With the school year about to begin, the Digital Vacations, a creative contest for family teams held as part of the 10th Family IT Marathon, summed up its results.
Once again, the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, the Academy of Innovative Education and Development with the support of Rostelecom, Nadezhda Foundation for Supporting Children’s Literature and the .ДЕТИ domain organized the IT Marathon.
“The joint project has yielded tangible results with children learning to stay safe online, while offering parents new opportunities to spend more time with their families. It is thanks to this partnership between the IT sector and the teaching community that we have been able not only to raise awareness about the importance of online safety, but also inspire families to discover new ways of spending time together without their electronic devices,” Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrey Vorobyev said.
In a first, the Family IT Marathon was devoted to a single topic in 2026 by focusing on living without digital solutions or devices. Families had to create videos, infographics and longreads on the way they spend their time together offline by organizing family outings, going for walks or hiking trips, holding creative sessions, cooking workshops, sports competitions and spending time together in other ways.
The contest received almost 100 entries from across the country and the jury focused on presentation quality, whether and to what extent all family members were involved, and what made their ideas stand out as the key indicators for selecting the winners.
“Every entry tells a short story about the importance of finding joy in simple things and appreciating the time you spend with your close ones. This IT Marathon was an opportunity for us to invite family teams to embark on an offline adventure so as to compile a collection of ideas on ways of finding joy, inspiration and new impressions without having to use any devices or gadgets while spending time with the family. I think that we succeeded in this effort,” the IT Marathon curator and Head of Social Projects at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ said.
The winners of the Family IT Marathon 10th edition are:
Best Infographic category
1st place – The Skakunov family, Baranovo, Smolensk Region (see infographic) (see infographic)
2nd place – The Kosovan family (see infographic)
3rd place – The Sumarokov-Dvinyanovs, Chelyabinsk (see infographic)
Best Longread category
1st place – KomBanda Khodak, Zhukovsky, Moscow Region (read)
2nd place – Family Ch (The Chebunkins), Kostroma (read)
3rd place – The Happy Ones (The Minkovs), (read)
Best Video category
1st place – The Voyevodin Family, Podolsk, Moscow Region (watch)
2nd place – ShIK (the Shatnevs and Kiriks), Kursk (watch)
3rd place – The Rogovs offline, (the Rogovs), Chelyabinsk (watch)
Special Prize for best publication on the Family IT Marathon
1st place – The True Tambovans (the Kuleshovs), Tambov (read)
2nd place – The Batalin family, Mias, Chelyabinsk Region (read)
3rd place – The Kirsanovs, Novomikhailovka, Novosibirsk Region (read)
Jury Award
A Close-Knit Family (the Sushinins), Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Region (watch)
Strela (Mikhailov-Sergeyevs), Pskov (смотреть видео)
The Bulanov family, Nurlat, Republic of Tatarstan
“These infographics, articles and videos were designed to demonstrate that children and parents can have a vibrant and captivating life without their phones. We discovered and evaluated the entries together with my younger son, which prompted him to become serious about striking a balance between devices and offline communication, Nadezhda Kuznetsova, a children’s writer and head of the Nadezhda Foundation who served on the IT Marathon’s jury, said.
The Voyevodin family found the best way to frame the main takeaway from the Family IT Marathon’s 2026 edition in its winning video: “This digital detox gave us something that matters the most. It freed up time. Turn off your devices and turn your life on!”
All the winners will receive their prize packages, which include an OZON gift certificate worth 4,000 rubles, useful information materials and souvenirs from the organizers, as well as diplomas. The Organizers will soon reach out to the winning families regarding the delivery of these prizes.
As a reminder, all the teams which submitted their entries will receive bonus points from the Drugoye Delo aggregator, which brings together charitable, useful, development-minded and interesting causes within a single platform.
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The winners were announced during a live stream of the Not-A-Teachers-Council (NePedsovet) annual meeting in August. Held by the Academy of Innovative Education and Development, it brings together teachers, parents and members of the ICT community for holding an open and informal conversation on the latest developments regarding digital literacy and education in today’s media environment. The main mission of this project consists of facilitating the sharing of best practices, finding new formats for enabling families, schools and the digital community to work together, while also summing up the results of the projects which were held during the previous academic year.
Apart from summing up the results of the Family IT Marathon, participants in the Not-A-Teachers-Council heard and discussed a performance report on the Safe Information Environment for Children, a major educational project, with a focus on launching pilot cyber lessons in schools of the Moscow Region starting September 1, as well as preparing specialized courses for teaching parents and children to use AI. Experts also discussed board games and play as tools for preventing addiction to devices among teenagers.
There was also a separate discussion on international cooperation within BRICS, in particular, efforts by the human capital development commission. The last item on the agenda dealt with plans for the next academic year, which include holding educational guidance weeks and off-site workshops across Russia for enabling teachers to exchange best practices.
On this topic, there was a presentation on the upcoming launch of the Unlocking the Code project’s third season. It is a one-of-a-king program for teaching students in understaffed rural schools, orphanages and city schools the basics of coding and internet technology, and is carried out by the Coordination Center in cooperation with the Academy of Innovative Education and Development and with support from major IT companies.
