During the Olympiad

Fourth-year students of the Faculty of Forensics and Law in Construction and Transport tracked down the criminals during the investigative actions. True, they did this at the Olympiad "Themis of the 21st Century", the detective story of which was written by graduates of our university Elizaveta Samusenko and Ksenia Tsyganova.

"Today we are taking part in a landmark event: the Olympiad is reaching a new level and becoming an annual event. We came up with this idea back in 2021, we have been nurturing it for a long time and are finally implementing it. The event is important for students to gain professional experience. At the Olympiad, you are given the opportunity to apply the knowledge gained during the training process in practice. The Olympiad will be held in the form of a quest, and to successfully investigate a crime, you need to use logic and creativity. We are interested not only in seeing the result of your actions, but also in following their sequence, the course of your judgments," said Dean Dmitry Ivanov, welcoming the participating teams.

Six teams took part in the Olympiad: "P.O.I.S.K.", "The Autopsy Proves," "Tracers," "Second Department," "Stabbing and Cutting," and "Investigation Logic." The students had to solve a fairly complex crime. According to the plot, the body of a citizen Lebedev was found in his own apartment. According to the results of the forensic examination, his death was determined to be violent.

"Criminalists" begin their investigation by examining the crime scene, during which traces of the crime are discovered, recorded and seized; they appoint a number of forensic examinations based on the seized material evidence; they study the case materials, and interrogate witnesses and suspects. In short, everything as it should be during a crime investigation.

The performance of the Olympiad participants was assessed by a jury consisting of the Deputy Dean for Discipline, Associate Professor at the Department of Forensics, PhD of Juridical Sciences Oksana Karnaukhova and Associate Professor at the Department of Forensics, PhD of Juridical Sciences Aleksey Kopanev, the chairman of the jury - Associate Professor at the Department of Forensics, PhD of Juridical Sciences Elena Kuzbagarova.

In just a few hours, the teams have done a large amount of investigative work. The result of the quest is that the judge makes a verdict, and the chairman of the jury announces the winner and prize winners, presenting them with challenge cups and valuable prizes.

Zhandar Teppeev (left) during "interrogation"

"All teams demonstrated a good level of preparation, there was no significant gap between them in terms of points. This speaks of the knowledge successfully acquired during the educational process, and the high quality of education at our faculty and at the university as a whole," noted Elena Kuzbagarova.

The winner of the Olympiad was the team "P.O.I.S.K." It was represented by Ulyana Nasonova (team captain), Ekaterina Strasheva, Ivan Kustov and Daniil Krasenkov.

"We began to study forensics with great interest from the very first lectures. We thought that our knowledge of the material covered was sufficient to participate in the Olympiad. We liked its format: different audiences, a courtroom, the "Apartment" training site were involved, interactive elements were included, and the opportunity to conduct real interrogations of suspects was provided. That is, the necessary investigative actions were carried out, and everything turned out like in a real investigation. True, it turned out to be difficult to work in multitasking mode, we were limited in time to work out versions of the crime and prepare for interrogation. But we gained good experience, including teamwork. I believe that it was thanks to cohesion and the ability to listen to each other that we were able to win. We picked up the ideas of each team member and consistently developed them together. Thus, we were able to connect the thoughts of each participant into a logical chain and get closer to solving the crime. Special thanks to the brain of our team – Katya Starsheva, who generated the best ideas,” shared Ulyana Nasonova.

The second place went to the team "The Autopsy Proves" consisting of captain Ivan Ashikhmin, Ksenia Polischuk, Ekaterina Chepurnaya, Yana Kamyshanskaya and Marina Zhelenkova. The third place went to the team "Tracers", which included captain Denis Vedyankin, Aleksandr Aksyonov, Aleksandra Ponomareva, Arina Zhivova and Vladimir Plekhanov.

The detective story was played out truthfully and emotionally thanks to the creative third-year students Ekaterina Ryzhikova, Igor Stepanov, Zhandar Teppeev, Gleb Klever, who played the roles of suspects and the judge. As Oksana Karnaukhova noted, the guys made a great contribution to the organization of the event, having invested strength and abilities, emotions into their roles, competently and professionally got out of unexpected situations, maintaining the plot line.

Gleb Klever as the judge

"I played the role of the victim's wife. I must admit, I was nervous because I had to play a powerful and slightly hysterical woman who was worried that she was among the suspects. During the interrogation, I was afraid of unexpected questions, and they still happened: for example, they asked about the character of the housekeeper and the hobbies of my partner. These characteristics were not written in the script! I had to quickly adapt to the situation and come up with a suitable answer. But, despite all the worries, I enjoyed participating in such an event, and I would not mind repeating such a game in a new role. Everything was organized very interestingly. I think that the fourth-year students gained good experience, which will be useful to them in their future professional activities," said Ekaterina Ryzhikova.

The Olympiad organizers asked the participants to provide feedback on their emotions, the format of the competition, and the difficulties that arose when completing the tasks.