Chuvash State Art Museum opened an exhibition titled We by artist Maria Fomiryakova in Cheboksary.

The concept is inpired by "the ancestral world. Our universe. The human world, and the endless cosmos within us. Images of the past, gods, spirits, nature, the beauty of the world surrounding us" as stated by Maria, who researched social archetypes according to their roles. "The foremost purpose of my creaitivity is the study of archaic images of pagan religion of our ancient ancestors", says the artist.

The focal point of the art show is above all, the portraits of pagan deities and ancestors. Chuvash mythology is thought to incorporate more than 200 gods and faithful deities, populating the heaven, the earth, and the underwold, with the supreme god Turӑ, the creator of all. The visitors will see the artist's depictions of Turӑ, his wife Kepe, Angels and Kiremet, the spirits of Good and Evil, Red Ravine, deity Hertsurt dressed in white weaving the yarn of life. There are plenty of others including demons and other evil spirits.

Maria's technique is called Rip-art ans is made bright with tempera colors.

Besides mythological and neopagan canvases the artist presents more conventional oil paint portraits and landscapes. There is also a collection of illustrations to books such as The Sword of Tengri by Vladimir Stepanov.

Maria Fomiryakova is fathered by famous ethnofuturism artist Georgii Fomiryakov and was born in 1983 in the town of Alatyr. She graduated from the Arts and Graphics Department of Chuvash State Teacher's Training University in 2008. Maria has made a career as an interior designer while continuing her work as an artist.

On December 13 in the Philharmonic Society Hall the annual beauty pageant Cӑvaš Piki (Miss Chuvash, not to be confused with Miss Chuvashia) took place. Contestants came from districts of Chuvashia and Tatarstan and competed in five categories. First they presented themselves and then performed their talent routines. After that they were interviewed by the judges, presented traditional dishes they prepared and modeled beautiful traditional-inspired clothes.

It took the judges very long to come to a decision: Viktoria Tihonova from Murkash became this year's Miss Chuvash. She won a trip to a sea resort, while the runners-up were awarded tablet computers.

People have felt the reduction of Chuvash announcements in Cheboksary trolleybuses. In the wake of it association Irӗklӗh (Freedom) filed complaints. The official response that they obtained from Cheboksary's Leninski Disctrict Prosecutor's office confirmed the violation of the republic's law concerning languages by Cheboksary Trolleybus Company and recommended the latter to make corrections.

As a result the trolleybus company has already changed the announcements on routes 4 and 20 to include both state languages in equal proportion. The portions that used to be said only in Russian ("Attention, the doors are closing") are now pronounced in Chuvash as well (Asӑrhanӑr, alӑksem hupӑnaşşӗ).

Traveller infromation boards in trolleybuses and buses will soon become bilingual too.

Not long ago turkologist Cemalettin Yavuz came to Chuvashia. His research focuses on studies of Chuvash, Tatar and Bashkir folklore.

The worsening of Russian Turkish relations after Turkey shot down Russian war plane led to the arrest of the young researcher, who was staying in Chuvashia at that time. He was collecting materials for his masters' theses sponsored by Yunus Emre program.

Recently Cemalettin appeared in Chuvash press as a translator of Chuvash folk fairy tales into Turkish, and was praised for having learnt to speak Chuvash in a very short time.

The researcher is expected to pay a fare, be deported and banned from enetering Russia for a period of 5 years. He'll be detained for two weeks for legal procedures.

Turkey's Trakya University expressed its discontent with what it called an unlawful detention of its research assistant. Turkish Consulate in Kazan is working to free the researcher.

Here are the finalists in the Russian “Reading Region” competition - the regions of Chuvashia, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Mari El and Sakha; Astrakhan, Volgorod, Kirov, Kostroma, Kursk, Murmansk, Novgorod, Orlovsk, Saratov, Tversk and Ulyanovsk; Khabarovsk; Moscow and St Petersburg; Nenets.

These republics, provinces, territories of Russia showed high levels of reading and literary infrastructure and presented original literary projects.

83 of Russia’s 85 regions took part in the competition, which is a part of the 2015 “Year of Literature”. The winner will be announced at a special ceremony on 27 November.

Association Irӗklӗh has started a new project to help promote and facilitate equal use of both state languages in Chuvashia. The name of the project is Linguistic First Aid and its objectives are:

* to make equal opportunities for using both state languages in Chuvashia;

* to preserve and develop Chuvash language as it is the foundation of Chuvash national culture;

* to unite the people through the Chuvash language;

* to promote linguistic harmony and communication culture.

The project will help individuals and corporations linguistically. Legal consultations will be provided on how to defend Chuvash language: how to use it in signage, in trade, and other fields. Linguistic First Aid will also help to file officials complaints against those who break the Language Law of the republic. Upon demand the Aiders will also help translate documents and blanks, signboards and organization names into Chuvash.

It is worth mentioning that the Project has already helped the biggest Health Insurance Company Chuvashia-Med translate their information.

Tatiana Arhipova

A doping scandal lead to The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) banning Russian Federation athletes from participating in international competitions, which prevented Chuvash sportsmen, too, from attending athletic tournaments.

Tatiana Arhipova missed the Japan marathon which happened in the weekend.

The Chuvash Athletics team trainer Nikolai Panfilov says Natalia Puchkova and Alina Prokopieva's participation in world tournaments is also doubtful.

The 2016 World Race Walking Cup which was to take place in Cheboksary was cancelled last week. Chuvash Sports Minister Sergei Sheltukov says the official cancellation documents haven't yet arrived, therefore the tournament preparations continue as scheduled.

On October 28-31 in Moscow federal master classes of teaching native tongues of Russia took place. The participants went through a two-stage competition, whereby they had to present their methodical essays and lesson plans - 182 teachers from 43 regions of Russia submitted their works.

75 winners from Chuvashia, Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Mordovia, Udmurtia, Komi, Tver, Moscow, St. Petersburg and other regions convened for the second stage that happened in the country's capital city. They demonstrated their methods and teacher skills to judges who gave a Chuvash teacher the winning 3rd place.

The Chuvash winner, Svetlana Tiahmusova comes from School 43 in the city of Cheboksary. Two other Chuvash teachers were Valentina Efimova from the town of Kozlovka and Valentina Ivanova from Kanash district's Suhaikassi school. They all teach the Chuvash language and literature.

Valentina Efimova's methods and teaching devices were considered the best by the judges, and she received a special diploma.

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One of the most talented people of Jelcӗk District of Chuvashia Ardalion Ignatyev was a famous Soviet athlete who competed in Melbourne Olympics in 1956 (won the bronze medal), European championships (Champion in 1954) and for many years held record scores in USSR.

Jelcӗk's People's Museum of Regional Studies invites everybody to an exposition called The Road to Achievements. It features photographs and interesting documents related to Ardalion's success. In the evening of November 24, the birthday of Ardalion Ignatyev, a memorial event will be held.

On November 7 the Kransyi Oktyabr culture palace hosted the national festival of Chuvash called Kӗr Sӑri (Autumn Beer). It was organized with the help of Chuvash Autonomous organization in Moscow.

Some 500 people came to the celebration and enjoyed concert by Chuvash music artists and tasted Chuvash food.