chhokra - Honorable Mention

Advanced Russian

  • Emma Santelmann - Silver Medal
  • Rachel Van Horn - Bronze Medal
  • Jessika Nebrat - Bronze Medal

The ACTR National Post-Secondary Russian Contest began in 1999. Today, more than 1,000 students from over 50 institutions compete every year. Participants in the contest have exactly one hour to write an essay on a topic that is unknown until the time of writing. The use of dictionaries, notes, phones, books, or aides of any kind is strictly prohibited. This year, the topic was: "An incident that changed my life / Случай, который изменил мою жизнь." All students across the country wrote on this same topic.

Essays are assessed at various levels, Beginning through Advanced, according to contact hours with Russian. Judges are native Russian speakers from whom the names and institutions of the students are withheld, in order to attain the most objective evaluation possible.

To the winners of this year's contest: congratulations on your admirable work, and thank you for representing Harvard University and the Slavic Department so well!

For more information about the ACTR, please visit its official website: http://www.actr.org/