December has one special day that is celebrated traditionally – the International Migrants Day, on which the Department for Social & Economic Geography (Institute of Life Sciences, NCFU) held a special event.

The event started with a word of welcome delivered by Vitaly Belozerov (Director, Institute of Life Sciences, NCFU), who introduced the participants into the history of the day, after which Vasilн Chikhichin (Associate Professor, Department for Social & Economic Geography) talked about the tour he had around Russian regions earlier this year studying the specific features in Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, and Rostov areas and the demography issues.

Then many more speakers took the floor, sharing their experience both studying and doing research, a special highlight being a master class by Ivan Soloviev who focused on studying Russian students’ attitude towards migrants.

And the audience was more than fascinated. Besides, many of the participants were academic migrants themselves, so the event was not just time spent listening yet extremely relevant. Great job, folks!