On August 23 – September 2 Petrozavodsk State University, the Flagship University of Karelia, for the 37th time hosted the Programming Camp, which helps teams to prepare for the ICPC World Championship that will take place on June 2020 in Moscow.

The strongest programmers from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Ukraine, the Republic of Korea, and China came to test their skills.

The winner was the team of Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod (Aleksey Danilyuk, Nikolai Kalinin, Aleksandr Krapivin, Maksim Emelin, Valeria Ryabchikova). The representatives of Seoul National University (the Republic of Korea) took second place. The third place was taken by the combined team of schoolchildren and students (Ildar Gainulin, Aleksandr Morozov, Ramazan Nigmatulin).

One of the organizers of the camps, Professor Victor Vasiliev addressed the programmers on behalf of PetrSU Rector Anatoly Voronin:

“For more than 20 years the camps at Petrozavodsk State University help students make each competitive programmer’s dream come true: winning the medals of the International Collegiate Programming Contest. PetrSU camps have become the first step in preparation for international events. The next training camp at PetrSU will take place on February 2020. I wish you gather your strength and hone your skills for the World Finals and honorably represent universities of your countries! All the success!”

Oleg Khristenko, chairman of the jury, highlighted the features of PetrSU camps:

“The camps held by Petrozavodsk State University have a variety of original contests prepared by representatives of different schools. The camps have a great, well-established training base.”

The winners and prize-winners shared their impressions:

Aleksey Daniluyk, member of the winning team:

“This is the 11th time I take part in the camps. In 2015 I won the overall ranking, though I was part of another team representing a different university. Our team is together for a year, it has only two members out of three required, so at the camp we experimented with the team’s line-up and auditioned for the third member. This year I think there were many contests that included only difficult problems that were hard to solve. Everyone thinks there is a key to success, though there is no such thing. We simply train a lot.”

Ildar Gainulin, the winner of the IOI-2019, author of two contests”

“This is my third camp. This year we showed our best result and took third place. I liked the problems. It is hard to decide what I like more: solving problems or writing them. I am interested in both. I enjoy it a lot.”

Gennady Korotkevich, the coach of the team of ITMO University:

“I have come here many times; I like talking to the students, enjoy solving problems. The Programming Camps of Petrozavodsk State University are large-scale events. Many students come from different countries as the programming school here is at a really high level.”

PetrSU camps are held since 1998. Since 2000 they are held two times in a year: in summer and winter and starting from winter 2002 they featured visiting teams from other cities.

Since 2006 every year participants of the camps win 5-7 sets of medals out of 12 of the World Programming Championship that convenes over 8000 teams from 2000 universities of 150 countries.

This year the World Finals took place in April in Porto (Portugal) where the team from Moscow State University that has participated in Petrozavodsk camp became the two-time World Champion.

Last year the World Finals took place in Beijing where teams participating in Petrozavodsk camps won 6 medals out of 12 (3 gold and 3 bronze).