The XIV International Chekhov Recitation Competition will be held in Melikhov on 26-28 January. A.P. Chekhov.

The annual Melikhov elocution competitions are designed to identify and encourage elocutionists, to revive and support the interest of young professionals in the art of elocution. The genre of the spoken word is our national treasure, an exclusively Russian cultural phenomenon.

Out of 88 applications, 35 young actors and senior students from leading theatre universities of the country and abroad made it to the second round of in-person auditions. Every year the geography of the Competition expands, this year in the second round of the competition participants from Belarus, as well as from different cities of Russia: Moscow, Novosibirsk, Yaroslavl, Tula, Yekaterinburg, Saratov, Barnaul, Nizhny Novgorod, etc. will compete in this difficult type of performing skills.

The list of semi-finalists includes students from leading Russian theatre universities: the M.S. Schepkin Higher Theatre School. M.S. Shchepkin Higher Theatre School, the Shchukin Theatre Institute at the Shchukin Academic Theatre. B. Shchukin Theatre Institute at the Academic Theatre named after M. S. Shchepkin. Е. Vakhtangov, GITIS, S.A. Gerasimov VGIK and others.

This year marks the 225th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin, so the theme of this year's Competition is "Chekhov and Pushkin". On 26-27 January the competition auditions will be held in the branch of the Melikhovo Museum - in the museum "Lopasnya-Zachatievskoye Estate", the exposition of which is devoted to the history of family and friendly relations of the owners of the estate Vasilchikovs with Pushkins, Lanskys and Goncharovs. The poet's eldest daughter M.A. Gartung often visited the estate; her room has been carefully restored in the museum, as well as the study of her brother Alexander Alexandrovich Pushkin.

On the eve of Chekhov's Birthday, on 28 January at 15.00 at the Chekhov's Museum-Reserve "Melikhovo" there will be a gala-concert of the winners of the Competition, where the best recitation works of this year will be presented;

Jury chairman Yuri Golyshev emphasised: "Artistic reading is, if I may say so, a separate kind of acting skill. You need to be able to hold the audience's attention, being on stage without partners, scenery, props, special costume. The actor has only one instrument at his disposal - his voice, which he must use to paint vivid images".