Kazakhstan once again joined the international educational campaign “Total Dictant”

Fans of the Russian language again checked their literacy on April 5, 2025 in more than 50 countries of the world, – Kazakhstani mass media report. In Kazakhstan, the action was held in person in several cities – Astana, Almaty, Karaganda, Kostanai, Aktobe and others.

According to one of the websites of the Kazakh capital, in Astana the dictation was held in the multimedia press center of Sputnik-Kazakhstan for students of the Republican Physics and Mathematics School.

Since 2014, «Turan» University has been the headquarters of the global educational campaign in Almaty, designed to draw attention to literacy issues and develop a culture of literate writing.

In Almaty, «Turan» University, the State Academic Russian Drama Theater named after M. Lermontov, the Central Academic Russian Drama Theater, and the Lermontov Central Theater were the venues of the action. Lermontov, the Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the School of Entrepreneurs of Almaty, and the JOS Financial Lyceum.

Among the star readers of Almaty are media personalities: journalist and TV presenter Adel Orazalinova, TV and radio presenter Diana Snegina, journalist and executive director of Kazakhstan Fashion Week Botagoz Aldongarova, journalist and press secretary of the National Russian Drama Theater named after Mikhail Lermontov Alexey Gostev, journalist Natalia Batrakova.

A total of 2,234 people wrote the dictation in Kazakhstan. The best results were shown by participants from Karaganda (32 excellent students) and Almaty (14 excellent students out of 187). In other cities the number of excellent students varied within seven people.

The project is actively developing and covers all new target groups. This season in Almaty, in addition to the traditional text for an adult audience wrote in the events «Nediktant. Children» (participants from 6 to 12 years old), «TRUD» (foreign students studying Russian), «Tot.Language» (participants who wrote a translated text in their native Kazakh language).

The dictant was preceded by preparation – open classes “Russian on Fridays” at the university “Turan” for all those wishing to refresh their memory of the rules and learn the peculiarities of this season’s text. Lectures and seminars were conducted by the director of the Higher School of Media and Intercultural Communication, candidate of philological sciences Buzelo A.S. and a teacher-wordsmith with 40 years of experience from the School of Entrepreneurs of Almaty Politikova E.I..

The organizers noted that the most frequent mistakes of the participants were:

• violations in writing compound words and words with hyphens;
• errors in punctuation in direct speech;
• incorrect use of participle and de-participle turns.

Specialists regard these as vectors for the development of Russian grammar, which should be given special attention.

The author of the text of the dictation is the writer Marina Moskvina, winner of the H. K. Andersen International Honorary Diploma and finalist of the «Yasnaya Polyana» Prize. After the dictation, she thanked all those who took part in it and made a video address to the excellent students.

In 2025, the «Total Dictant» was held on six continents. The dictation was written in Russia, the USA, China, Ireland and other points of the planet. The total number of participants worldwide exceeded 1.3 million people.