History of Young Physicists' Tournament in Russia

The 1980 article by Evgeny Yunosov

In August 1980 Evgeny Yunosov has published an article titled "Young Physicists' Tournament" (Russian: Турнир юных физиков) in Kvant magazine (a popular Soviet science magazine for secondary school students, now available online). Yunosov has proposed the structure of a Physics Fight with teams having roles of Reporters, Opponents and Reviewers and was the first to underline that the suggested problems had no certain known answer and would make a problem even for a specialist. The 1980 article has determined the main features of YPT that remain milestones of the competition until today:

"A Physics Fight is a collective competition of young physicists in their ability to solve complicated problems, to present their solutions in a convincing way, and to hold a discussion", wrote Yunosov in 1980.

"Perhaps, the best scheme of a Physics Fight is if teams present themselves as Reporters, Opponents and Reviewers, in turn. At first, a representative of Reporter team presents their solution of a problem. Then, an Opponent poses questions to the reporter and announces his critical remarks. Naturally, that leads to a discussion. Finally a Reviewer evaluates the performances of both Reporter and Opponent", considered Yunosov.

"In usual problem books, there are still no tasks of this type, and they would constitute a problem even for a specialist. However the life poses such problems to physicists daily. The jurors were very interested in seeing how students approached these problems, what qualitative explanation they proposed, what physical model they chose, what approximations they did, what experimental investigations they carried out, and in what way", underlined Yunosov.

"The students were provided with the list of 17 problems", noted Yunosov in 1980, launching the tradition of 17 problems selected annually (however, this number was fixed only for the problems of the Correspondence Round, while other problem lists were somewhat flexible).

Features of early YPTs

The structure of a Physics Fight was rather flexible in early 1980s and it took some years to reach quite a stable scheme. Some discrepancies between current IYPTs and early 1980s YPTs in Soviet Union are listed below.

The YPT was organized in several major rounds: the Correspondence Round, the Semi-Finals and the Finals. Since 1981, when the Quarter-Finals were held, Semi-finals and quarter-finals were mentioned as Selective Fights. During the Correspondence Round, the students were supposed to provide written reports on selected problems that were later graded by jury. The teams that have sent researches of sufficient number and of sufficient quality were invited to Semi-finals (As in 1980, 8 teams reached Semi-finals. In 1981, 6 teams fought in Semi-finals. Throughout the 1980s, the number of teams at the Correspondence Round was at the order of 40).

In the 1980s, the Semi-finals were quite similar to today's common YPTs because the teams discussed the problems of the Correspondence Round (that they had known in advance). However, these problems were typically released just in few weeks before the event.

Not all the problems were known before the competition; some problems were delivered to the participants just at the Finals (as for 1980, the Finals included "big" problems (to be solved in 1 hour) and "little" problems (to be solved in 10 min). Since 1982, mostly 1-hour-problems were proposed). The method of solving challenging tasks at a competition (still with a possibility to use any advice, literature reference, experimental evidence etc.), now abandoned, may have provided a chance to check if the participants could apply their skills to certain problems, without long preparatory phase.

Number of students in a team was flexible. In 1981, no more than 15 participants within a single team were allowed.

As for 1981, an Opponent was not allowed to ask more than 8 questions to the reporter.

Observers, or so called bolelschiki (fans), were also solving certain problems. In the 1980s, every observer that had gained some points could grant his points to any of the participating teams. In 1982 the observers had 50 min to solve their problems, but only 5 min in 1985.

All in all, at least 25–40 problems were to be solved at a certain YPT (at a Correspondence Round, at Semi-finals, at Finals, at Captain's contests, at Observers' contests etc. ) Not all the problems were published, and as for 2007, it is quite common when former YPT participants reveal unpublished problems from their archives.

The YPT problems in the 1980s

As at today's IYPTs, the problems never included completely defined conditions and were intentionally left open ended. Most problems would sound quite naturally for a today's IYPT and were covering mechanics, electricity, magnetism, optics, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics and other branches of physics.

However, certain problems of early YPTs considered not only pure physics, but many interdisciplinary subjects, such as astronomy, computer data processing, image recognition, physical chemistry and even computational biology.

In 1981, one of problems said: “Is it possible to write a copy of the A. Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" novel with a single ball pen that costs 35 kopecks?" According to one of the researches, such a Soviet pen was able to draw a line of 1 km long. However, "The Count of Monte Cristo" included 1750000 letters, 64000 commas, 26000 dashes, 44000 full-stops and 5000 interrogative and exclamatory signs that required drawing 23 km in average handwriting.

A 1990 problem "Fractal?" asked to study the dependence of a wool balls's mass on its diameter, when grandmother collects the thread into a ball.

Some engineering skills were sometimes required. A 1987 problem proposed to develop an Eternal Radio that would convert radio waves into sound without any power supply or batteries. The coefficient to evaluate the quality of the Radio, was proposed be given by x = P/Lm, where P was the acoustic pressure in 1 m from the device, L was the maximum of linear dimensions and m was the mass of the device.

The 1982 problem 'Bus' required to explain why vibrations in the back end of a bus were felt more clearly than near the driver's seat. One of the teams has developed a vibrometer with connected tape recorder as a data storage device and measured the oscillations in different points of a usual public-transportation Soviet bus, then calculating average energy of oscillations, spectrum and spatial distribution of average amplitudes in different places in a bus.

Many problems of the 1980s also required outdoor activities and applying physical principles to investigate phenomena that were hardly reproducible in a school lab or in a kitchen, like astrophysical phenomena.

Such problems required observation and measurement of all necessary parameters and dependencies without building an own setup to reproduce a phenomenon. Thus, these problems targeted to teach students to gain information from distant objects, such as space bodies, atmosphere or already existing anthropogenic or natural objects (buildings, urban infrastructure, mountains etc.)

Certain problems also required some background knowledge in languages or social sciences and asked to understand and explain sophisticated formulae or quotes of classical physicists.

Some problems also required a considerable sense of humor. For example, a 1983 problem asked to develop a method to transmit a written document to distances of 2 km using only 18th century means, and as fast as possible. The problem quoted "Rodney Stone" by Arthur Conan Doyle that described a method to transmit urgent and confidential information when attaching letters to cricket balls and hitting them. The "Rodney Stone" method allowed sending a letter in 50 miles (80 km) in 30 min.

Besides everything, there were problems almost identical to today's IYPT problems. Problem No. 19 "Splash" of the Correspondence Round in 1983 was similar to problem No. 7 "Splash" at IYPT'2008. The problem No. 11 "String Telephone" of the Correspondence Round in 1987 was similar to the problem No. 11 "String Telephone" at IYPT' 2004. Problem No. 3 "Camera obscura" of the Correspondence Round in 1988 was similar to the problem No. 3 "Pinhole Camera" at IYPT'2008.

The major authors of these problems were Evgeny Yunosov, Tatyana Korneeva, Igor Yamisnsky, Sergei Varlamov, Vladimir Braginsky, Pavel Elyutin, Alexander Korotkov, A. Kusenko.

The YPT Logo

Two horses and armed knights with mc² and h ν shields seem to have appeared in 1981 or 1982. They were firstly used as the YPT logo in a publication in Kvant magazine in February 1982. However, the drawing was slightly different, with minor discrepancies to the current logo, commonly accepted in the 1990s.

While in the 1980s the writing on the second shield was E=ħ ω (with the reduced Planck's constant and angular frequency), it was replaced with just h ν in the 1990s. The formula E=mc² has similarly lost the left-hand side of the equation.

The first known appearance of the current logo was on the diplomas presented to the winners of the 6th IYPT in 1993.

The author of these logos has not been reported for the longest time and remained unknown to most IYPT community until early 2008. "Oh, the author is Babaev, from the Department of Physics, Moscow State University. He has drawn these horses by hand", Evgeny Yunosov unveiled the mystery in a brief 2008 interview.

Support from scientific community in the 1980s

As early as in 1980, Yunosov has stressed that the YPT is impossible without wide support from the physics community in universities. The 2nd Young Physicists' Tournament (1980) has already enjoyed a cooperation with Lebedev Physical Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, with university students at Moscow State University and at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, with the Znanie society (a Soviet science-promoting organization).

The YPT was immediately supported by the Kvant magazine.

In 1981, Yunosov invited Evgeny Velikhov to become the president of YPT Organizing Committee. Velikhov was among top Soviet scientists, the vice-president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the head of the Atomic Physics and Electronic Phenomena department. He remained the president of the YPT OC until the late 1980s.

V. Bonch-Bruyevich, Lomonosov Prize winner, served as the Jury Chair since 1981. Georgiy Zatsepin has much helped YPTs in late 1980s and was elected the President of IYPT Organizing Committee in 1989.

1st IYPT

The 1st IYPT was held in late March-early April 1988, and was integrated into the Rounds of the 1st Soviet Young Physicists' Tournament.

Problems for the competition were published in August 1987 in the Kvant magazine, as it was common before. A detailed set of advices for YPT beginners was released as well. Several Selective Rounds were held in 1987–1988 for local Soviet teams only.

The international teams joined the Finals of the 10th YPT that were held in the Olympiets Youth Center, outside Moscow. There was no reference to the IYPT or 1st IYPT at the event itself, and everyone called it just the Finals of the 10th Young Physicists' Tournament. However, a Yunosov's article published in August 1988 implies that the 1st IYPT had already been held, because it announces the expected 2nd IYPT. The events of 1988 have been commonly recognized as such the 1st IYPT ever since.

List of international participants at the 1st IYPT is not definitely clear. There have been references to the teams of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Bulgaria. A 2004 article in Gazeta "Moskovsky Universitet" lists Hungary among participants of the competition, which is rejected by Hungarian sources. It is known that in 1988, the combined Czechoslovak team included the winners of the Czechoslovak Physics Olympiad.

Yury Yufryakov, a Soviet reporter and finalist of the competition, suggests that "there was no rigorous well-developed International competition" and thus, no winners and no contestants. There have been reports of Polish and Soviet teams being the winners at the 1st IYPT. Two Bulgarian sources claim that the team of Bulgaria took either the 1st either the 3rd position among teams from 4 countries.

Despite assumptions that the Soviet Union was represented with 2 teams, the captain of the Soviet team that was invited to make a talk at the "summary session" of the YPT, confirms that there was only one Soviet team at the session. The specific status of the 1st IYPT seems to be never emphasized at the event itself, because by late 2007, a participant and an assumed winner of the event was not aware that there was any competition at all. In his opinion, the 1st IYPT was a "closing ceremony" or a "summary session" of the 10th YPT.

Russian language was the working language of the entire 1988 competition.

2nd IYPT

The preparation to the 2nd IYPT began immediately after the 1st IYPT and was long and profound. By August 1988, it was supposed that the new international teams (unfamiliar with the format of the competition) would be supported by 'curators' (кураторы), school students of a host country that would help new participants to get familiar with YPT. The idea to allow a host country to have two representing teams was reported to be approved after international consultations in 1988. A preparatory international conference was tentatively scheduled to take place in October 1988.

The 2nd IYPT was combined with the Finals of 2nd Soviet YPT and was held on March 24 – April 2, 1989 in the Olympiyets Youth Center in Moscow, Soviet Union.

All in all, 32 Soviet teams took part at the Soviet YPT that helped to select and nominate two Soviet teams for IYPT (of Odessa and of School 710, Moscow). The international participants attended these rounds and, reportedly, both Organizing Committee and Soviet students did their best in sharing the YPT experience with international guests.

In 1989, 8 teams took part at 2nd IYPT, namely the teams of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, and two teams of Soviet Union. "Most teams spoke Russian, and the rest of the participating teams were accompanied by interpreters", reported a participant of the competition.

The common practice of using visual aids during the report was presenting paper posters. Several teams have collaboratively contributed to a hanwritten newspaper that covered current events, such as Physics Fights. The newspaper included many jokes, such as around the problem No. 10 "Mosquito": "At what maximum altitude can a mosquito fly?" The joke was, "How much energy would an experimenter need to explain to a mosquito that it has to fly at a maximum altitude, as long as possible, in March?"

Teams of West Germany and of Bulgaria were winners at the competition. The Organizing Committee of the IYPT was organized the same year, and Georgiy Zatsepin was elected as the president.

3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th IYPTs

By August 1989, the 3rd IYPT was scheduled to take place in Kladno (Czechoslovakia) on February 26 – March 3, 1990. A group of Soviet students, including Ilya Mashkov, Sergei Volkov and Fyodor Sigayev, even made a trip to Czechoslovakia in summer 1989 to take part in "somewhat like YPT-related conference".

The competition, however, took place in June 1990 in Olympiyets Youth Center (Moscow), after repeated revisions of the schedule. It ended with the victory of a Soviet team and involved, all together, 6 teams from 5 countries. The exact list of teams is not clear. The confirmed participants are Hungary (ranking 4th), Czechoslovakia (ranking 5th or 6th), the Netherlands, Poland and, presumably, two Soviet teams.

The 4th IYPT was held in Moscow on July 22–28, 1991. The participants at the competition included the teams of Great Britain, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and two teams of Soviet Union. It is not clear if there were 7 teams from 6 countries or 8 teams from 7 countries. The team of Hungary was the gold winner. The Czechoslovak team was confirmed not to rank above 4th. The competition was attended by observers from France and Italy and by representatives of the European Physical Society. The tasks for the 5th IYPT were expected to be available by December 1991.

The Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991. Belarus, Georgia, Moldavia, Russia, the Ukraine and Uzbekistan could then send to IYPT their National teams.

The 5th IYPT (with 12 teams from 10 countries) took place in Protvino, Russia, on April 25–30, 1992. The team of Belarus and the team of Czechoslovakia have shared the first position, winning gold. The list of participating teams and the ranking tables are obscure, but it is known that the Georgian team took the 4th place.

Czechoslovakia peacefully split into Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993. These two countries could send independent National teams to the IYPT.

The 6th IYPT was held in Protvino (Russia) on June 18–25, 1993. The competition has attracted as many as 19 teams from 11 countries: Belarus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Moldavia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, the Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The Georgian team was the gold winner. The ranking table is not clear, while it is known that Slovakia was not ranked above 4th, and Belarus was ranked 10th. Ukraine was ranked 2nd and Hungary was ranked 3rd.

Russian remained the working language at the competition in 1993. However, the official seal already included the English abbreviation YPT.

Timeline

While the International Young Physicists' Tournament continued to rapidly develop and attract new activists, organizers and participating countries, the situation inside Russia became different from that of the 1980s because of political and economical changes of the early 1990s. The open Moskovsky Turnir Yunykh Fizikov (Moscow Young Physicists' Tournament) has replaced the union-wide Soviet Young Physicists' Tournament, that ceased to exist with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as reported Fryazino school, an active participant in 1988–1994.

By 1994, Yunosov left his position of the responsible for the competition in Russia. However, he kept his position of the IYPT vice-president until at least 1997.

Despite these changes, at the 7th IYPT (Groningen, Netherlands), the first to be held outside post-Soviet area, the team of Russia has shared victory with the Czech Republic. Sergei Varlamov, who trained the team and led it to the achievement, published many tips and advices for preparation. The Organizing Committee head Valentin Lobyshev has emphasized in a 1994 Kvant article that "the experience of recent Tournament has shown an urgent problem; our team had an unsatisfactory knowledge of English language that was necessary for active communication and holding discussions. We should certainly take that into account when preparing teams."

The second considerable achievement of a Russian team took place in 2000, when the team has reached Finals and was ranked 3rd at the 13th IYPT in Budapest, Hungary.

Throughout the 1990s the Russian teams could discuss their solutions with competitors at the selective Vserossiysky Turnir Yunykh Fizikov, but not everyone had an opportunity of direct communication with practicing researchers and academia. It was common that a team representing the country at an IYPT was not familiar with the features of the competition and the requirements for a successful IYPT report. Most Russian teams were not aware of the experience gained by earlier Russian participants:

"We had to reject challenges to the problems in which we had both experimental and theoretical results, including ‘Cell and Accumulator’ and 'Candle Generator’. The reason was that we were not able to report them. At that moment the team has understood that a ‘ready’ problem is not a problem with some mathematical formulae or with a performed experiment. It is a problem that we also can explain", noted Olga Inisheva, a Russian team leader at 10th IYPT (1997).

The selective Russian competition could not hold previously excellent standards that led to a general feeling of discontent. Comparing to almost 40 participating teams in the 1980s and a policy of promoting YPT nationally, holding preparatory conferences and seminars, issuing leaflets, advice books etc. and involving as many teams as possible, only few teams took part in Russian YPTs in the 1990s. Since 1996 the practice of promoting the Russian and the International YPTs and covering Russian participation at IYPT in Web and in press was not apparently visible.

The role of the Russian language at IYPT was progressively decreasing, while the teams and team leaders apparently had limited skills in Scientific English and holding a scientific communication. No special efforts were applied to inform teams that such skills were necessary and further competitions showed that Russian teams experienced major problems with explaining themselves in English. The interpretation for them has been a common practice even in the 2000s.

Sasha Nemsadze, the Georgian team leader at the 16th IYPT (2003), has published a report analyzing every Physics Fight he attended. The Russian, Finnish and Georgian teams met at the 5th Selective Fight of the 16th IYPT:

"In the first stage, the Finns proposed to the Russian team the problem “Freezing soft drinks”. [...] The game resulted to be almost comic. The Russian team, according to everyone's opinion, was rather weak, and furthermore they factually spoke no English. They have read the presentation text from the slides on screen. All of their team corrected the misread words. Finns have understood nothing. The Armenian Jury chairman Gagik Grigoryan just approached the Russians and worked as their interpreter. [At the next stage], the Opponent was a pretty girl from Russia. Gagik Grigoryan interpreted and, instead of her, responded to the questions and made commentaries".

Performances of Russian teams at IYPTs in 1992–2003

This list does not include Soviet teams in 1988–1991. Russia-1, Russia-2 and Russia-3 indicate the teams that had gained 1st, 2nd or 3rd positions (respectfully) at the selective Moskovsky Turnir Yunykh Fizikov (later Vserossiysky Turnir Yunykh Fizikov) and were technically expected to represent Russia at IYPT. Except for cases when the winner have cancelled their participation, these names also refer to the titles in the ranking tables of IYPT.

Despite only 2 Russian teams at IYPT were allowed, the Russia-3 was invited to IYPT in 1997, achieving a better result than other Russian teams.

Analysis and critical opinions

"On June 2, we had a selective fight with teams from Poland and from Prague. In these countries, participants have a support in preparation, they hold training seminars. The technical facilities of these teams are incredible. Overall, we were completely unprepared to the level of English language of our competitors. […] Obviously, we and the second Russian team have failed all Selective Fights and became observers", wrote a team leader in 1998, explaining their results at 11th IYPT.

In 1995, after the 8th IYPT (Spała, Poland), the Moscow organizing committee head Valentin Lobyshev has explained the modest results, "above the only Finnish team", by the "composition of our teams, no succession with previous experience and the language problems, resulting in unsatisfactory English language."

"Recently, the problems emerged when organizing Tournaments in Russia. They were largely connected with its expulsion from the list of all-Russian Olympiads and conferences. As a result, the students that had won in the Tournament and had spent a large amount of efforts to prepare to it, must take the decision: either go to IYPT either pass exams to a university", wrote in 2002 Olga Inisheva, the team leader at 15th IYPT.

"How we can compete with the countries where the trainings are held professionally?" concluded in 2004 Evgeny Mogilewski, a team leader at the IYPTs in 2003, 2004 and 2005 and a representative of the Moscow Organizing Committee.

"[...] Unfortunately, recently in Russia, the participants receive help only from undergraduate students, if they don't have classes themselves. [...] Development tempo of the competition in Russia is going down, while all of work is done by enthusiasts only. We can only hope that the motherland of the Tournament will not be left on the margins of history", he noted.

Early advances

In 1999, a group of physicists at Saint Petersburg State University became familiar with concept of the Young Physicists' Tournament and the earlier activities of Soviet and Russian teams and enthusiasts. Despite initially modest achievements at the selective Vserossiysky Turnir Yunykh Fizkiov, the group has selected and supervised a team for the 14th International Young Physicists' Tournament, helping to outline the necessity of wider interaction between secondary school students with academic community, international cooperation and promoting the IYPT concept in post-Soviet Russia.

One of the first international events held at Saint Petersburg State University was an English language Preparation Camp to the 15th IYPT, which was held in late November-early December 2001 and involved Polish and Russian teams.

A considerable number of new members, including around 10 practicing researchers and university professors and around 10 undergraduate physics students, many of whom had been IYPT participants themselves, supported and joined the activist group in 2002 and 2003, which led to launching the Russian university-based YPT-oriented research and educational entity, which was called POISK Centre. The name, according to their web-site, was a Russian abbreviation that stood for the Support Centre for Olympiads, Intellectual Competitions and Contests.

Activities of POISK Centre since 2004

Established in 2004, the Centre focused on the fact that the leaders at IYPTs were teams of Slovakia, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Austria that were trained at scientific and educational university associations or centres and enjoyed active university support in the preparation of their National teams.

"We felt a strong need in using completely new ways of training and supervising Russian teams at IYPT. By 2004, there was an urgent need in a university-based educative and research centre that would help to select and prepare a competitive team. We have to admit that the performances of certain Russian teams at recent IYPTs were incompatible with the scientific potential of our country and the role that Russia used to play in developing YPT as a new institution and a new type of competition. The POISK Centre […] hopes to implement many plans in providing professional, transparent, well-organized system of training Russian teams", stated POISK Centre in 2004.

Since 2004, the POISK Centre has been remaining the university-based organization in Russia that has been selecting, supervising and training the major National teams that represent the country at the International Young Physicists' Tournament.

The teams selected by POISK Centre have been participants of IYPTs in 2004 (Brisbane, Australia), 2005 (Winterthur, Switzerland) and 2006 (Bratislava, Slovakia) with significant success, winning bronze medals twice. In 2004, the POISK Centre's team has achieved the 4th position among 26 teams.

POISK Centre's advice kits and presentations were very helpful in the preparation of the team that was expected to represent Russia at the 20th IYPT (2007). Their reports, published on July 10, 2007, were primarily based on the respectful help kits, solutions, research projects, tutorials and design templates, released by POISK Centre earlier.

Problem No. 14 "Earthquakes", that occurred to be among the most interesting, was earlier warmly received at the selective Vserossiysky Turnir Yunykh Fizikov in March 2007 and at the Austrian Young Physicists' Tournament in May 2007.

By 2007, the cooperation with physico-mathematical schools, initially with Akademicheskaya Gimnaziya (Saint Petersburg, Russia) allowed to establish active relations with YPT teams and organizations, such as Physical and Mathematical Lyceum 239 and Lyceum 30 (Saint Petersburg), Inta, Glazov, Stavropol, Salekhard, Novodvinsk, Kostroma, Chelyabinsk, Pushkin, Leningradskaya Oblast, Arkhangelsk, Nalchik.

As of 2007 the POISK Centre's teams included students from Arkhangelsk, Orel, Tver, Puchezh, Kazan, Saint Petersburg, while the nominated international team consisted of 4 students, from Tver, Arkhangelsk and Saint Petersburg. This team represented Russia at the 9th AYPT, making a best report and winning silver.

As of 2008, the Russian POISK Centre's team that ended up as a silver winner at the 10th AYPT included students from Orel, Tikhvin, Metallostroi and Saint Petersburg.

The activities of the Centre are focused on involving students and their advisors into as many scientific events as possible, not sticking to a unique central Tournament. They include selective and preparatory tournaments, language workshops, conferences, seminars, joint Physics Schools with local and international teams (such as the Stanisław Staszic team (Poland), gold winner at IYPTs in 2002 and 2004) and participation in open international events, including the Austrian Young Physicists' Tournament.

Origins of the Gymnasium Union's Russian Young Physicists' Tournament

By 2007, a number of reasons, including the need of involving into IYPT activities a wider community of Russian schools and ensuring the compliance of YPT organization with international principles, led to intense discussions that an open and nationwide Young Physicists' Tournament should be launched in Russia.

There were notable problems that had to be taken into account when elaborating the organization of such a Tournament:

the distant geographical location of IYPT-enthusiastic teams would make it difficult to join the Tournament because of limited funds, or very long travel distance. All students interested in the participation, however, should have had this possibility without any restrictions, especially financial or geographical;

there was a necessity of maintaining the Tournament as an entirely university-based and university-supervised event, despite an expectedly growing number of participating teams.

A perspective solution to these problems was found in a long-term collaborative agreements between government-backed non-profit Foundation for Education Support and Saint Petersburg State University. In late 2007, this cooperation led to nationwide unification of Russian gymnasiums, lyceums and secondary schools into an infrastructural network, called the Gymnasium Union of Russia.

Andrei Fursenko, the Russian Education Minister, introduced the Gymnasium Union of Russia on November 6, 2007, at a major conference in education held at Saint Petersburg State University. The collaborative initiatives of the Foundation and the Saint Petersburg State University are a part of the National Priority Projects and are directly supported by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the Russian Ministry of Education.

The Russian Foundation for Education Support has stated that "the Gymnasium's Union of Russia will help to create a new high-level, widely available and mobile education system through unifying Russian Gymnasiums with a information and communication network. [...] Saint Petersburg was chosen as the harbor for the project, because of its unique scientific, educational and cultural potential. Saint Petersburg State University directly supports the scientific projects of the Foundation and helps to fill it with a new content. Saint Petersburg has written the first page in development of Gymnasiums as the educational centers of the reviving Russia".

The Gymnasium Union's Russian Young Physicists' Tournament became a major collaborative project between the Gazprom's Russian Foundation for Education Support and the community of Russian university researchers and professors, including lifelong YPT enthusiasts. The work preceding the launch of the competition began in late 2007 and became very intense after February 11, 2008, when the draft Statute of the Tournament was released for public discussion.

Statute of the GU RYPT

Some notable specifics of the proposed Statute include the following:

It is the academic community that co-organizes the Tournament;

The Tournament stands for the compliance of its Statute and Regulations with the respective documents of the International Young Physicists' Tournament;

The Tournament is planned to be held in three Rounds: the Correspondence Round, the Semi-Finals and the Finals.

A key role in initial selection of the teams, in organizing distant Physics Fights and in communication at all levels, is expected to be played by videoconferences held with the Union's infrastructure;

The Tournament recognizes and appreciates open international YPT-related events, because they "contribute to the promotion and development of the IYPT educational system and to the expansion of international cooperation";

The Tournament welcomes international contacts and is open to possible participation of international teams;

Upon request, participants and teachers can always obtain consultations and evaluation from university scientists. Curators, who are responsible for providing this help, are planned to regularly communicate with teachers and students via computer networks and at videoconferences. The reasons for establishing the institution of curators were reported to be in giving equal chances for students from distant schools who "may have limited chances to contact a practicing researcher or even to find a necessary book in local library", in providing teachers and participants "with references, advice kits and other materials that do not influence the integrity and the independence of a research project, but give an impetus in preparation", in eliminating situations "when a team puts unnecessary efforts focusing on a flawed research strategy" and in maintaining the competitive spirit of participants with ongoing communication and feedback on the topics they are interested in.

Curators administrate and support preparatory events, targeting to provide best level of preparation and being responsible for overseeing the compliance of regional efforts with the general principles outlined by the Organizing Committee;

One of the key goals of the Tournament is in selection of unified national teams of the Gymnasium Union of Russia that are ready to participate in international competitions;

It is the Reporter's duties to provide a research, not a survey or a compilation of known facts. The Reporter "especially emphasizes the element of novelty of the suggested research";

The Review stage is allowed and attentively appreciated at the entire Tournament. "Reviewer does not choose the problem that the Reporter deals with, but has to make a competent evaluation of a scientific discussion in a short time, raising the level of objectivity in the evaluation of the entire Physics Fight".

Use of English language is welcomed at the Selective Physic Fights and at the Finals. A great attention is expected to be paid to helping students improving their proficiency in "foreign languages of science".

Round Table on the GU RYPT

The GU RYPT was introduced and officially launched during a joint Round Table organized by POISK Centre and the Foundation. It was held on April 17, 2008 at the headquarters of the Foundation and included a videoconference with Russian schools on many locations.

A communiqué released by POISK Centre and media reports named several resolutions of the Round Table:

The primary goal of the GU RYPT is in broadening and diversification of the IYPT educational system in Russia. 10–12 teams that were typical at today’s competitions in Russia were "evidently too little".

The 1st Gymnasium Union’s Russian Young Physicists’ Tournament, scheduled to June 24–28, 2008 is planned as a pilot project, with many innovations to be discussed and tested in practice. There are two months left for polishing details of the competition.

The idea of holding initial Selective Fights via videoconferences, the cornerstone of the project, is extremely effective, when many schools are enthusiastic with the YPT but are not ready for long trips (because of limited funds, or distant geographical location).

The idea of supporting every team with professional curators was positively welcomed by all schools.

1st GU RYPT

The first GU RYPT was scheduled to be held in Saint Petersburg on June 24–28, 2008, in order not to interfere with the 21st IYPT taking place on May 21–28, 2008. The proposed problems are the same as the problems at the 21st IYPT.