A fairytale crossover that unites nations

In the framework of the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia 2026, Olga Korobova, an associate professor of the Department of Foreign Language Communication and Language Education, held a contest for the international students of the Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication, majoring in Pedagogy (English and German Languages). The contest was devoted to choosing the best crossover story in German, based on Russian, Tajik and Turkmen fairytales.

The students had to combine characters and plotlines from Russian fairytales and their national ones (Tajik or Turkmen) into a one story in German, so they could not only improve their German language skills, but also show that folklore traditions of different peoples have something in common.

In the crossover stories of students, characters of Russian, Tajik and Turkmen fairytales unite to face the challenges together and win with the help of their friendship, mutual support and wisdom.

At the end of the class, the students together with Assoc. Prof. Korobova analyzed the effectiveness of such task for learning German, discussed the common values portrayed in the fairytales of different peoples (such as kindness, bravery, loyalty and wisdom), as well as determined which skills students can develop while composing a fairytale as an exercise.