On April 12, 2018, Cosmonautics Day and the start of the session Asteroid No. 1956, the 100,000th child to attend Artek since Crimea joined Russia in 2014 was registered at the children’s center.
Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov (born in Sevastopol) announced the name of the lucky child from space: “Dasha Pashnina from Chelyabinsk, Lazurny Camp, is the 100,000th child at Artek!”
“Dasha, please come on stage. Mr Kasprzhak, please shake Dasha’s hand on our behalf,” said the cosmonauts aboard the ISS, who sent their “space handshake” via Artek Director Alexei Kasprzhak. They wished Dasha an interesting session and that her dream would come true. “We congratulate you and wish you a good flight, as well as new discoveries, endless achievements, and striking victories to all the Artek children of the Asteroid No. 1956 session,” the cosmonauts said.
Dasha won an Artek voucher after uploading her portfolio to the Voucher children’s support system. It won one of the highest scores in the final ranking. Besides her achievements at school, Dasha has a vocal talent and performed the anthem of the Russian Federation at the session’s opening ceremony.
“I have been singing for six years and I’ve achieved quite a lot in this area. I also take part in the school Olympiads and study well. I have enrolled for the pottery lessons at Artek. I want to learn how to make beautiful figurines to give to my friends later. I love Cosmonautics Day because our country was first in space. I am proud of it,” she said.
Artek’s director noted that the 100,000th child was determined on the basis of a special register that records all children who come to Artek.
“It is an important moment for us, because it illustrates the dynamics of our development. Look, Artek has hosted 100,000 children in just four years! This is a huge number, taking into account the fact that we only accepted 6,000 in 2014. We have achieved an enormous task to reach this number, in reconstructing Artek, as well as developing new work with the children and new standards for the entire sector,” Alexei Kasprzhak noted.