Open Mathematical Olympiad of the Belarusian-Russian University
The Open Mathematical Olympiad of the Belarusian-Russian University is an annual mathematical contest for the students of higher educational institutions, which has been annually held at the Belarusian-Russian University since 2010.
Teams of higher education institutions composed of not more than two participants (undergraduates or postgraduate students) and one supervisor are invited to take part in the Olympiad. The Olympiad is held as a competition with individual classification, winners (holders of gold, silver and bronze medals) of the Open Mathematical Olympiads of the Belarusian-Russian University held in the past years may be additionally included into the HEI team over the quota. The Olympiad is held in one round in the form of testing (30 tasks in the form of tests to be fulfilled within 5 hours), the tasks contain problems from the following areas of mathematics: algebra, theory of numbers, analysis (real or complex), analytical geometry, combinatorial analysis, ordinary differential equations.
The complexity of problems is taken into account in counting scored points. The winners of the Olympiad are determined according to the results of testing. Medals and Diplomas of the 1–3 degree are awarded to 12 Olympiad winners, and six participants receive Honorable Diplomas.
Working languages of the Olympiad are English and Russian.
History
The idea to hold Olympiads belongs to the Department of Higher Mathematics of the Belarusian-Russian University, with V.G. Zamuraev, the Associate Professor of the Department of Higher Mathematics, L.V. Pletnev, the Department Head, and N.I. Milyanova, the senior lecturer, standing at its origin. N.I. Milyanova selected and prepared math problems for the first four Olympiads. The Olympiad Organizing Committee includes representatives of the University administration and faculty members of the Department of Higher Mathematics.
The first Olympiad was held on February 20, 2010 and actually it was a regional Olympiad with 41 students of five universities of the Mogilev region participating in it. The competition was of an individual contest type in the form of a computer-based testing. The participants were given 20 math problems of advanced complexity to be solved within 3 hours. The winner of the first Olympiad was Andrey Yefremov, a second-year student of the Belarusian-Russian University (BRU) Faculty of Economics. The silver and bronze medals were awarded to Mikhail Drozdov and Yevgeny Yefimenko, also BRU students.
The second Olympiad was held on February 19, 2011. Students from two Russian Federation universities, namely Ivanovo State Power Engineering University named after Lenin (ISPEU) and Tula State University (TulSU) attended it in addition to participants from five higher education institutions of the Mogilev region. Besides, five students of Mari State Technical University (MarSTU) from Yoshkar-Ola participated hors concours in on-line testing. The winner of the second Olympiad was Mikhail Drozdov, a BRU student, and Mikhail Nikishin and Andrei Klimov, both TulSU students, won second and third places.
The third Olympiad, held on February 18, 2012, was attended by students of three Mogilev universities and four Russian universities: besides the participants from ISPEU, MarSTU and TulSU, there were students from Obninsk Institute for Nuclear Power Engineering taking part in it. Alexander Malyshev (ISPEU) won the gold medal of the third Olympiad, and the second and third places were taken by Mikhail Drozdov (BRU) and Yuri Basalov (TulSU), correspondingly.
Starting with the fourth Olympiad, the rules of the competition underwent several changes. Not only students but also graduate students were allowed to participate in it, and the maximum number of participants from one university was reduced to two people, with the opportunity to additionally include in the team the winners of previous Olympiads. The fourth Olympiad was held on February 21, 2013, with 50 students and postgraduate students of various specialties from 24 universities of Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Russia, Slovenia and Tajikistan participating in it. The participants were given 30 math problems to be solved within 5 hours. The complexity of problems was taken into account in counting scored points. The winners of the Olympiad were determined according to the results of testing. Diplomas of the 1–3 degree were awarded to 12 Olympiad participants, and six participants received Honorable Diplomas. Andrei Yefremov, a BRU graduate student, became the winner of this Olympiad. Gold medals were also given to Viktor Markov, a graduate student of North-Eastern Federal University (Yakutsk) and Oleg Baskov, a graduate student from St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU).
The fifth Olympiad, held on February 20, 2014, was attended by 52 undergraduates and postgraduate students from 25 universities of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and Tajikistan. Oleg Baskov, a postgraduate student of SPbSU, was the winner, Pirahmad Olimdzhoni, a student of Tajik National University, won second place, and Dmitry Obukhov, a student of Novosibirsk State Technical University, was the third.
The Open BRU Mathematical Olympiad continues long traditions of students mathematical Olympiads and at the same time it has traditions and peculiarities of its own, which distinguish it from other mathematical competitions. The Olympiad held in the form of testing eliminates any subjectivity in the evaluation of papers and the participation of senior students and postgraduates in the competition increases significantly the general mathematical level of participants. While the Olympiad participants are solving math problems, the team leaders have the opportunity to participate in the round table on mathematics education in universities. Great help to the Olympiad organizing committee is traditionally provided by student volunteers.
