Аннотация:In 2016 The All-Russian Geography Olympiad celebrated its 25th anniversary. This Olympiad story has started even earlier – in 1950s, when first competitions were organized by the Faculty of Geography at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Nowadays, more than 200 secondary school students from the whole country compete annually for achievements and possibility of free (no exams) admission to the most prestigious Russian universities. They are selected through all-national hierarchical system of competitions, e.g. in 2016 more than 5.500 students have competed on regional level. Long-term experience of managing the Olympiad
provides important data for measure level of geographical knowledge of Russian secondary school students, evaluate their interest in the subject in general, and analyze professional career of the winners. Olympiad requires specific methodology and contents of the tests, which are reviewed. Presentation is based on samples of ‘theoretical’ and ‘field’ tasks from recent years tests of The All-Russian Geography Olympiad. Special attention is paid to use of classical heritage and modern achievements of geographical science and techniques in the Olympiad tasks.