From September 11 to 18, Kaliningrad hosted Safer Internet Week, an educational initiative held as part of the 18th International Conference for ccTLD registries and registrars of the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe (TLDCON 2025). The program consisted of holding a plethora of educational events and activities in Kaliningrad’s secondary education institutions, including lessons, workshops, lectures and hands-on sessions aimed at promoting digital safety.
Invited speakers included representatives from Sber, VKontakte, R-Style SoftLab, the Russian Academy Cifra.Digital training center, the Russkoye Slovo Publishing House, the Arkady Gaidar Children’s Library, and the property cybercrime unit at the Interior Ministry Office for the Kaliningrad Region.
Safer Internet Week was initiated by the Academy of Innovative Education and Development and received support from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, which is now exploring ways to scaling this project to other Russian regions.
The Safer Internet Week engaged an audience of over 12,000 schoolchildren, as well as teachers, and parents by offering them lectures, seminars, webinars, workshops and quizzes based on the Explore the Internet & Govern It! project. The audience was treated to presentations by speakers comprising education experts, members of parliament and activists from NGOs , law enforcement agencies, and IT companies from Kaliningrad, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.
The primary goal of Safer Internet Week was to raise awareness among students, parents, and teachers in Kaliningrad and the surrounding region about the rules for ensuring safety, responsibility and accountability online, as well as developing a sense of self-awareness and critical thinking when surfing the web. The educational program addressed key areas such as fostering digital literacy and hygiene, teaching children and teenagers the ropes of information culture, understanding cybersecurity, and establishing mechanisms for a safe information environment at school and at home.
On September 11, Safer Internet Week opened with a webinar titled Digital Mentor: Artificial Intelligence or Advanced Teacher? hosted by the Safe Information Environment for Children platform. Participants discussed how the evolving digital landscape is transitioning to digital mentorship as a new form of knowledge transfer. They emphasized that this shift represents not only a professional necessity but also a critical modern skill, offering significant growth potential for both individuals and the education system as a whole. The webinar also featured presentations on several initiatives from the Coordination Center on this topic, including the Explore the Internet School of Mentors professional development program, and Unlocking the Code – a project designed for orphanages and rural schools to teach students and their mentors the basics of online use and coding. The next enrollment period for Unlocking the Code and a new School of Mentors course, Safeguarding Youth in the Digital World: Risk Prevention and Protection Strategies, will begin in October.
On September 13, Kaliningrad Academic Gymnasium No. 32 hosted a roundtable discussion featuring Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center; Olga Rubtsova, Rector of the Academy of Innovative Education and Development; and Yelena Lyamtseva, Head of Special Projects at Russia’s Safe Information Environment for Childhood public council. The speakers addressed key topics such as online mentoring, digital culture and hygiene for minors, and fostering responsible online behavior. Following the discussion, experts from the Coordination Center conducted an Explore the Internet & Govern It! quiz for 10th and 11th-grade students. The competition featured teams from Academic Gymnasium No. 32 and two other Kaliningrad schools, Nos. 25 and 57.
The Week’s program also featured games, quizzes, and interactive lessons at various schools, which resonated strongly with students. They actively contributed to discussions, asked questions, and analyzed real-life scenarios they might encounter online. These interactive sessions on internet safety were a highlight of the program, designed to boost digital literacy and reinforce the principles of safe and responsible internet use.
The event’s reach extended beyond schoolchildren to include students from the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. Industry experts delivered a series of specialized lectures to this audience. Pavel Khramtsov from Indata explained the fundamentals of the DNS system, its operational mechanics, and the main threats and historical attacks against it. He placed a particular emphasis on the national domain name system, DNSSEC security extensions, and related incidents.
Anastasia Savelyeva (Bonch-Bruevich St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications) addressed the topic of internet governance, covering its technical, legal, and social aspects, as well as different regulatory models and approaches. She also talked about the Coordination Center’s projects that aim to engage young people in internet governance processes.
Finally, Yekaterina Kalinicheva from the law firm Semenov & Pevzner discussed various types of intellectual property, copyright issues, and methods for protecting and legally defending IP online.
The Safer Internet Week program in Kaliningrad concluded with a roundtable discussion titled Digital Security Relay. Participants reviewed the Week’s achievements, discussed future plans, and recognized the most active contributors. In a traditional closing gesture, Coordination Center Director Andrey Vorobyev presented gifts and teaching materials to the participants. He also awarded 160 certificates to teachers from the Kaliningrad Region, granting them access to the Explore the Internet School of Mentors professional development program.
“Safer Internet Week is becoming a traditional part of TLDCON,” Andrey Vorobyev said. “We first held the Week in Petrozavodsk in 2023, and now it has taken place in Kaliningrad with the active participation of local educational institutions and the support of the Kaliningrad Region’s Minister of Education. Following this event, teachers from across the region will participate in the School of Mentors educational project. It is encouraging to see the growing interest in improving digital literacy – among both children and teachers – year after year. We are also pleased that more and more schools across the country are eager to join our initiative.”
