At the start of the second day of the Bibliobraz-2005 International Book Festival, Mrs Putina awarded prizes to the winners of the Stupeni Literary Competition. The competition was announced in autumn 2004 to support young writers and was organised by the Centre for the Development of the Russian Language. More than 140 authors aged between 17 and 35 from Russia and the CIS countries took part. Seven works were selected for awards.
The First Lady also took part in the presentations of the participating countries’ programmes. Bulgaria, Armenia and Germany presented their programmes on this day.
The problem of making books accessible for children and adolescents was the main subject of discussion at a round table – Young Readers, Books, Time – in which Mrs Putina, the First Ladies of Austria, Armenia, Bulgaria, Britain, Germany and Kyrgyzstan, and more than 30 participants in the Bibliobraz-2005 Festival all took part.
The participants in the round table agreed to organise a joint action called Discovering Each Other. The First Ladies adopted a memorandum on publishing in their respective countries a common collection of literary works for the young generation. Each of the participating countries will recommend for the collection a prose work that deals with topical issues for the 10–17-year age group. The collection will be presented in December 2006.