On 13 September, the Krasnoyarsk AinArta art gallery hosted the award ceremony for the winners of the My Snow Leopard international media wildlife festival. Young artists from the Orange Sky children’s drawing school received certificates and prizes for their drawings of snow leopards.

The festival’s final events were held in June, when the summer holidays had just started, and many schoolchildren who sent their works to the festival jury did not receive their awards. For that reason, their teachers invited them to an official award ceremony at the beginning of the academic year. Besides the children and their teacher, Irina Verpeta, the ceremony was attended by the parents and artist Tatyana Rudich. She spoke about the excitement of the young festival participants: “The kids made their drawings at the beginning of the year, and it is a pleasant surprise for them that they were displayed again and that prizes were awarded. It is very exciting for them that their works can be seen by children in other counties, because it’s a media competition: all the drawings are posted on the internet.”

The My Snow Leopard international media wildlife festival was established in 2013 by the Sayano-Shushensky Biosphere Reserve and the Khakassky Nature Reserve, with the support of the Russian Geographical Society. Over the three years, more than 10,000 people from Russia, China, Germany, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, France and the US have taken part in the festival.