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CORRESPONDENT
MATHEMATICAL
TOURNAMENT
V. M. Rosentuller
In 1966, on the pages of the Leningrad children’s newspaper “Leninskie Iskusy”, a correspondence mathematical tour for students in grades 3–8 was first announced. It has become traditional and is now held daily.
When opening the tour, the university is counting only on students from Leningrad and the Leningrad region, but quite unexpectedly, the editorial office received letters with solutions to the problem from Gorky, Volgograd, Donetsk, Moscow, Pskov and the Pskov region, Yeisk and other regions and cities of our Motherland.
Numerous friends helped the tourist with kind words, advice, and wonderful tasks. Among them is a professor at the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute (LGPI) named after. Herzen I. Ya. Depman, Vice-President of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR A. I. Markushevich, Professor of Leningrad State University (LSU), Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences D. K. Faddeev, Academician M. A. Lavrentiev, Academician Yu. Herzen.
Officially, tourism is called absentee, but only the first two types are absentee. The third round is very: on March 27, those who have passed the crucible of the first two rounds gather in Leningrad.
Over five years, the number of tourism students has grown from three to more than three thousand. For the third round in 1966, 40 people were invited, and in 1970 - 212. Many participants in the tour enter the ZMSH at Leningrad State University as students of the 7th and 8th grades. Some “surpass” the class and study well. The best participants in the tournament enter specialized physics and mathematics schools at Leningrad State University.
It is pleasant to note that since 1967, the winners of our tournament began to compete at the All-Union Mathematical Olympiad.
Igor Frenkel in 1967 won second prize in 8 classes, and in 1968 - second prize in 9 classes.
Andrei Babchev received second prize in 8 classes in 1968 and second prize in 10 classes in 1970.
In the same 1970, Vladimir Schwartz received second prize in 9 classes in 1970 and was included in the Soviet team at the XII International Mathematical Olympiad, held in June 1970 in Budalpest. Alexey scored 35 points and received a second-degree dillom.
During the tournament, we held meetings of its participants with the winners of all-Union and international mathematical olympiads, teachers of the 45th Physics and Mathematics Boarding School at Leningrad State University, young scientists led by Leningrad State University teacher M.I. Bashmakov.
At one of these meetings, a seventh-grader was asked the following problem: “Which is more profitable: to travel by steam code along the river back and forth, or the same distance along the lake back and forth?”