ACCOMPLISH MAGAZINE AUGUST 2023

WHY RUSSIAN
ALWAYS ON TO
ALL PROGRAM
CONTESTS
GLOBAL INFODIGEST
By Sergey Monin
How are the Russians
always on top of all the
programming contests (Google
Code Jam, Facebook Hacker
Cup, TopCoder Open, etc.) but
don’t have any tech companies
(almost all of the top tech
companies are in the USA)?
I’ve studied in the same
group with ACM world
champions, so let me shed
some light on this subject.
First of all, they (Russians)
are heavily prepared; they
are not ordinary students.
Universities (in Russia) typically
have a special department,
which specializes ONLY in
solving abstract Olympiad
problems. Studying there is
free, but in order to get in,
you need to win a contest.
Only 1 in 500-1000 students
is accepted and only from
eligible specialities (Math
and Computer Science). The
competition is insane. From
what I’ve seen, they either have
outstanding programming skills
or are Math prodigies.
Second, all teachers are
ex-winners (i.e. they won a few
international contests but
simply outgrew the programme.
Now they teach newbies).
Essentially the same group of
people will win repeatedly.
Finally, universities have
direct benefits from this. During
any convenient opportunity,
they boast by saying “WE WON
A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP!”
(Read: our university is
better than MIT, Stanford,
and Berkeley combined.)
Additionally, it’s often used
to get financial aid from the
government.
Not surprisingly, with such
selection and training, they win
contests.
Now back to tech
companies …
Why do you think we lack
tech companies (in Russia);
JetBrains, Kaspersky, Dr. Web,
Nginx, for example? Actually,
there are plenty of small and
medium-sized companies in
every city.
Maybe you wanted to ask,
“Why we don’t have giants
such as Google, Microsoft, and
so on?” The answer is simple
- programming skills are not
enough. In order to succeed,
a company needs designers,
managers, competent
leadership, investors, customer
support, and so on.
Finally, “Computer
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